Chuck Todd gave some results of an Esquire Magazine poll that to many seemed shocking. The angriest Americans are white Americans. Latino and black Americans were not nearly as angry.
Those of us in the socio-economic justice movement, a movement that generally reflects America in its diversity, are not surprised by this and similar polls. One gets angry when promises and expectations are not met.
Americans have been lied to from the inception of our country. Social structures were setup in order to ensure a particular class reigned supreme. White supremacy and racial gradations were used to create a pecking order that worked perfectly as long as those in the lower pecking orders could be exploited or had what to exploit.
The system breaks down when the latter ceases being true. When the supreme class has taken all that it can from the lower pecking orders, it must go up to the next. For many who had not realized that race is nothing more than a social construct, the built-in, 'never have to think about' privilege is now being lost. That causes anger and it causes people to lash out.
So what is the response of the plutocracy to attempt to redirect that anger? Blame the other. Donald Trump does it best but it has been a staple of the Think Tanks on the Right who have implemented the Powell Manifesto over the last several decades.
When real human rights are not codified, these measures can only work temporarily. At a recent Human Rights Conference, David Cobb, Move to Amend's co-founder alluded to the genesis of what is to come.
"Sadly the United States Constitution is a property rights document," Cobb said. "It is not a Human Right's document. We don't have a right to clean air or clean water. We don't have a right to healthcare. We don't have a right to education."
In other words, Americans were never guaranteed humane treatment or humane rights. They were made available as long as it did not infringe on the supreme class.
So what is the solution? In my recent Politics Done Right radio program I had an exchange with a caller with regards to Donald Trump's support from blue-collar white Americans. In that exchange I explained the lie that the plutocracy is using to deflect the anger of white Americans. I then made a stereotypical statement to exemplify the solution. When we unite Appalachia, the ghettos, and the barrios Americans will see that we are really all the same. The plutocracy pits us against each other in order for us to ignore the real genesis of what ails the poor and middle-class. What ails us? An unsustainable economic system that continues to extract our wealth and progressively deteriorates into a system that makes us all indentured servants to the supreme class.
It use to be that only low skill workers needed to be concerned about their economic and employment plight. Now even professionals must worry. The insurance companies dictate to the doctors. The radiologists can either take a cut or X-Rays and scans can be read and interpreted in India. Almost every job can be outsourced leaving a large pool of workers available to compete for jobs that cannot be outsourced at much lower wage rates.
This is what happens when an economic system is more important than humanity. An economic system is man-made. It is not divine. We can choose to ensure that humanity is built into the economic system.
Where are these angry white Americans flocking? To Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump. The reality is only one of these guys want to make a systemic change that actual makes humanity a component.
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