Wealth. Power. Brand name. Influence. Resources. Access to opportunity. Six things that have endured stronger than facts, common knowledge, and historical context.

The most potent and widespread cause of suffering the world over has been the pursuit and acquisition of wealth. It may have taken on different forms and been used in different ways, but, and specifically in the context of modern America, money has continued to reign supreme with very little hiccup. Wealth and power have served to wipe out entire ethnicities. They not only dictated what you read in history books, they make it difficult to access true, hard facts in a time when they could be a click away.

Do not be fooled by anti-Globalist sentiment from the rich and powerful. They rely on an international economy that brings in money from every corner of the globe. Capitalistic globalism brings in money from the destruction of the Rainforest. It brings in oil money from the indiscriminate murder of Middle Easterners. It brings in money from the colonization of the African continent, from the slave labor of Asians, from the mutually assured profit of its Western counterparts and financial allies (like Saudi Arabia and Israel). That money is served to them not on a silver platter, but through donations and investment opportunity and equity opportunity.

Do not be fooled by any anti-Globalist sentiment from the rich and powerful. They are treating the United States like a gated community that they can leave to dip their fingers wherever they can and return without repercussion, hiding in plain sight behind the safety of their bank account balance, non-liquid worth, power, influence, connections, resources, and the worship of their admirers, who put more stock in stocks than in character.

If you consider divisiveness in the context of profits, it all begins to make sense. Evening out the balance of equity and opportunity is labeled unfair, unjust handouts. The idea of America as a global police force for good, the purity of capitalism as survival of the fittest, and fewer corporate regulations creating job security are myths propagated by profiteers. The denial of women’s reproductive rights and the denial of LGBTQ rights (or denying their very existence as a group of people). Human-caused climate change framed as a conspiracy theory designed to cripple the economy. Christianity framed as the only conceivable motivator of goodness. It all puts money in pockets. It ensures the status quo.

And the money and power have, historically, lasted longer than any historical context. It dates back to slave holder fortunes bequeathed to the next of kin. To businessmen of the Industrial Revolution. To Italian-Americans who embraced the invention of American whiteness (along with Christopher Columbus as a national hero). To “forty acres and a mule” turning into “forty years to life.”

A family member of someone close to me works for a company that makes school binders. He visited the Chinese factory and spoke with me at the wedding table with a self-amused admission of the horrendous conditions. He had returned a few days prior, witnessing firsthand the devastation of building an American factory in a Chinese community that forced its people into extreme poverty. His quarterly bonus will be lucrative. His children’s futures will be further secured. And those Chinese people are in those factories as I write this, toiling to ensure that happens.

If Trump is impeached, if he goes down in history as the worst president ever, if the current GOP members in power are regarded as monsters of their time, their actions and efforts still help them and theirs after it’s all said and done. Their fortunes will remain intact. Their quieter constituents will be pleased with their attempts. The psyches of their supporters and their tentative criticizers will continue to benefit them, their children, and their children’s children. They will all continue to prosper at one level or another so long as we remain divided, hateful, blind to truth or context or logic, nameless and faceless numbers to be manipulated at will.

For the rich and powerful, there is nothing scarier than the average citizen seeing their every action in the larger context of capitalism’s worst qualities, where the profit margin is more important than the humanity or basic decency of the action. It’s a mindset that put ammonium nitrate-based propellant behind your car’s airbags. It’s the mindset that led to the housing bubble. It’s why being a whistleblower can be career suicide, or lead to literal suicide. It’s why America is the only developed country where every citizen does not have access to health care. It’s why some hear, “Law and order,” while others hear, “Kill all the ones with dark skin.”

Often in political discourse, the question of, “Why would you want this?” can be answered simply: because it will make them richer, more financially secure, please the world’s most financially powerful, and keep in place a system of domestic political divide and global nationalist divide. It will further ensure that their fortunes and powers and comforts, both personally and that of their kin, will live on unhindered.

Even the wealthy’s fleeting victories, like absurdly large tax breaks, cushion the future’s potential loss of profits. It’s all looked at through the lens of money. All of it. And you won’t see a penny. Trickle down economics is one of the best pyramid schemes ever devised, and people are still paying into it. You’re literally taking the word of the greediest people in our society that they’ll suddenly become less greedy when they have even more money. News flash: they’re pocketing the money and laughing at you.

No one votes for the conservatives because conservatives are Christian, they vote for them because they were duped into thinking that any conservative politician is motivated by Christian values instead of financial gain. They play to your fears specifically because racial divide adds bricks to their mansions. Nationalism gives justification for financially motivated international conflicts. To the rich, the price of a wall along the Mexican border will pay for itself in spades. It’s like another Confederate monument, ineffective in every way other than to maintain a marginalized workforce, a very long visualization of nationalism that helps keep immigrants away from citizenship so that they can continue to do labor for cheap and without benefits.

Hey white people, I know you know this joke, because I’m confident that all white people have heard it: someone brings up the horrors of slavery, and someone else says, “But slavery sure is profitable, tee-hee-hee.”

You know what else is profitable, tee-hee-hee? Stripping worker’s rights. De-unionization. Being hyper supportive of the troops. Never criticizing the police force. Filling up prisons. Putting factories where they can legally pay people almost nothing in horrendous conditions. Glorifying immigration opportunities without providing a path to citizenship. Voter suppression. Christianity dictating policy. A health insurance market. Racism. Bipartisanship. Sexism. Hate. War.

Money. Money. Money. And more money. From our backs and into their pockets.

Profits over decency.

Greed over empathy.

Hate over love.

Money over life itself.

To quote Arthur Jenson, played by Ned Beatty, from the 1976 movie Network: