Ripped from the headlines: A citizen’s report on the U.S. in 2019
Donald Trump has made the media one of his favorite whipping boys. That’s no accident. Although the mainstream media exists within the universe of corporate power and sometimes follows too slavishly a notion of balance in reporting when there is no balance in reality, most journalists do a good job in searching for the truth and providing the public with the facts in the context in which they exist. The result is that you can glean a great deal about the state of the country and the spirit of the times just by reading the best newspapers in the nation.
Below, I transcribe headlines or quote excerpts from what I consider the best newspaper in the United States, The New York Times, and since I live in Florida, the largest paper in Florida, The Miami Herald. My thesis is that this country is at the height of an illiberal counterrevolution against the liberal consensus that prevailed from the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1932 to at least the election of Richard Nixon in 1968. It is a multifaceted counterrevolution that has become more radical over the ensuing decades, with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and the presidency of George W. Bush (2001-2009) representing important milestones.
Just as the presidency of Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961), occurring in a liberal era, did not break the liberal consensus, the Democratic presidency of Bill Clinton (1993-2001), taking place in the conservative post-Reagan did not pose a frontal challenge to the neo-liberal capitalist consensus, including joining Republicans in abolishing welfare and the Glass-Steagall Act that forbid commercial banks from engaging in the kind of speculation that created the economic crisis of 2007-2008.
Barack Obama, a progressive, did institute some significant reforms, especially Obamacare which extended health insurance coverage to millions of Americans. But governing in a conservative era, Obama was stymied in producing a full-scale reform of the health care system and, surrounded by Clinton-era economic advisers, responded to the 2007-crisis by bailing out the lenders (the big banks) rather than the debtors (who lost their houses and sometimes their shirt).
The unexpected election of Donald Trump in 2016 brought a quantum leap in the right-wing Republican counterrevolution at the national level and in the states. The main thrusts of this counterrevolution are a massive economic redistribution from the bottom and middle toward the top, especially the very top, and the restoration of white supremacy. The methods to achieve and maintain the power to carry out a counterrevolution have been deeply corrupt; one can argue than the contraction of democracy in contrast to the expansion experienced in the liberal era, such as the extension of voting rights to blacks after the civil rights movement
Economic Counterrevolution
‘Low-Income College Students Face Tax Increase’ NYT, May 19, 2019
‘Miami-Dade + Broward Key Metrics [House Sales]’: Median Sold Price: April 2019 — $565,000 HAVENLIFESTYLES.COM/STATS
“An analysis of Census data indicates that more than 60 percent of Miami-Dade renters pay more than 30
‘Florida lawmakers curtail local governments’ ability to set affordable housing rules’ (MH, no date on printed page)
“FIU reports that while the top 5 percent of Miami households earn an average of $202,461 each year, the lowest 20 percent earn just $19,775, more than ten times less.” MH June- 9, 2019
“By one commonly used measure, the GINI [general index of inequality] coefficient, Miami-Dade ranks second worst in the nation for inequality.” MH June 9, 2019
‘Cost to Treat Rare Illness? $2.1 Million’ NYT May 25, 2019
‘Data Shows Fall in Birth Rate for Fourth Year in a Row’ NYT May 18, 2019
[The trend toward decreasing birth rates is significantly influenced by inequality, specifically the difficulty of most young people from poor or middle class backgrounds have in acquiring the requisites for establishing a family—an affordable house, a decent paying job—plus the large debt obligations hanging over many college graduates]
Restoring White Supremacy
‘Racial bias affects every aspect of the criminal justice system…In Washington state, researchers found that juries were four times as likely to recommend a death sentence for a black defendant as for a similar white defendant.’ (Nicholas Kristof, ‘When We Kill,’ Op-Ed, NYT June 16, 2019)
National Public Radio, in a survey conducted with the Brennan Center for Justice and the National Center for State Courts, found that 48 states increased their civil and criminal court fees from 2010 to 2014. And because wealthy and middle-class Americans can typically afford either the initial fee or the services of an attorney, it will be the poor who shoulder the bulk of the burden.” ‘The New Debtor’s Prison, The New York Times Magazine, 1.13.19
‘Harriet Tubman $20 bill was far along before Minuchin Delayed it’ MH June 15, 2019
‘Florida Republicans want only citizens to count toward allotting seats in Congress’ MH June 15, 2019
‘Florida Republicans want only citizens to count toward allotting seats in Congress’ MH June 15, 2019
Corruption in the Process of Gaining Power
‘Mueller Report Lays Out Russian Contacts and Trump’s Frantic Efforts to Foil Inquiry’ NYT April 19 2019
“The presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump showed interest in WikiLeaks’s releases of documents and welcomed their potential to damage candidate Clinton. WikiLeaks’s first release came in July 2016. Around the same time, candidate Trump announced that he hoped Russia would recover emails described as missing from a private server used by Clinton when she was Secretary of State…WikiLeaks began releasing Podesta’s [Clinton campaign chairman] stolen emails on October 7, 2016, less than one hour after a U.S. media outlet released video [Hollywood Access tape showing Trump telling a reporter that women allow him to “grab their pussies” because he is a celebrity] considered damaging to candidate Trump.”
“The social media campaign and the GRU [Russian military intelligence] hacking coincided with a series of contacts between Trump campaign officials and individuals with ties with the Russian government.”
The Mueller Report NYT, April 19, 2017
