We have been told for decades that the banks and the
people who work at Goldman Sachs and Fidelity and hedge
funds none of us have ever heard of are smarter than us,
that they deserve to be rich, that they should be the
ones who pull the levers on the economy, that they should
decide which companies are good and which are bad, that
they should be the ones who help make financial
regulations. All along the way they have gotten
fabulously wealthy and we have been stuck with stagnant
wages, record consumer debt, and financial advice that
tells us to wait until we are old to retire.
Once the Capitol was cleared, the solemn assurances that
“this is not who we are” began. The attempt at
self-soothing after such a traumatic event is
understandable, but it is delusional. Was Charlottesville
not who we are? Did more than seventy million people not
vote for the Inciter-in-Chief? Surely, these events are
part of who we are, part of the American picture. To
ignore those parts, those features of our national
landscape, is to fail to confront them.
