People who demand better won’t get it from Trump
In a Seinfeld episode entitled “The Opposite” from 1994 (before my Gen Z friends were born, sorry), Jerry convinces George Costanza, perennial sad sack, that “if every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.” George tries doing the opposite of what his instincts tell him and his fortunes rapidly turn around.
The United States after instituting The New Deal built the greatest middle class the world has ever seen. Then after social and political reforms of the 1960s opened more opportunity to Americans still lagging behind, business interests organized a quiet counterrevolution to do the opposite.
The rich got their taxes cut under Ronald Reagan and fat cats got even fatter. Upward mobility stopped. Wages stagnated. President Bill Clinton loosened banking regulations opening the door for mortgage-backed securities and the subprime mortgage crisis. President George W. Bush, the supposed apotheosis of the grandees’ grand designs, cut their taxes even more and the economy crashed, impoverishing average Americans even more. The Obama administration let the fattest-cats-yet get away with their gains, and — voilà — Donald Trump, himself a privileged fat-cat-celebrity, promised the suckers he’d turn things around. He’d make America “great again,” invoking the historical period and economy his rich buddies had worked decades to unmake.
Trump’s opposite turns out to be more of the same, Eugene Robinson explains:
Trump connected with many voters who feel their current trajectory is downward, who no longer have the confidence that their children’s lives will be more affluent than their own. These voters put their faith in Trump to put them and their communities once again on a rising path.
But Trump promises to do the opposite: to double down on policies that have made the rich richer and the poor poorer.
This is already a second Gilded Age. Trump imagines adding even more gaudy gold leaf to it. He wants to return to the days of Wlliam McKinley: high tariffs, monopolies, and American expansionism. Good times for fat cats. Lean times for everyone else. After McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt came along and did the opposite.
Roosevelt promised a “square deal” for everyday Americans. Trump portrays himself as a champion of the working class, but his policies and practices say otherwise. I’ll believe him when he stops trying to fleece his supporters by selling them $40 American flag flip-flops, $55 MAGA hats and ugly red $200 sneakers.
He’s back for what will be four long years. If you love everything about him, enjoy the ride. If you don’t, spend this time planning and working to bring the Second Gilded Age to its end.
That is, if you can afford to.