The Republicans Have It Backwards On Wealth And Rights

Two things that make a huge difference in a country are wealth and human rights. The Republican Party has it backwards on both.

Republicans want you to believe that human rights is like a pie. They say that when one group earns a right they never had before, another group will lose some degree of that right. Of course, that is not now, and never has been true. 

This lie is done by those who want to maintain the white patriarchy in this country. When minorities achieve a right that white men have always had, no one loses anything. It just means that rights are equally recognized under the law. White men don't have less rights when nonwhites and women get more rights.

What they have less of is white male privilege -- an unfair advantage that they never should have had.

Republicans also have it backwards on wealth. They want you to believe that when the rich get richer, it benefits everyone in society, because much of that increased wealth will "trickle down" to those on lower economic levels -- the middle class, working class, and the poor.

This has always been a lie also. Wealth is like a pie, because there is a finite amount of wealth in a country at any given time. When one group gets a larger percentage of that wealth, all other groups must share a smaller percentage.

Note the chart at the top of this page. It shows the percentage of wealth that certain groups have had in the United States between 1990 and 2019. Note that as wealth has grown for the top 10% (and especially the top 1%0, the percentage has shrunk for the bottom 90% (and especially the bottom 50%).

They want you to believe that as the wealth of a country grows, that new wealth benefits everyone. That also is not true. Thanks to the GOP laws benefitting the rich, they currently get almost all of that growth in wealth, while the rest of the country must share only a tiny percentage (and most see no growth at all in their wealth).

As long as the Republicans stay in power (or at least retain enough power to block any changes in economic policy), it will stay this way. The rich will get richer, while the bottom 90% does not (and actually loses ground when inflation is considered).

It does not have to be that way. Before the Republicans re-instituted their Trickle-Down Economic Theory about 1980, rising wealth was fairly equally shared among the sectors of U.S. society. As productivity rose, it benefitted everyone. It could be that way again. But fairer economic policies cannot be achieved while the GOP has veto power. They only care about the rich.

The same is true about human rights. Equal rights will not be achieved as long as Republicans have a veto power over them. In fact, they are currently engaged in trying to take rights away from many (like women, LGBT community, and nonwhite voters).

We could have a country where equality in rights and fairness in economics was a fact. But it will only happen when Republicans are voted out of power (and Democrats feet are held to the fire). We have the power to fix this, but only if we vote!