Like many, I’m outraged by the recent reversals of long-standing laws to protect freedom and safety: Roe vs Wade as chief of these, but also the 100 year law that prevented conceal-and-carry weapons in NYC.
However, these recent attacks on freedom and safety aren’t a surprise. Their origins reside in a firmly established plutocracy within the Republican party. In order to enrich themselves and their heirs, a coterie of extremely wealthy leaders will gladly throw red meat to their base in the form of guns and religion, as long as it justifies their end goal: tax breaks and loopholes that ensure they remain wealthy, while widening the income inequality gap.
Ironically and sadly, many of the people who vote the GOP leaders into office are those who suffer the most from their policies. Rural Americans — often the same people who worship guns and the Bible - tend to hold low-income jobs. Have their fortunes improved over the last few years? Obviously, the answer is no. Yet they are appeased by recent actions to restrict abortion rights, increase the ability to carry arms without background checks, limit gay marriage, etc. etc.
All the while, the plutocrats within the GOP who may not care one way or another about guns and religion are furthering their goal to put leaders into office who will grant them tax breaks and not limit their inheritance or income.
If you follow this pattern to its logical conclusion — GOP leaders increasingly limiting voting rights and other freedoms to ensure they stay in power and increase the personal wealth of big party donors — then the ultimate outcome is that the US becomes a banana republic, not unlike Colombia, Honduras, even Brazil and some Middle Eastern and African countries where a corrupt, plutocratic class rules.
The growing incoming inequality in this country has enabled this pattern and rests firmly on the shoulders of Republican and Democratic leaders alike who did nothing to stop the big banks from their power grab before and during the Great Recession. I don’t have an answer, except to raise awareness and mobilize people to vote.
As a writer, I am also working on a contemporary novel (working title A Nebulous Startup), which satirizes the idea of meritocracy - that those who work hard, to the best of their abilities, will get ahead. It is time we expose this sham for what it is and recognize that people like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberg and others who have become very wealthy have done so largely due to their white male privilege, upbringing, and connections.