MAGA (formerly known as the Republican Party) would have you believe that billionaires don’t have enough money, that multinational corporations don’t have enough power, that our debt is the result of giveaways to poor people, and that immigrants are destroying our nation.
Of course, the opposite is true.
In the meantime, our nation’s real problems and their underlying causes are being ignored by MAGA as well as by some politicians on the left side of the aisle. Indeed, most of the decisions made by the current MAGA regime are making the problems worse!
For example, outside of a widespread nuclear conflict, climate change is the greatest existential threat to the planet. The rise in global temperatures as the result of carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels is not only a threat to humanity in the form of more extreme weather events. It threatens most of the planet’s species. Scientists warn that failure to aggressively address climate change will result in the extinction of more than a million species within a few decades – species that not only make our planet more fascinating and enjoyable. Many of them are species that humans rely on for food. Yet the MAGA regime is eliminating every initiative intended to address the issue. It has revived the oil and coal industries and rolled back regulations on pollution and the emissions of greenhouse gases. At the same time, it has eliminated incentives for solar, wind generation, and electric vehicles.
Such madness will certainly make our planet less livable and cost many thousands of high-paying American jobs. Moreover, the failure to mitigate our changing climate will cost trillions more in rebuilding following storm disasters.
The MAGA intent to remove up to 12 million immigrants is another ongoing MAGA-fueled disaster. ICE has stated that it will remove 600,000 immigrants by the end of the year. In addition, it claims that 2 million immigrants threatened by ICE have left the US on their own. That’s 2.6 million workers. 2.6 million customers of American businesses, and 2.6 million neighbors and friends. And it begs the questions: Who’s going to harvest our fruits and vegetables? Who’s going to process our meat? Who’s going to cook our food, do our landscaping, clean our businesses and hotel rooms, or care for the elderly? The truth is, we need these workers, and our lives and economy will suffer without them.
Next on the list of our problems, but no less serious, is the ongoing consolidation of industries such as grain, meat, agriculture, groceries, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, media, trucking, banking, oil, real estate and more. In fact, most of our industries are controlled by fewer than a dozen corporations. This has led to the extreme wealth disparity in the US along with the near collapse of small and midsized cities and a press that has increasingly prioritized profits and political propaganda over news. In addition, price fixing is an almost inevitable consequence of corporate consolidation. And the political power wielded by these corporate leaders is overwhelming.
At the same time, our bought-and-paid-for government has looked the other way as billionaires and millionaires use their economic muscle to game the stock markets then hide their ill-gotten gains offshore to avoid taxes.
Other pressing issues are a healthcare industry that forces Americans to pay four times more per capita for care than every other advanced nation in the world. Artificial Intelligence is expected to eliminate up to 100 million jobs in the US. Our out-of-control military-industrial complex is given a trillion-dollar annual budget. Yet it has failed audits seven years in a row, and $21 trillion of its taxpayer money is unaccounted for!
Our public education system that was once the envy of the world is being attacked by MAGA. In addition, MAGA has attacked academic freedom leading to a brain drain as some of our best scientific minds leave the US for Canada and Europe. These attacks will have long-term effects, which will allow other nations to surpass our technology.
Not the least of our problems is our unhealthy relationship with guns. Indeed, guns are now the leading cause of death for children. And there are more than 500 mass shootings in the United States each year. MAGA tells us that’s the price of having the Second Amendment to prevent tyranny. Yet thanks to MAGA, a tyrant has taken over the White House without firing a shot.