A Smerconish cablecast on CNN once asked a very important question:
“Which poses a greater threat to the social fabric of the United States: Differences in race or differences in class?”
The discussion was as important as the question.
People of color want to believe that racism is America’s Kryptonite. But we’re learning that overlaying a blanket of racism on things like the Trump Cult leaves much exposed. Racism is part of the distraction nurtured by the man behind the curtain that The Great Orange Oz wants us to ignore.
Economic classism was present in the creation of the United States. The Founding Fathers were more afraid of poor people – black AND white – taking away what they established in Philadelphia. They were so afraid that they put those fears in writing to survive the slings and arrows of history. The arguments since have been more about slaves and women but poor white indentured men were a danger as well and the Founding Fathers understood that.
One, Adam Smith who argued for market-based capitalism in his 1776 book The Wealth of Nations, said that the true measure of a nation’s wealth is not the size of its king’s treasury or the holdings of an affluent few but rather the wages of “the laboring poor.” Even a racially challenged scion of industry like Henry Ford understood that he had a problem on his hands if the people who were building his Ford automobiles couldn’t afford to buy what they were touching every second on his assembly lines. So he paid them enough to buy the cars to avoid what could only be termed a conflict of interests.
It was refreshing at the end of Smerconish to see that more than fourteen thousand people responded to the poll question saying nearly 3-1 (73 percent to 27 percent) that class and not race would eventually rip America apart. And I agree. We don’t know who were the 14,000+ who responded. And I can imagine that if you ask the same question at an NAACP convention the results might be reversed. Certainly the respondents were wealthy enough to be home and not working. They were wealthy enough to afford cable to see the CNN programming. And they were wealthy to afford Internet access and involved enough to take the time to go to the Smerconsih website to vote on a moment’s notice.
We’re at a point in American history where there exists a class of people who have the money and emotional commitment to stage revolution. Ethnics in the ’60s “just” wanted a piece of the American economic pie not throw the pie away. We could argue that we saw a different class of people on January 6, 2021 invade America’s seat of power. Don’t believe they weren’t rich people because they weren’t in three piece suits and silk ties. They could afford to take time off work, travel to Washington, DC, stay in shelter for a day or so, bail out of jail if necessary and return home. Poor people couldn’t afford to do all that. The January 6th invaders might have been ignorant or misled but they weren’t poor.
America is caught in a class struggle for survival. Those who don’t recognize this or choose to not participate in voting in the upcoming Midterm elections are turning their futures and the futures of their families over to the wealthy who don’t want to see poor people or know they’re breathing the same air as they do. Google Liberty Amendments if you don’t understand the depth of the problem.
Believe me, poor whites in America as well as poor people of color are suffering. This is not a time in American history to be poor, complacent and laissez-faire about what’s happening. The danger to America is not liberalism and socialism. The danger to America is true libertarianism (with a small L) and fascism. The only antidote left is voting.
