Original A Precis on How Democracies Die as a Consequence of America’s, Failure of Government Working for the People while Serving the Interests of the Wealthy

This precis speaks to the failure of the United States government to sustain the wealth of the middle-class after the post-World War Two years’, while serving the wealthiest Americans. It will document how the country has become polarized and fractured along ideological and cultural lines. This situation has created a segmentation of the country that has competing visions, purpose and meaning which is tearing it apart. It will also focus on the inequality in the country that has emerged from the Oligarchy’s domination of the political and free market space-government of the 1%, by the 1% AND FOR THE 1%. Their mantra is to keep the government out of business and have business in the government.


Haves and Have Nots
Russell Kirk (1951) wrote q book entitled "The Conservative Mind". It provided a framework to justify maintaining the oligarchy using certain systems, e.g. "calling it conservatism which became the official religion of the Republican party. In 1964 Barry Goldwater (Senator from Arizona) was the first modern GOP candidate for president to espouse that way of thinking".
Many conservatives saw a racial hierarchy, Kirk wrote, "the Supreme Court's decision on equal rights among races such as Brown vs. The Board of Education will work mischief and injury rather than fulfill responsible democracy". Lewis Powell's memo (1971) titled "Attack on the American Free Enterprise System" Was a CORPORATE BLUEPRINT to dominate democracy. The memo called for corporate America to become more aggressive in molding society's thinking about business, government, politics and law in the US. The blue print gave rise to the American conservative movement and the formation of influential right-wing think tanks and lobbying organizations, such as the Heritage Foundation and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
It also encouraged the Chambers of Commerce to become more politically active.

Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie, steel magnate and philanthropist, penned an essay, "The Gospel of Wealth", which for all intents and purposes gave his rationale for giving money to the poor to justify his accumulation of wealth.
Mr. Carnegie donated vast sums of his wealth in building monuments, e.g. museums, and libraries, etc. as a way of giving back to the communities as a consequence of his amassing great wealth. He felt that income inequality was a problem of rich and poor to be solved.
He felt inequality was a brief state between taking and giving phases. Giving back, he wrote is "the true antidote for the temporary unequal distribution of wealth, the reconciliation of the rich and poor". He felt the idea of temporary unequal inequality is transitional and necessary for progress, but reversible thanks to the fruits of progress (Giridharadas, 2018).
Mr. Carnegie felt inequality exists and he defended it and stated, "The necessary of temporary inequality, wealth passing through the hands of the few can be made a much more potent force for the elevation of our race than if it had been distributed in small amounts to the people themselves".
He believes that there is a compromise, a true effect which leaves us alone in the competitive market-place and we will tend to the poor after the winnings are won.
He states. "The money will be spent more wisely on you (the less fortunate) than by you. You will have your choice to enjoy our wealth in the way we think that you should enjoy it" as written by Mr.

American Legislative Exchange Council, (ALEC)
ALEC is a nationwide consortium of state legislators who work side by side with some of American Corporations. Their mission is to change the country by changing the laws. It creates model legislation 67 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/sshsr Social Science, Humanities and Sustainability Research Vol. 2, No. 4, 2021 that are pro corporate interests that its members push in state houses across the country. ALEC member corporations craft bills and pass them on to state legislators who introduce and vote on the bills which become law that enables member corporations to get state money (Wikipedia).

Reagan Revolution
When Ronald Reagan Came into the office of the presidency (1980)

Legislative Actions
Actions taken by the Congress to help the influence of corporations.
Legislative Capture-large corporations account for half of the national economy and pay more for lobbyists to write and pass laws in Congress more favorable to themselves than federal taxes. The way in which Congressional committee was suppose to watch certain industries, was diminished, in effect they became beholden to corporations which is called legislative capture (Wikipedia) Donald Matthews, a political scientist observed-and quoted that "compared to more than a quarter of a century ago almost every legislator is better educated, possesses higher status occupations, and has a more privileged background than the people they represent". In other words, the working-class is vastly underrepresented in public office, and the vast majority of policies are made by a white-collar government.

Supreme Court Actions
The Supreme Court in June, 2019 repealed the one-hundred-year-old act that forbade corporations to contribute to candidates for federal office. The New Law is called "Citizens United" (2019).
This law reinforces corporate dominance in the evert day lives of the populace to make necessary changes for a true democracy.
In the October issue of the magazine, "The Nation", the editor Katrina Vander Heuvel, commented, that the court handed the conservative right wing of the party with money that moved our representative government toward a plutocracy (Oligarchy)-political power derived from wealth and is devoted to protecting wealth by allowing money to be given secretly to political campaigns.
The rationale behind the Act is that Money is free speech and corporations are people (Hartmann, 2021).

Tax Havens
In an article written by Gabriel Zuckman and Gus Werezek, titled "Shut down the Tax Havens", in the New York Times Paper (7/11/21). The authors shed light on the negative impact tax havens have on the working-class in the United States.
In the decades after World War II close to 50 percent of American company's earnings went to state and federal taxes. Economically, it was a golden period. Middle class income grew at roughly, the same rate as those of the richest Americans. But as globalization gave companies the ability to choose where they recorded profits, Congress scrambled to keep business by lowering corporate taxes. Corporate tax breaks have helped business owners amass inconceivable amounts of money over the past decades.
Meanwhile, middle class Americans have footed the bill as Congress has propped up the budget by raising taxes on wages.
Companies have resorted to devious schemes to justify their profit shifting for years.
www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/sshsr Social Science, Humanities and Sustainability Research Vol. 2, No. 4, 2021 The rights to Nike's swoosh trademark belonged to one of the company's Bermuda subsidies. In its quest to avoid taxes, Apple moved some of its intellectual property to Jersey, a small island in the English Channel.
In 2018, Facebook made $15 billion in profit in Ireland-the equivalent of about @10 million for each of its employees there. Bristol Meyers Squibb recorded close to 5 billion in profits in Ireland, or roughly @7.5 million per employee. This is tax evasion It is when a company logs billions of dollars in a shell company, it violates the spirit of the internal Revenue Code, which states that a transaction must have a purpose other than reducing a tax Liability (Zuckman & Wezerk, 7/21).
Tax Havens and business owners have driven international tax policy. The result has been a nation where working-class Americans are with underfunded public schools and hospitals as the Wealthy board rocket ships to outer space.
Thom Hartmann compares a wealth tax to the working-class and the oligarchs. We pay a property tax (our home is our wealth) on our homes usually about 5% of its assessed value. The taxes go to pay for community services such as schools, police and fire services, etc.

Corporations should pay taxes on their money-bills in the same manner we pay taxes on our
homes-their fair share of the burden.

Alternet-News Letter, (9/14/16) by Bill Moyers and Tom Dispald.
Mr. Moyer suggests that the very wealthy convert their financial might into political power to guard their wealth while exacerbating inequality further.
Mr. Moyer when he was a cub reporter in his small East Texas town witnessed "The housewife's rebellion". Fifteen women in that town decided not to pay the social security withholding taxes for their domestic workers. The housewives were white while the housekeepers were black. The housewives argued that social security was unconstitutional and imposing a tax was taxation without representation.
They even equated it with slavery. They took the case to court and lost.
This episode convinced Mr. Moyer to engage in issues of money and power equality and democracy over his journalist career.
This housewives rebellion placed a perspective on racial issues as this group couldn't see beyond their own prerogatives-white privilege.
This situation in his view highlighted the history of this country's narrative, "one nation indivisible was merely a charade and manipulating the interests of the powerful and privileged to sustain their own way of life at the expense of others". Do we have a democracy in name only-that is a good question?
What does the preamble of the Constitution mean, if not that we are all in the business of nation building together.
Mr. Moyer observes, "that early America was a moral morose. One in five people were enslaved, women suffered vertical peonage, Native American people (Indian) were forced from their land". He states, "that inside the voting booth on a level playing field on the ground floor of democracy was 70 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/sshsr Social Science, Humanities and Sustainability Research Vol. 2, No. 4, 2021 gained by heroes that sacrificed, suffered and died so that all Americans could gain footing. And yet today money has become the great equalizer, the usurper of our democratic soul".
During this time (20 th century) the movie "Wall Street" was made. The stock market trader Gordon Greko stated, "the richest one percent of this country owned half of the country's wealth, five trillion dollars". "You got ninety percent of America's public out there with little or no net worth". He says, "I create nothing. We make the rules".
The Greek historian, Plutarch is said to have warned that "imbalance between the rich and poor is the oldest and the main fatal flaw of a Republic".
The Washington Post at this time pointed out that income equality may be higher at this moment that at any time in the American past. Since 1980 the economy has continued to grow but most of the benefit has migrated to the top. At this time workers were more productive but received less of the wealth they were helping to create.
Inequality matters as it slows economic growth, undermines health, erodes social cohesion and solidarity and starves education. Edward R. Morrow, Journalist once stated, "plutocracy (oligarchy) and democracy don't mix", and A plethora of studies concluded America's political system has already been transformed from a democracy into an oligarchy.
Martin Gilene and Benjamin Page for instance studied data from 1800 different policy initiative s launched between 1981 and 2002. They found that economic elites and organization growth representing business interests have substantial independent impact on the US government policy.
Mass based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence whether Republican or Democrat. They concluded, "the government more often follows the preferences of major lobbying groups than it does for ordinary citizens".
How to address these issues-Moyer suggests the following: "First, remind people that societies can die of too much inequality".
Second, Give them copies of Jared Diamond's Book, "Collapse"-how societies choose to fail or succeed to remind them that we are not immune.
Third, discuss the real meaning of sacrifice and bliss with them that was the title of the fourth episode of my PBS series-"Joseph Campbell and" The Power of the Myth "is when we put our well-being ahead of others".
Moyer states, "The truth of our country isn't actually so complicated. It is in the moral compact implicit in the preamble of our Constitution: We are all in this together".

Lackoff
George Lackoff, In his, "Little Blue Book" Publication (2014) defines the mission of government and Politics. "Politics is about working for and representing people and their concerns. People want to know how politics affect their lives".
"The mission of government is to protect and empower all equally through the use of the public (commons') which is defined as resources for the betterment of life provided for all. This concept has made for a civilized and humane private life-style and a prosperous enterprise".

Summary of Part I
Democracies Die usually as a consequence of the failure of government's not working for the people.
This situation breeds mistrust and creates a vacuum in the political space that allows oligarchs and demagogues to take over the government. We saw this in Italy when Mussolini took control and in Germany when Hitler took control of the country.
Oligarchy is defined as situations when wealthy individuals seize control of the political market-place and turn it to their benefit (Hartmann, 2021

The Have and Have Nots
The Haves (wealthy) embraced a conservative ideology that sought to decimate the middle-class by passing legislation and taking actions to utilize the institutions of government for their own interests.
The country was on the brink of becoming an oligarchy on the insurrection on January 6, 2021, when a mob stormed the capital in Washington DC to take over the government.
This precis gives a warning sign that if the present political party in the White House (2021) does not build trust in government by passing meaningful programs that work for the people we may be witnessing the fall of democracy as we know it.
Part I sets the framework for Part II that examines the Ill's of the country that has become polarized along cultural and ideological lines.
Journalists, George Packed and David Brooks have written essays emphasizing America's failure to sustain and enlarge the middle-class democracy of the post-World War Two years.
People have lost trust in government and as a consequence, it has become fragmented and is divided into competing visions of the country's meaning and purpose and it is tearing the country apart.

Part II
In this section of the precis, we will explore the diagnosis of the ills of the country as depicted by

Packer and Brooks. The competing interests and ideologies fostered by different sections of the United
States will be discussed. America demands a confrontation with what others want to avoid. They rise from a single society and even in one polarized as they continually shape, absorb and morph into one another, but their tendency is to divide us putting tribe against tribe. These divisions impoverish each narrative and even demonstrate more extreme versions of itself (Packer, 2021 Vol. 2, No. 4, 2021 According to Brooks, the class structure has gotten mixed up over the past decades. In the past it was more straight forward: you had the rich, who joined country clubs and voted Republican; the working class who worked in factories and voted Democratic. And in between was the middle-class suburbanites.

Packer and Brooks diagnosis of the Ills of the US
We knew what middle class conflict looked like. Members of the working class would align with progressive intellectuals to take on the capitalist elite. Things changed around 2015-16. Conservative parties (mainly White Republican) became the champions as the warriors of the working class and conversely the left wing parties (multicultural and democratic) were identified with the super-educated urban elite.
So, your education level and your political values are as important in defining your class status as your income is. Because of this, the US has polarized into two separate class hierarchies one red and one blue. Class struggles not only up and down against richer and poorer groups on their own ladder, but against their partisan opposite across the ideological divide (Brooks, 2021).
Both essays in my view offer narratives that speak to how America has become polarized along ideological and cultural lines.
In addition, I will offer a broader view that encompasses economic, and social issues that have had an impact on the social fabric of the Country, Namely the economic crisis of 2008, and Racial and social injustices.

Events and circumstances that have had an impact on the political, economic, and social fabric of the country
Andrew Bacevich, a professor at Boston University, in his book, "The Limits of Power", (2014) examines the decline of the influence of the United States as a world power and the diminishing of American Exceptionalism. He States, "that our foreign policy has for decades provided an outward manifestation of domestic ambition, urges and fears". In other words, we have brought this situation upon ourselves.
A position of apparent preeminence placed the US under the most grievous temptations to self-adulation. To satisfy these demands of cheap oil, easy credit and the availability of cheap consumer goods has driven our foreign policy that looks beyond our borders. In our pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness, we have indebted ourselves nationally and individually.
Thomas Friedman, a journalist, characterized the American population in the following terms as a diet coke culture. in an article in the New York Times (2014) "We want the sweetness without the calories, the consumption without the savings and the safety net without the taxes". www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/sshsr Social Science, Humanities and Sustainability Research Vol. 2, No. 4, 2021 flows of investment for people and information. It decreased the cost of manufacturing, which means that companies can offer goods at a lower price to consumers (Wikipedia).

Globalization
As part of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) The US located many manufacturing companies outside the US Which resulted the in the closing of factories in many states and facilitated unemployment. Factory employment was the bread and butter of working-class Americans, (Wikipedia).

Economic Crisis of 2008
In 2007-8 the real estate market crashed as GREED became the predominant reasons behind the financial transactions that led to the crisis as banks engaged in a practice termed as "Predatory Lending".
Predatory Lending is the practice of giving loans to people who could not afford to repay them resulting in foreclosures. These mortgages were packed with other financial instruments in a financial portfolio termed a CDO (Collaterized Debt Obligation) and sold to investors. When these instruments failed, the market crashed and investors bailed out causing the crisis. Banks maximized their profits at the expense of the poorest Americans and the government bailed out the banks and nobody went to jail.
This situation heightened the distrust of the country in government, and it also caused a reality between the haves and have nots (Wikipedia).

Race Relations
The issue of race relations has always been an issue in the country. The African American Experience Slavery, segregation, and racism in the United States has generally been omitted in public school text books and limited discourse in political and social circles which has contributed to "Historical Illiteracy" for the general population.
The legacy of slavery, institutional racism, and the break-down of minority neighborhood, economic inequality, the lack of educational opportunity and a host of other factors have impeded African American's quest for the American Dream.
To maintain power The Republican Party is engaged in passing voter suppression laws to limit the votes of African Americans. Why is this happening? One reason can be characterize as "the browning of America". give the nominee the courtesy of a meeting (Hartmann, 2021).
McConnell's actions proved that he was an obstructionist to Obama's initiatives. Wouldn't the country be in a better position if this man had been a collaborator rather than an obstructionist. Globalization has had a major impact on the manufacturing jobs that were the bread and butter of the middle-class working population coupled with the neutering of the unions that was a major factor in the growth of wages heretofore.

Summary of Part II
The issue of race relations has always been an issue in the United States. With the election of Barack Obama, the country's white majority particularly white working men is threatened with the loss of power in the voting booth as the country is becoming more "Black and Brown".
Over the past five decades the number of working class and conservative voices in universities, the main-stream media, and other institutions of elite culture has diminished. When you tell a large segment of the country that their voices are not worth hearing, they are going to react badly, and they have.
Enter Donald Trump with his campaign slogan of "Draining the Swamp" in Washington DC, aimed at the Media and Liberals in particular. He intimated that the government is not working for working class people. So, the Working-class people embraced him and became his political base.

Concluding Remarks
Democracy is on the Brink as a result of the government's failure to sustain and enlarge the middle-class democracy. A number of factors are the reasons why. Chief among these factors is the power of the oligarchs.
The oligarch's initiatives to take over the institutions of government to foster their interests is paramount.
The decimation of the manufacturing industries that were the bread and butter of the working middle-class coupled with the neutering of unions that spurred economic growth for the working-class through policies like Globalization and treaties such as NAFTA exacerbated this decline.
The perceived threat of the minorities taking over the political power structure has conservatives initiating voting suppression laws in many states. Thom Hartmann was asked what he would recommend to address some of these issues and he replied, "repeal Citizens United as money is not free speech and corporations are not people".
I close with a narrative expressed by Bill Moyer about the oligarchs.
"They have brought a political system making change from within impossible. The plutocracy, get tax breaks, loop-holes in legislation, and are rewarded contracts. They fix the system so multi-nationals, hedge fund managers, and private equity firms pay less taxes than the average worker. They get subsidies. Rich corporate firms and banks get bailed out by the taxpayers when they get into trouble.
They fight regulation (Dodd/ Franklin Bill), prolong tax havens for multi-nationals and stick it to consumers as we pay at the pump, at the grocery store, and we pay the taxes they write off. Is it any wonder that the government is referred to as the "Wall Street Government".
As Anand Giridharadas quoted in his book, "Winners' Take All" to close the income gap between rich and poor, "THE WINNERS' HAVE TO TAKE LESSS".