I felt compelled to write a response to https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/january-28-2021.
In this clip https://twitter.com/MollyJongFast/status/1354923585631100933 shared also by Joyce White Vance https://twitter.com/JoyceWhiteVance/status/1354952704083316745, congressman Matt Gaetz finishes at 1:30 with a statement that really caught my attention: “The truth is that the establishment in both political parties have teamed up to screw our fellow Americans for generations.” I am a Democrat who agrees whole-heartedly with that statement. The actions of our leadership over the last 40 years, and those coaxing the shift for 20 years prior, have led to the situation we are in. I am of the belief that something significant and speedy needs to be done to give the bottom 90% more hope and comfort. The most meaningful articles I read keep circling back to wealth and power inequality, for example, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/the-birth-of-a-new-american-aristocracy/559130/. The feeling of injustice is what propelled both Bernie Sanders and Trump to the forefront in 2016 and Elizabeth Warren in 2020. Warren and Sanders had plans on how to transfer wealth downward based on assets instead of tax structure with a result that would still allow the rich’s wealth to continue to grow, https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-political-scene/the-french-economist-who-helped-invent-elizabeth-warrens-wealth-tax. The Dems managed to squelch those candidates early enough in the primaries, somehow miraculously this cycle to propel Biden back into the forefront. The Republicans failed to squelch Trump early enough and had to live with him. Although he ran on draining the swamp, that was a big lie and he further empowered even the good people in his party. In “Betraying Your Church—And Your Party,” https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/01/adam-kinzinger-voting-impeachment-christian/617848/, Adam Kinzinger, one of the 10 Republicans who voted for impeachment, cites “a desire to build on the administration’s policy successes.” He is taking a position for good reason, but I can’t imagine what policies anyone left-leaning would consider successes in the last administration, all continuing to bolster the wealthy and big business.