McCarl letter: Trump, GOP

Donald Trump is a symptom, not a cause. Max Weber documented the linkage between the Protestant work ethic and capitalism. Weber wrote that capitalist individualism and the competitive zeal to succeed would create “an iron cage” that will enslave us. If the Republican Party (those responsible for Donald Trump’s excesses) has its way, there will be no public education, no public land, the sick and aged will be tossed into the street, and we will live in an insular autocracy run by Trump and his global thugs. Women, people of color, immigrants, intellectuals, a free press and those outside of the elite mercantile class will be marginalized. We know that we can break the bars of this cage through the redistribution of wealth: a reasonable tax on the rich that more equitably provides resources for all. Paul Ryan and his smirking peers in Congress target existing redistributive programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid not because these programs are broken. They seek to destroy the last vestiges of a more equitable society so that they can force us permanently into the iron cage. Collectively, we can stop them. Boycotts of their products, services, banks and stocks can shrink their wealth.

This story was originally published March 3, 2017 at 7:18 PM with the headline "McCarl letter: Trump, GOP."