You have to be a special kind of stupid to convince yourself you were better off under Trump.
Trump Dumpster Fire, Chapter 4
The Biden economy is better in every way, but MAGA dumbfucks are too dumb to know it, because they have been brainwashed by Fox News.
In chapter 2 I mentioned that tribalism is a primitive caveman instinct.
Some Stone Age tribe was a little bigger and stronger than their neighbors, so they raided the neighboring tribes, killed the men, kidnapped and raped their women, and stole their resources.
The Stone Age was kinda like The Walking Dead, but with more rape and less zombies.
Being good at killing makes your tribe even stronger. Killing your neighbors becomes easier and easier, as you grow stronger and stronger. Your tribe prospers, while the other tribes perish. In a dog-eat-dog world, tribalism is an evolutionary advantage.
Republican-style predatory capitalism is also a dog-eat-dog world, just like the Stone Age.
The rich eat the poor. Big corporations eat small ones. And in the end, there will only be one all-powerful corporation left, and it owns everything.
Most mom-and-pop stores don’t stand a chance in a Republican-run America.
Big corporations put mom-and-pop stores out of business with unfair business practices, and lots of free money from the government.
Just ask a small local store owner how he feels about a new Walmart or Target opening nearby.
Or ask the owner of a small local burger joint, how he feels about a McDonald’s or Burger King opening across the street.
Or ask farmers how they feel about giant farm corporations killing off family farms one by one.
Trust me, they’re not happy about it.
Why are America’s farmers killing themselves? The suicide rate for farmers is more than double that of veterans.
Trump’s broken promises to farmers: Trump’s disastrous policies have contributed to the more than 2,000 dairy farms that have had to close their barn doors forever
To protect family farms and mom-and-pop shop owners, Democratic politicians in small towns try to pass laws and regulations, to ban giant corporations from opening chain stores downtown.
Democratic laws and regulations are there to protect the little local shops, restaurant owners, and family farms from the giant corporations.
But then the giant corporation accuses the Democratic politicians of being “anti-business” and bribes some of the corrupt local “pro-business” Republican politicians, to get rid of the regulation that would have protected the people of the town.
That’s what corrupt Republican politicians mean when they say “deregulation.” It means fuck the poor.
Mom and pop can’t compete with the giant corporation, so they end up losing their store or farm or restaurant, and have to work as employees at the giant corporation, for minimum wage.
"Most jobs created since the recession have been low-paying
Three-quarters of U.S. jobs created since the 2008-'09 financial crash pay less than a middle-class income, according to an Axios analysis of U.S. Labor Department data."
"Trump administration is America’s No. 1 low-wage job creator
When Donald Trump ran for president, he promised to be a workers’ champion who would deliver “better wages” for America’s working people.
But 18 months into his first term, President Trump has neither pushed Congress to take legislative action to raise the federal minimum wage - which has been stuck at $7.25 for a decade - nor taken executive action to boost pay for 12.5 million workers who work in private sector jobs.
As a result, Trump is now CEO of America’s top creator of poverty jobs: the U.S. government.
A new study from Good Jobs Nation - Promises Broken #1 - shows that Trump’s federal government funds more than 4.5 million jobs in the private sector that pay less than a living wage of $15 per hour. By failing to take action to raise wages, Trump is responsible for more low-wage jobs than our nation’s largest 20 employers combined, according to our research.
As a result, more than one in three private sector workers who serve the American people - from aiding seniors with their Medicare benefits to helping our troops prepare for combat - earn so little that they rely on food stamps and other public assistance programs to survive.”
“Half of fast food workers rely on some form of public assistance to supplement their low wages, costing taxpayers roughly $7 billion annually.
A separate study released Tuesday by the pro-labor National Employment Law Project focuses on the cost of employees' government-funded benefits at the 10 largest fast food restaurants. The study found that employees of McDonald's alone receive a total of $1.2 billion in public assistance benefits annually.”
So, thanks to giant corporations paying their employees shit, many of the employees are so dirt poor, they need food stamps to survive.
And although mom and pop both work full time, they can’t pay their bills. They have to sell their house and move into a trailer park.
8 out of 10 businesses fail: According to Bloomberg, 8 out of 10 entrepreneurs who start businesses fail within the first 18 months. A whopping 80% crash and burn.
90% Of Startups Fail
Meanwhile the super rich who own the giant corporations rake in all the profits and make billions on the backs of their underpaid workers.
The robber barons make billions, while the rest of the country slowly drowns in debt.
Here are some headlines from 2019, before the pandemic:
Americans are way more in debt now than they were after the financial crisis
Household debt hit another all-time high.
Red flags emerge as Americans' debt load hits another record
The Trump years were absolute shit for the working class. You’re just too brainwashed to remember.
Life in Republican-run red states is so shitty, the small towns are all dirt poor and dying, and there are trailer parks everywhere.
In Republican-run red states, where the robber barons are allowed to shamelessly exploit the working class, people are so miserable, they’re literally dying from it.
There’s an epidemic of “deaths of despair” in red states. Republican politicians are allowing billionaire robber barons to literally suck the life out of working class people.
How red-state politics are shaving years off American lives
The rise of despair and conservative politics
Physicians for a National Health Program
'Deaths Of Despair' examines the steady erosion of U.S. working-class life
People in Republican counties have higher death rates than those in Democratic counties
Big corporate chain stores suck the money out of small Republican towns, and into the pockets of some robber baron who inherited the giant corporation from daddy and never worked a day in his life.
Because robber baron junior is not working class. Working is for worker bees. Working is for suckers and losers.
Republican-style predatory capitalism means a giant corporation pays their workers as little as possible, to put as much profit as possible into the pockets of the robber barons.
And while the giant corporation pays its employees next to nothing, it charges its customers as much as possible, to put even more profit into the pockets of the robber barons.
‘Greedflation’ caused more than half of last year’s inflation surge, study finds, as corporate profits remain at all-time highs
Corporations are forcing Americans to pay more for less – in their own words. Companies in the oil, hotel, meat and other sectors are price-gouging the US public. They’re not hiding it, either.
Then the super rich robber barons tell the poor peasants that it’s their own fault they’re poor, and accuse them of being lazy bastards who shouldn’t expect handouts from the government.
Then the super rich bribe some corrupt Republican politicians to give them huge tax cuts and subsidies, so they make even more money.
Reverse of Robin Hood 2.0: Trump vows to extend billionaire tax cuts if reelected. Trump's backers "are fine with stealing from the poor to give to the rich," said one critic. "And the rich pay Trump off to gain this favor."
And to pay for the tax cuts and subsidies for the billionaires, the corrupt Republican politicians cut healthcare and food stamps for the poor workers, who work for the robber barons for next to nothing.
This whole scam is known as “small government.” It’s code for fuck the poor.
“My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”
The whole purpose of government is to protect the weak from the rich. To make sure the rich don’t eat the poor, the way they used to in the Stone Age, or medieval Europe, when there was no government and no laws stopping the strong from robbing the weak.
Rich robber barons hate it when the government stops them from exploiting the poor. It cuts into their profits.
While the super rich get richer and richer, everyone else gets poorer and poorer. Just like in the game Monopoly.
You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see that there is something seriously wrong with this system. Capitalism is a system that puts rich people on a pedestal, legalizes greed, and enables the rich to exploit the poor.
It’s morally wrong.
What kind of a God would support something so immoral?
Would Jesus support the exploitation of the poor by the rich? No, of course not.
If you think of yourself as a follower of Christ’s teachings, if you consider yourself a good person, you are morally obligated to be against greed.
It’s your duty as a good person to be against exploitation. It’s your moral duty to be against predatory capitalism.
“And one day we must ask the question, ‘Why are there forty million poor people in America? And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth.’ When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy."
"Capitalism does not permit an even flow of economic resources. With this system, a small privileged few are rich beyond conscience, and almost all others are doomed to be poor at some level. That's the way the system works."
"The problem with capitalism is that extreme wealth ends up in the hands of a few people."
"U.S. capitalism is a mechanism for looting the many for the benefit of the few."
“Nobody believes in completely unadulterated capitalism."
"You show me a capitalist, and I'll show you a bloodsucker."
"Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone."
"Capitalism is the legitimate racket of the ruling class."
"What Trump represents is a restoration - a restoration of true American capitalism."
Trump once again compares himself to American gangster Al Capone during CPAC speech
"Capitalism is against the things that we say we believe in - democracy, freedom of choice, fairness. It's not about any of those things now. It's about protecting the wealthy and legalizing greed."
"The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and evils of racism."
To continue, click here: Chapter 5 - House of the Dragon is actually a pretty accurate portrayal of what medieval Europe was like, minus the dragons.
Republicans have definitely convinced the poorer areas, especially in rural parts of our country, that Democrats are the reason they are poor, that jobs are shipped overseas, that wages have been stagnant for decades. Republican culture war divisions stoke people's fears of the other - "elite" city folks, darker skinned people's, LGBTQ persons - demonizing them, dividing all of us not in the top 2% economically. It's crazy that many poor whites feel they have more in common with rich white people, than other poor groups. Stoked by racist and homophobic and xenophobic hate and fear, the peasant class is being primed to accept oligarchial rule as preferable to democracy. How can we ever change this disconnect? How?
I really needed all this laughing today!