Month: April 2025

The Myth of Democratic Capitalism

We live in a society that we like to refer to as Democratic, and with the advent of Trump’s attack on every norm and institution, we see an immediate threat to our Democratic form of government. We “coastal elites” criticize some institutions and disagree with some policies, but the “fly-over” states have been screwed royally by those same institutions and policies since the 1980’s, with attacks on unionization and the opening of globalization. Somehow, the “anti-elites” want to blame everything on somebody or something, so Trump, in his infinite wisdom and perpetual cheapness, hired half a dozen folks somewhere in the Southeast; to sit in a room and listen to right wing talk radio all day and write down what was being called in by listeners. That’s how he came up with his platform, for a penny on a dime. He took their grievances to heart and became their champion, attacking anything and everything in their way.
The problem is that the Democratic system that we so proudly embrace has been subsumed by the Capitalist system. We don’t live under Democratic Capitalism; we live in a Capitalist Democracy. It started with the 14th Amendment back in the 19th Century and ended with Citizens United (talk about double speak) vs Federal Election Commission in 2010, where a corporation, an artificial entity created on paper that never dies unless dissolved, is treated like a real live living human being. How crazy is that?