The Need for Class Warfare

The media, including here at Substack, has been filled with bleatings about the Democratic Party’s whipping at the hands of Trump and his billionaires. There are complaints that “progressives” are too taken up with concerns about diversity, equity, and inclusion (the ubiquitous DEI) and have lost contact with their base. The so-called culture wars are the overwhelming concern of both parties, at least at the level of rhetoric.

The Most Successful Social Movement of the Last 100 Years

Only Bernie Sanders (and he is not a Democrat!) and a handful of others are speaking of the true nature of what has happened. Our present political nightmare is the culmination of a multi-decade campaign by the rich and corporations to control the government and turn laws and regulations to their advantage.¹

The result of their campaign has been a tsunami of wealth and income inequality, the monopolization of almost every market in the economy, the transfer of high-paying jobs to low-wage countries, the decline of unions, and the shrinking of government at the Federal and state levels. As a consequence of the success of this movement, the bottom 90% of the populations has experienced a significant intensification and broadening of insecurities in many facets of life: jobs, housing, healthcare, family, retirement, education, and more.

The Rich and Corporations Won This Round of Class Warfare. Time to Mobilize for the Next Round.

It is hard to believe that a campaign to expose the true scale and nature of the class warfare conducted, and won, by the rich and corporations over the past fifty years, wouldn’t inspire the bottom 90% of the population to take action.

There is a long history in the US of avoiding invoking class in political discussions. The rich and corporations never declared that their political movement was all about transferring income and wealth to the top 10%, really almost all of it ended up in the hands of the top 1%. No, they dressed it up in talk of free markets, opportunity for individuals, and decreasing the influence and costs of pernicious governments.  Now that we have their crazy President and his thirteen billionaires seated in Washington, the true nature of their endgame is plainly visible. Now we can see them implement the billionaire-funded Project 2025 policy recommendations. Now we regularly see President Trump smiling while the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, blathers on about his pillaging of the government. What more evidence do we need that the rich and corporations have won this round of the class warfare?

1. For a great history of the politics of this movement see: Gibbs, David. Revolt of the Rich: How the Politics of the 1970s Widened America’s Class Divide. New York: Columbia University Press, 2024.