Toward a New Gilded Age
We're already here, actually
It’s here.
It’s been here.
The next Gilded Age is now.
Michelle Teheux does a great job examining wealth inequality.
It’s not just the poor and working class people who are suffering from income inequality and the greater issue of oligarchs pillaging the public good for private gain. Ultimately, the rich are at risk, too.
Pillaging the public good was on full display this past week in Tennessee. Here, lawmakers did the bidding of billionaires and passed a $447 million school voucher scam.
TN State Senator Charlane Oliver clearly framed the issue:
Tennessee’s public education system is under siege by wealthy conservative oligarchs, including former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who are bankrolling Republican leaders to push school vouchers. Ultra-wealthy conservatives have made dismantling public education their mission, even descending upon Washington ready to disband the U.S. Department of Education.
Peter Greene explains the issue is a national one:
Greene contends the current regime - and school choicers generally - offer a new take on a very old idea: feudalism.
The Trumpian/Heritage vision of government seems to be a modern riff on feudalism, where the rich and powerful make the rules and clear away the Deep State, which seems best defined as folks who are inclined to follow the rule of law rather than the rule of what I say goes, and where all the lower classes are forced to contribute to the church. A public education system aimed at providing a good education for all students, no matter the background, has no place in a feudal system.
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