In America the Majority Rules and Devil Take the Hindmost
by John Lawrence
This is a partial rebuttal of Frank Thomas' article today. I agree with Frank totally, but I'm going to act as devil's advocate. Articles have been written about how 40% of Americans couldn't afford a $400. emergency without borrowing the money or selling something. I hasten to point out that that statistic implies that 60% of Americans could afford a $400. emergency and 60% represents a majority of Americans. America is a democracy not by, of and for the people as Frank says, but a majority in the sense that the majority rules and the winners take all. It doesn't matter that 40% don't have a roof over their heads or can't put food on the table if it comes to that. If 60% are relatively well off, Trump will win the next election.
Data from Mastercard SpendingPulse shows that U.S. retail sales grew by 3.4% this holiday season, with online shopping rising by 18.8% over 2018. If there is such great inequality in the US with the implication being that Americans are faring so poorly, how do you account for this? How come year upon year Americans are spending more money on Christmas? Somebody must have money to spend, and, since the US' GDP is 70% based on consumer spending, well, it seems that the majority of Americans has the money to spend. Sure not everyone is well off. 500,000 people are homeless, but Republicans don't care about a minority of people who can't share in the American dream. As long as 60% can, that represents a majority, and in American politics the majority rules.
This is what Democrats don't get. Americans don't care how wealthy Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates are. They don't care that 3 Americans own as much wealth as the bottom half of Americans. They only care that the top half plus one (a majority) has the money to spend to live a decent consumer oriented life filled with the latest techno gadgets and other goodies. Do Americans care that some Americans go bankrupt because they can't pay their medical bills? No, as long as they, the majority, don't have any such problems. If they come down with some horrible illness that bankrupts them, then all of a sudden they will care, but, until they do, they will be happily in the majority of Trump voters who think America is doing just fine.
However, there are a few choke points at which the majority of Americans will join the minority demanding change. The main two are the stock market and a major war. Roughly one half of Americans are invested in the stock market through their 401k plans. This means that their wealth and future wealth is dependent on the stock market. Steve Vernon, a researcher at the Stanford Center on Longevity, points out in a 2018 report: “This survey shows that roughly half of households have access to a work-based plan — and so that half is more likely to be ‘the haves’ and the people who don’t have a work-based plan are more likely to be ‘the have nots.’” Exactly. Half of Americans, a veritable majority, have done very well as the stock market has exploded going from 10, 428 in 2009 to 28, 538 in 2019. That represents a pretty good accumulation of wealth for a majority of Americans. Not as much as Jeff Bezos has, to be sure, but better perhaps than their parents had.
So.... what if the stock market crashed as it did in 2008 and as it has done many times before. All of a sudden the majority of Americans are affected by one sudden cataclysmic event. A major war could have the same effect, and with a nutcase at the helm, it's not a foregone conclusion that a major war won't happen, and, as Trump says, "It will be over very quickly." Maybe so, but that would probably facilitate a major upheaval of the global monetary system and a crash in the stock market. The global monetary system is already under much stress as sanctions have been used to weaponize the dollar. Dedollarization proceeds at a great pace, and at some point, this will crack the dollar as the world's reserve currency. Then all bets are off for increased Christmas sales.
There are other potential choke points that are on the horizon as well. Student loan debt is now at $1.5 trillion. This mainly affects young people as does the global warming problem. If enough young people see their future as excluding them from the American Dream, they will eventually rebel en masse as young people are rebelling all over the world. But so far the number of Americans affected by climate change - those who have lost their homes to wildfires or floods or seen their insurance coverage skyrocket or be denied altogether - are very much in the minority. And student loan debt is being borne very stoically ... so far.
America is a majoritarian society. That's what Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren don't get. It is also a "devil take the hindmost" society. According to Grammarist: "Devil take the hindmost is a phrase that describes a situation in which someone thinks only of himself and his own interests, leaving others to deal with their own fates. Hindmost is an adjective that describes the person who is the furthest from the front or the one who is in the back of a line or group. The idea behind the meaning of the saying devil take the hindmost is of a group of people being pursued by the devil. The people who take care of themselves and run away with no thought about the others who may be slower or lagging behind, will be safe. It is believed that devil take the hindmost was a popular proverb during the 1500s."
This is a perfect description of American culture. Far from "we are all in this together" as Frank suggests we should be, Americans are all out for themselves, and, as long, as the majority are buying more and more Christmas gifts, year upon year, the majority of Americans will have a surfeit of stuff and they won't care how rich the wealthy get compared to themselves nor will they care how many suffer from homelessness or go bankrupt from medical bills.