Democracy, Death By A Thousand Cuts

Our democracy won’t be overturned in a coup like the one of January 6, 2021.  Our democratic way of life will die a death of a thousand cuts.  None of these cuts will be fatal in and of themselves but our beloved American experiment will still hemorrhage until it is no longer viable.  The attempted coup of January 6^th was but a single cut.  They drew blood and people died and with that our democracy was again weakened.

The Death of Democracy

In the place of our democracy will arise an autocracy, perhaps not wholly unlike the one in Russia except for state-controlled enterprise.  In Russia, there are currently over half a million state-run companies.  I believe that American autocrats will still want to retain control of their own destinies.  Our future in this regard is guided in part by our tax code that has shifted the burden away from wealthy corporations and wealthy individuals and has placed that burden on what was once our expansive middle class.  Autocrats' greatest victory has been convincing those in the lower classes that their way of life is better with the wealthy in control of their destinies.

“a little bit of larceny.”

This shift in financing our democracy was made possible by corruption and our gradual acceptance of “a little bit of larceny.”  Supporters of Donald Trump were willing to accept his treachery in exchange for something they wanted.  It might have been his support of their racist or xenophobic beliefs.  It might have been his lip service supporting everything the religious right believed, even though he has no interest in any religion.  The closest thing he has to worship is an adoration of money and power.  This is not to say that Donald Trump drew first blood, he was just the sharpest knife that could be wielded without remorse at a time when our country was vulnerable.  We had just emerged from an eight-year period of presidential governance by an African American and I believe Donald Trump was the beneficiary of the resultant racist backlash.  Democrats became complacent and Republicans were enraged.

Political corruption is not the exclusive domain of either Republicans or Democrats, there is plenty of blame to go around.  What may have started out as a sincere belief in what was right for this country was corrupted by its structure and partially supported by the freedoms we demand.  It is when those freedoms get twisted to support some other agenda that we run into trouble.  Our current political structure, our method of financing political campaigns, and the blatant corruption made possible by spending large sums of cash in furtherance of gaining more wealth, make the political machine churn.

In a recent report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, there were 55 American corporations in 2020 with a combined income of over $40 billion in pretax income, who paid no taxes.  Between 2016 and 2020, those corporations spent $450 million on lobbying and campaign donations.  These corporations support 526 lobbyists whose job it is to influence members of our federal government to make favorable decisions to benefit their businesses.  Of the top 25 politicians who received money from these non-tax-paying companies, 20 were Republican.  Four of the top ten of these political spenders received enough in federal government rebates in 2020 that their leftover rebate money could finance their political spending for the next 50 years.

Top 25 Political Spending Companies

Wealthy individuals and wealthy corporations gain more wealth by wielding their financial power to control how they are taxed, or in many cases, not taxed.  A secretary may end up paying a larger percentage of his/her income than does the executive for whom they work.  Yes, Jeff Bezos and his Amazon corporation pays some taxes of some type somewhere along the line.  Real estate taxes, sales taxes, fuel taxes, etc., are paid but will be expensed out to avoid other taxation.  For them to not be taxed even one dime on their massive profits due to tax loopholes and their ability to maintain an army of accountants and CPAs is an outrage.  The uber-wealthy in the form of corporations or individuals are the lifeblood of politicians.

Politicians stay in power catering to the wealthy.  The wealthy expand their wealth by paying the politicians.  It is all made possible by convincing enough voters that they are going to receive some benefit from all of this that the cycle continues.  It is that carrot on a string that is out in front of the voters dangling, just out of reach, that promises something they want.  As they chase the carrot and ignore the obvious political corruption, the hemorrhaging continues, democracy weakens, and eventually, our democratic way of life will be but a fond memory in a history book destined to be burned and replaced by some “new history.”

"The foxes are guarding the henhouse and are not likely to become vegetarians."