For all the talk about the national debt and the fiscal deficit, what truly threatens America is a dangerous and growing democracy deficit. This country presents itself as the champion of democracy against authoritarianism across the world, but at home, democracy is in retreat in areas vital to our lives. Consider.
Will millions of workers be thrown out of their jobs in order to reach 2 percent inflation – a totally arbitrary goal? That decision which could have a brutal impact on families across the nation is being made not by the Congress or the president; but by the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee – an unelected committee with members drawn largely from banking and finance.
Faced with the rising prices that accompanied the reopening of the economy after the pandemic shutdown, the Fed has hiked interest rates with record rapidity. Its chair warns that getting inflation down to 2 percent may well cause a recession. This is a foolish and wrong-headed policy. It ignores the major sources of inflation – which are supply shocks and corporate concentration. It ignores the reality that climate calamities and war add to the disruption. And it ignores how destructive mass unemployment is.
This month’s jobs report showed that the unemployment of African Americans has begun to rise. Since Blacks are usually the last hired and first fired, and the Fed is committed to more hikes in interest rates, the chances are good that millions more working families are going to be punished by this unelected board.
Or consider the growing social reaction. Even as America grows more diverse and Americans grow more progressive in their social views, the right-wing majority on the Supreme Court – judges with lifetime appointments – has overturned a woman’s right to choose, revoked the civil rights commitment to affirmative action against discrimination, gutted the Voting Rights Act, invalidated sensible gun control laws, invented a wholly discretionary “major questions” doctrine to disembowel federal regulation of the environment, of student loans, and more. The Court’s majority is out of step with the vast majority of Americans – but with lifetime appointments (and no ethical code of conduct), the judges are rolling back decades of social progress.
Or consider our national security. From floods in the Northeast to deadly heat in the Southwest, there is no doubt that catastrophic climate change is a real and present danger to our security, already costing lives and billions in destruction. Yet, our security establishment – the unelected “blob” backed by an entrenched military-industrial-think tank complex – continues to focus on endless wars abroad and on bigger and bigger military budgets.
Or consider health care. Life expectancy in the United States is falling. We have by far the most expensive medical system – and far worse results than other industrial countries. Profit increasingly undermines care – and millions of Americans find they can’t afford the drugs that they need.
Our public health system is starved of funds; our privatized system is more and more affordable only for the few. But powerful insurance and drug lobbies stop all efforts to establish health care as a right for all Americans.
Or consider our elections. The same conservative majority on the Supreme Court has opened the floodgates to corporate and dark money, political gerrymandering, and the pervasive corruption of big money in politics. Studies show, not surprisingly, that the Congress is far more responsive to entrenched interests and big-money donors than to their voters – and that their donors have very different interests than the voters.
The democracy deficit is growing – and increasingly threatening. The only way to address it is by aroused citizens, exercising their rights, and holding their elected officials accountable for the decisions they made. That requires an independent media, a muckraking culture – and leaders prepared to tell the people. If we don’t reseed our democracy – and make it work for the many and not just the few – we will reap a whirlwind of reaction and anger. Donald Trump’s MAGA movement is an early expression of this, but if we don’t act, much worse is likely to follow.
You can write to the Rev. Jesse Jackson in care of this newspaper or by email at jjackson@rainbowpush.org. Follow him on Twitter @RevJJackson.
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