A Tale of Two Countries Sharing the Same Landmass: the USA

A Tale of Two Countries Sharing the Same Landmass: the USA

“Them” vs “Us”

But who is the “them” vs who identifies as “us” is a virulent question. And to say it is complicated is an understatement, one that confuses scholars and laypeople furiously. It is so divisively obvious that there is a serious question as to whether the “United” in the “United States” is a super-example of misinformation. First, despite that name in our nation, the USA was never designed to enhance or protect “equality,” even as that status is all over our most basic and founding documents. For specifics, I suggest a short visit to my recent Modern Democracy – Transition of Power from Land to City blog showing where structural inequality was built into our system from day one. Fundamentally, most Americans identify with some underlying grouping that excludes and marginalizes the “other.” Regardless of election results, we have risen to a level of hatred of the “other,” that in marital terms, we seem to have irreconcilable differences.

But as a basic sociological examination of the United States would explain, we a nation where incumbent power has slowly separated itself “from the rest” – literally into a system where laws and economic governance provide power and benefits to privileged classes simply not available to anyone else… laws and restrictions either do not apply to them or are easily circumvented. Mega-power brokers and their corporate holdings allow them to operate “outside the system” as transnational islands charting their own path, even if that path is harmful to the US, their nation of citizenship and purported fealty. A simple example of this vector is provided in the October 25th Wall Street Journal:

“Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a linchpin of U.S. space efforts, has emerged this year as a crucial benefactor for Donald Trump’s election campaign, and could find a role in a Trump administration should he win. Meanwhile, Musk has kept in regular contact with Vladimir Putin, discussing geopolitics, business and personal topics, a Journal team reveals. The dialogue could signal re-engagement with the isolated Russian leader, and reinforce Trump’s expressed desire to cut a deal over major fault lines such as the war in Ukraine.” These powerful incumbents are both insulated from obvious liability and often use their money and power to push the system into political directions that favor their interests at the expense of their own country.

There is likewise a growing tendency of government officials’ openly defying laws they simply don’t like. As the Journal of the American Bar Assn (in an October 25th piece by Lee Rawles) illustrates, based on a book (The Highest Law in the Land: How the Unchecked Power of Sheriffs Threatens Democracy by lawyer and journalist Jessica Pishko): “Jessica Pishko takes a deep dive into the history of this position in American life and at a far-right movement hoping to co-opt the role of sheriff to advance extreme conservative policies…. There are about 3,000 sheriffs in the United States, one per county (or county equivalent).... Ninety-seven percent of the land area in the United States is considered rural, but only 20% of the people live in those rural areas…

“Pishko explains the ‘constitutional sheriffs’ movement, including its similarities to other fringe movements like the sovereign citizens. Adherents claim that sheriffs alone have the power to interpret how the Constitution and the first 10 Amendments should be enforced in their counties. They claim that state governments, the federal government, the president and the U.S. Supreme Court have no power over sheriffs, and that as elected officials, sheriffs are answerable only to their constituents.” Guess who funded their campaigns for elective office. MAGA sentiments have been around long before Donald Trump, but he clearly unleashed their power, no matter what.

Using their wealth, with phalanxes of lawyers and vast pools or uncapped political contributions, these well-heeled special interests have both created a different tax structure for themselves and made litigating fairness back into the system cost-prohibitive for almost everyone else. That wealth has allowed them to use mass-disinformation campaigns to generate political support from once-marginalized groups yearning for power over those now blamed for their obviously reduced incomes and status. It has worked brilliantly even as it dooms the United States into a campaign of mutually assured destruction… decimating democracy and political survivability. Those with money have learned to use the legal system with malice and devious behavior to service their greedy goals, turning the entire legal system into their servants.

As Debra Cassens Weiss, writing for the October 22nd ABA Journal notes: “A federal judge in Boston complained during a status conference… that lawyers from three high-profile law firms had filed so many motions and documents that they were failing to keep litigation just, speedy and inexpensive, as required by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.” I’ve watched cases where Big Law will file a barrage of motions, even knowing that they well be denied, often filing parallel cases in other jurisdictions to wreak havoc in the main case, even in other states, clog the appeals process with expensive and very unnecessary processes that delay trials, and demand information and documents from the lesser party while fighting the same requests from the other side, knowing that as costs mount, most folks just give up. Unlike the British system, absent a contractual or statutory basis, losers do not have to pay the legal fees of the prevailing party.

We don’t tax wealth, other than real estate property tax, except when the wealth-generating assets are transferred. Billionaires can borrow against those assets, deduct the interest, roll over that debt indefinitely, knowing that loan proceeds are not taxed… and that their heirs will generate major tax benefits in connection with asset appreciation at the death of the owner. Their ability to buy politicians with campaign contributions, even legally bribe Supreme Court justices, insulates them from the tribulations of the rest of us. No matter the political pledges to the contrary, without a ground-up overhaul of our entire economic and politic systems, this bifurcation of the rich and the rest of us, evidenced in the explosive widening of income/wealth inequality gap, upward mobility and the American dream are dead… in search of an appropriate gravesite and illustrative tombstone. We “made America great again” for us… not you.

I’m Peter Dekom, and our “designed to support inequality” foundational documents have been twisted, abused, manipulated to guarantee the growth of even more income/wealth inequality… unless somehow Americans reach beyond the cacophony of misinformation and force fairness and equal justice back into the United States of America.