Root Cause of a Second Trump Term

by Brian T Lynch

All of the reasons people give for why Trump’s followers voted for him may be true. Yet, none of the reasons would get Trump elected if greedy rogue billionaires didn’t spend billions every year on social media operations intended to radicalize people's feelings according to their most antisocial proclivities. The MAGA movement is fundamentally a media-driven, culture-based mass hysteria. So, what is the root cause of our democratic problem?

I believe democracy is at risk because of the nearly unfathomable extremes of private wealth and the social power that it confers on individuals. Our economy is rigged to benefit the rich proportional to their private wealth. It is an exponentially growing disaster for democratic principles of human equality and representative government. The vast majority of Americans have not been fairly compensated for decades. As a result, the collective wealth of our middle and working class combined no longer offsets the growing power of private wealth.

We can’t keep a democratic nation if we don’t stand up for a fair and democratic economy that serves our common interests.