Recognize, address it

I encourage everyone, including “Always Trumpers” and “Never Trumpers,” to read Saturday’s wellthought-out letter to the editor on “Reasoning on Trump.” In it, Richard Picard challenges us to recognize and address the most significant socioeconomic problem facing our country and the world today: “Income inequality and the disappearance of the middle class,” brought on by the loss of well-paying jobs due to automation, robotics and artificial intelligence.

These advancements that increase productivity create profits mostly for business owners, venture capitalists, shareholders and the wealthy. Wall Street is booming. However, automation and robotics frequently result in a devastating loss of formerly middle-class jobs. Artificial intelligence will affect many white-collar jobs and the second salary of our spouses we rely on to make ends meet. And these phenomena are not going away, nor can they. Offshoring and immigration may contribute to the problems, but are nowhere near as significant.

So the middle class is disappearing as the rich prosper. What to do? Certainly we do not need the class warfare which will surely come if we continue ignoring wealth disparity. We may need a “Sputnik moment,” referring to the time the Soviets put the first satellite into orbit. The stunned American people unified behind our government in an effort to catch up and to be the first to walk on the moon.

We can only solve a problem that we recognize and accept as serious. We the People must passionately demand that the leaders of both political parties begin working together to solve these problems.

Perhaps the election of Donald Trump should have been recognized as that “Sputnik moment.” The protest vote expressing deep dissatisfaction with our unfair economy helps explain his election. It is sad his economic policies and new tax law appear to be making our wealth disparity significantly worse. GEORGE BENJAMIN

Siloam Springs