Cold Hard Cash

I recently discussed the Republican Party’s obsession with calling anything they dislike “communism.” To the GOP, this antiquated insult applies to affordable childcare, cheaper groceries, and healthcare that actually heals people instead of making insurance executives richer.

However, just because I dismiss the GOP’s absurd insistence that democratic socialism is a front for Stalinists doesn’t mean that I hate capitalism. OK, that economic system has a lot of flaws (like, a lot). And the brand of capitalism that the US is currently practicing is more akin to corporatism or full-fledged oligarchy than the free-market concept they taught you in PoliSci 101.

But capitalism has its advantages (in theory at least), and the marketer Seth Godin, whom I’ve quoted before, recently made a good point about how capitalism can enrich society.

Godin points out that the “upside of free-market capitalism … is that every product and every campaign is an argument to win over customers, to solve problems in a new and better way.”

It would indeed be grand if companies tried to solve problems instead of fuck people over to raise their stock price a penny. But again, we don’t live in a free-market society that rewards problem-solving. We live a cutthroat-capitalist nation where billionaires think hording wealth is a virtue.

In any case, Godin goes on to point out why monopolies are so horrific for society, and it is simply because “they don’t have to argue.” When a monopoly takes over, “the customer has no choice,” and the “monopoly stops listening, innovating and working for improvement, because they don’t need to.”

OK, that makes sense. It’s one reason we have anti-monopoly laws. Of course, the Trump administration is flicking those laws away like they are pesky mosquitoes, meaning that this is a great time to be a money-grubbing robber baron.

But there is a political angle to why monopolies are so vile. You see, according to Godin, “the same is true for democracy vs autocracy,” in that the “despot has no need to make an argument, so they don’t.”

Keep in mind that our humble president is not even trying to make the argument that his policies have been good for America. He is focused on terrifying people into supporting him and suppressing the vote so he doesn’t face another impeachment.

This aspiring despot has no coherent or rational argument. And he no longer cares, if he ever did, about improving America. He figures he has a monopoly, so why not indulge in acts of corruption so brazen that his allies don’t even attempt a defense. 

But let’s return to the concept of capitalism. Can it be modified to fulfill its promise to society? Or have we jumped the shark economically and culturally, where the best we can hope for is that plutocrats take mercy on us and employ the masses to be their indentured servants?

Well, I have an answer to that question. But it will cost you a dollar to hear it.

Come on, I’m not going to just give it away for free. This is America.

How to Be Unconvincing

No doubt, you’ve heard a lot lately about democratic socialism. That’s when you’re not hearing about communism, which hasn’t been a threat to America since 1989. But don’t tell paranoid old men who perpetually live in the past about that.

In any case, conservatives are playing the linguistic game, which consists of harping on the “socialism” part of that two-word term and insisting this approach to government, which is the system used in the most peaceful, prosperous, and happiest nations on Earth, is synonymous with the crushing tyranny of the USSR and China.

Right-wingers do this all the time. They yell that “Nazi” is short for National Socialist German Workers' Party, implying that Hitler’s minions were leftists. They point out that the Ku Klux Klan was originally affiliated with the Democratic Party, insinuating that the KKK was a bunch of woke dudes.

This is the equivalent of the grade-school teacher snidely asking, “Can you go to the bathroom? Don’t you mean ‘May I go to the bathroom?’”

And just like that annoying teacher (who clearly hates children), this linguistic pedantry is embarrassing to even acknowledge. I would ask conservatives if their superficial, trite arguments — based on nitpicky grammar, deliberate ignorance, and a delusional view of history — have ever convinced anyone to vote Republican.

I picture a fledgling progressive slapping his forehead in disbelief and shrieking, “I had no idea Goebbels was in a political movement whose German translation includes the word ‘socialism.’ Now I must support ICE shooting people in the street.”

To the conservative mind, it’s just that convincing.

However, this belabored tactic of guilt by association doesn’t seem to be working. Recent surveys show that voters don’t find the term “democratic socialist” nearly as repugnant as the word “MAGA.”

And they are correct to think that.

So here’s some friendly advice for my conservative friends: Stop trying to demonize a phrase that younger people increasingly find appealing, while proving that you have nothing to offer other than fear, anger, and a flop-sweat twisting of words that fools nobody.

Every time you insist “democratic socialism” is synonymous with Mao, it just seems like you also don’t understand the difference between steak and hamburger, or the ocean and a lake, or the Brewers and the Rockies.

The rest of us comprehend reality. Join us here. 

I promise it’s not a communist plot.

The Olds

Perhaps it’s fitting that America is coming to the end of its lifespan.

Because our leaders are certainly coming to the end of theirs.

Back to back, we’ve had the two oldest presidents in US history. The US Congress now has two dozen  octogenarians and at least one nonagenarian. 

More than half of those lawmakers are running for re-election, because hey, why retire and let someone younger make decisions that will affect future generations when you can shuffle around the corridors of power and never endure the long-term consequences of your actions?

By the way, the gap between “the average age of an American and the average of a member of Congress has been growing, especially over the last 15 years.”

Political scientists have a term for this: gerontocracy (aka rule by older generations).

I’ve written before about the Scourge… I mean Baby Boomers. This is a generation that preached peace and love in its youth but then shrieked, “Give me more and kill them all” in its old age.

It’s bad enough that Boomers hoarded everything for themselves while lecturing younger people about being selfish, which doesn’t even get into how this most pampered of generations has the cojones to insist that everyone under 60 is weak because we don’t appreciate the decimated society and world they left us.

No, the lasting political legacy of this far from greatest generation is their refusal to cede power.

My generation (Gen X) will likely never have a president, as the country will probably leap from Baby Boomer domination to Millennial stewardship. That’s ok. We’re used to being ignored.

But what’s not ok is that this shift to younger leadership is not happening anytime soon.

We have enfeebled senators blubbering their way through their terms but still insisting on running for reelection. That’s when they’re not dropping dead of old age or disappearing because of age-related calamities. 

And it goes beyond politics. We are enduring “a quiet slide into generational inequality, in which older, disproportionately wealthy voters and homeowners shape the economy — and America's democracy — to their advantage while insisting they're really the ones who are under siege.”

Boomers now hold more than half of American wealth despite making up just 20% of the population. Economists say that “the old rich have pulled away from everyone else," meaning that the US is not just an oligarchy, but is also an "oldigarchy."

And as far as social or cultural progress, keep in mind that “an aging society is more set on preservation than on renovation.” Boomers don’t much care for things that didn’t exist in their day, like trans people and female CEOs. Hell, they don’t much care for things that they actually did have in their day, like affordable college and scientific breakthroughs, because those concepts no longer affect them personally.

No, older Americans just want to live out their remaining years in peace and quiet. And that means holding on to as much power and money as they can while exhibiting pathological indifference to their children and grandchildren.

That’s far from ok, Boomer.

On the Rise

You might think that America, and perhaps the entire world, is in serious decline.

Is everything going downhill?

Well, fear not. Some aspects of the modern world are on a steady incline toward greater heights.

For example, did you know that the world added nearly a million new millionaires last year? And almost half of those are American, at “a pace exceeding 1,200 per day.” 

Wow — so many people getting fabulously wealthy and… what’s that? It seems that “median wealth — a figure more representative of typical adults than the mean — dropped across the majority of countries,” which is further “evidence of widening inequality.” Yes, even as we got more millionaires, “most people got poorer.”

OK, that’s not what we had in mind for a great surge upward. But here’s something else that’s on the rise.

It appears that “billionaires’ billions are increasing faster than ever.” Billionaires have a “combined wealth that is equivalent to nearly a fifth of the entire world’s total yearly output.”

We are now at in a situation where “the surging financial and political power of a few hundred individuals contributes to a growing inequality that is likely to persist for generations because most of that wealth escapes taxation, creating a self-perpetuating aristocracy.”

These insatiable oligarchs are the chief reason for the “shrinking slice of the economic pie that goes to workers” and the acceleration toward “a level of wealth concentration that will break society.”

OK, that is not what we had in mind when we clamored for more. But we can’t help ourselves.. We are Americans. Clamoring for more is kind of our thing.

In any case, there is one more aspect of modern life that is skyrocketing.

Last year witnessed “the highest number of conflicts between states since World War II, and the highest number of fatalities recorded since the Rwandan genocide.”

Yes, we’re getting more war. And if you thought 2025 was just an anomaly, “data this year so far shows the rise in conflicts globally is a trend that's likely to continue.”

Researchers say that “the extremely high number of conflicts and wars … lends credence to the growing number of voices arguing that we are witnessing the end of Pax Americana and the liberal world order."

So if you’re feeling down, just remember that at least a few things are going up — like war, economic inequality, and the political power of trillionaires.

Truly, the sky is the limit.

Semiquincentennial Blues

As we celebrate (is that even remotely the right word?) our country’s birthday, let’s pause to consider that according to experts, “never before in American history has there been anything like Donald J. Trump, a president who in his first year back in office has collected about $1.4 billion in new revenues from cryptocurrency businesses that directly benefited from his actions as president.”

Yes, the guy who famously pledged to drain the swamp is so overtly corrupt that one has to assume his plan is indulge in massive amounts of grift so “people will not think anything about it is weird.”

Trust me — it’s weird. Also criminal.

In the quaint past, “presidents worked assiduously to show they were not connected to anything that could in any way compromise their decision making or leverage their public virtue.” But in this golden age of MAGA morality, the entire Trump family “has been unapologetic about its aggressive pursuit of profits,” causing historians, political scientists, and anyone who doesn’t watch Fox News to marvel at “the openness, the flagrant nature” of their blatant corruption, which they undertake “almost with pride — cashing in on the office itself” almost daily.

Unless one is delusional or oblivious, it has become “increasingly obvious that the obscene wealth and power of a select few, at the expense of the many, is a feature, not a bug for the Trump years.”

Those who are in on the scam — and that doesn’t include you and me — are “swimming like Scrooge McDuck in a sea of self-dealing and greed that is unprecedented in American history.”

All those pardons for donors, contracts for flunkies, and misuse of inside information are not “a disconnected series of scandals” but a well-coordinated system of depravity.

Yes, our avarice-prone chief executive is fantastically obsessed with money and power (also windmills, for some bizarre reason). But there is more to it. There is a dark psychological neediness. 

You see, the drooling, shuffling occupant of the Oval Office “wants more than anything to be seen as a brilliant man who has always been right about everything when he is transparently a butterfingered dunce whose professional expertise more or less begins and ends at making cutting remarks from a safe distance and directing other people to file nuisance lawsuits on his behalf.” We’re talking about a guy who insists he is a genius (a very stable one) even as the US economy teeters and he loses a war against a much smaller nation led by religious zealots. He proclaims himself to be an unparallelled mastermind, the mighty leader who “knows more about every subject than any expert without even having to study or even pay attention to any of it” despite the overwhelming evidence of his incompetence and his “relentlessly oafish output.”

As others have noted, “the reflecting pool fiasco, in which Trump created the idea there was an emergency, ignored experts, bypassed normal procedures to give a wildly inflated contract to a crony, bragged about his success, ignored the problems, claimed his enemies had sabotaged him, and finally stationed troops around the landmark he had turned into a swamp, represents the Trump administration perfectly.”

That’s the real symbol of America today.

Happy goddamn birthday.