Who gains from Trump not conceding?
Leave it to DonaldTrumpand his Republican allies to spendmore energy fighting nonexistent voter fraud than containing a virus that has killed 247,000 Americans and counting.
The cost of thismisplaced attention is incalculable. WhileCOVID-19 surges to record levels, there’s still no national strategy for equipment, stay-at-home orders, maskmandates or disaster relief.
The other cost is found in the millions of Trumpvoterswhoare being led to believe the electionwas stolen andwhowill be a hostile force for years to come— making it harder to domuch of anything the nation needs, including actions to contain the virus.
Trumpis continuing this charade because it pulls money into his newly formed political action committee and allows him to assume the mantle of presumed presidential candidate for 2024, whether he intends to run ormerely keep himself the center of attention.
LeadingRepublicans such as Senate Majority Leader MitchMcConnell are going along with it because donors are refillingGOPcoffers.
The biggest beneficiaries are the party’s biggest patrons— the billionaire class, including the heads of the nation’s largest corporations and financial institutions, private-equity partnerships and hedge funds— whoma deeply divided nation serves by giving them unfettered access to the economy’s gains.
Their heist started four decades ago. According to a recentRANDCorp. study, if America’s distribution of income had remained the same as itwas in the three decades followingWorldWar II, the bottom90% would nowbe an estimated $47 trillion richer.
Alow-income American earning $33,000 this yearwould be earning $61,000. Acollege-educatedworker nowearning $72,000would be earning $120,000. Overall, the grotesque surge in inequality that began 40 years ago is costing the median Americanworker $42,000 per year.
The upward redistribution of $47 trillionwasn’t due to natural forces. Itwas contrived. Aswealth accumulated at the top, so did political power to siphon off even morewealth and shaft everyone else.
Monopolies expanded because antitrust
lawswere neutered. Labor unions shriveled because corporationswere allowed to bust unions. Wall Streetwas permitted to gamble with other people’s money and was bailed out when its bets soured, even as millions lost their homes and savings. Taxes on the topwere cut, tax loopholes widened.
WhenCOVID-19 hit, BigTech cornered the market, the rich traded on inside information, and theTreasury and the Fed bailed out big corporations but let small businesses go under. SinceMarch, billionairewealth has soared while mostAmericans have become poorer.
Howcould the oligarchy get away with this in a democracy where the bottom90% have the votes? Because the bottom90% are bitterly divided.
Long beforeTrump, theGOPsuggested to whiteworking-class voters that their real enemieswereBlack people, Latinos, immigrants, “coastal elites,” bureaucrats and “socialists.” Trumprode their anger and frustration into the WhiteHousewith
more explicit and incendiary messages. He’s still at it with his bonkers claim of a stolen election.
The oligarchy surely appreciates the Trump-GOPtax cuts, regulatory rollbacks and the most business-friendly Supreme Court since the early 1930s. But the Trump-GOP’s biggest gift has been an electoratemore fiercely split than ever.
Into this melee comes Joe Biden, who speaks of being “president of all Americans” and collaborating with theRepublican party.
But theGOPdoesn’twant to collaborate. WhenBiden holds out an olive branch, McConnell and otherRepublican leaderswill respond just as they did toBarack Obama— withmorewarfare, because that maintains their power and keeps the big money rolling in.
The president-elect aspires to find a moderate middle ground. This will be difficult because there’s nomiddle. The real divide is no longer left versus right but the bottom 90% versus the oligarchy.
Biden and the Democrats will better serve the nation by becoming the party of the bottom90%— of the poor and the working middle class, ofBlack andwhite and brown, and of all thosewhowould be $47 trillion richer today had the oligarchy not taken overAmerica.
Thiswould require thatDemocrats abandon the fiction of political centrism and establish a countervailing force to the oligarchy— and, not incidentally, sever their own links to it.
They’d have to showwhiteworking-class voters howbadly racism and xenophobia have hurt themaswell as people of color. And change theDemocratic narrative fromkumbaya to economic and social justice.
Easy to say, hugely difficult to accomplish. But if today’s bizarre standoff in Washington is seen forwhat it really is, there’s no alternative.