Class War In the United States of America in 2018

Class war happens when one economic class of people harms another class.

It can happen that the poor, underclass can revolt and simply kill the rich classes as happened in Russia in 1917 and China in 1949; or, it can happen that the rich class uses the political system to steal money from the poor and underclass, as is happening in the USA today.

One of the lesser discussed facets of the Trump phenomenon is the systematic theft of money and property from the American middle and working classes being engaged in by the United States government.

Here are some fronts on the class war:

1. Income redistribution from poor to rich - tax cuts:


'The median household income, adjusted for inflation, has grown by just 1.5 percent ― $839 ― since the beginning of the Great Recession. Over the same period, the total annual economic output of the United States has grown at 10 times that rate.' All that money has been funneled into the hands of the rich. See this for details: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/republican-tax-plan-class-war_us_5a1431dde4b0bfa88c1cfafa

2. Income redistribution from poor to rich - unions:

'In the Great Depression, F.D.R. pushed through the Wagner Act, which gave workers the legal right to found unions and bargain collectively. During the postwar decades, partly thanks to the negotiating clout of the trade unions, many ordinary Americans with no great education did so well that they stopped thinking of themselves as working class...Ronald Reagan fired the striking air-traffic controllers, launching what has turned out to be a thirty-year onslaught on trade unions and workers’ prerogatives. Under successive administrations, labor laws were weakened, and those that remained on the books were no longer vigilantly enforced. Union membership fell sharply—from twenty per cent of the labor force, in 1983, to twelve per cent, in 2011. (In the private sector, the decline has been even more precipitous.)'

https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/americas-class-war

3. Income redistribution from poor to rich – education:

The rich class wants public schools cut so that education is a privilege of the rich.

'The administration’s new “America First” budget, released Thursday, follows through on this promise by slashing funds for the Education Department by 13.5 percent, or $9.2 billion.' https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/03/trumps-education-budget-revealed/519837/

The Secretary of Education is a campaign contributor who has made millions by collecting student loans in default. Additionally, Betsy DeVos has no interest in education beyond creating more students in debt. Today's students are the indentured class of the United States.

4. Income redistribution from poor to rich - Social Security and Medicare:

Welfare reform is '…Talk of “structural changes” is political jargon for the privatization of these bedrock programs upon which hundreds of millions of people depend and their destruction as guaranteed entitlements.'

Privatization is code for ending any government guarantees and handing the trust funds to Wall Street bankers. The rich class has wanted to destroy Social Security since it was enacted in the 1930's because the rich think poor people are stealing money from them to fund a pension.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/12/04/pers-d04.html

This conversation could be extended indefinitely, but the point will be consistent - under Trump and the Republican majority, the Rich class is stealing systematically from the poor and middle class.

It is a little discussed but long lasting issue that will haunt the country for years to come.