January 28, 2018
All week, the news has been filled with stories of Trump’s reception at the World Economic Forum in Davos. While he was booed by foreign journalists who recognize the palpable threat embodied in Trump’s constant attacks on the press, world leaders were more tempered in their response. The New York Times reported that Trump was well received by the global economic elite, some of whom, confoundingly, thought that his bellicose rhetoric on trade might be a useful bargaining tool (Source: “Trump Arrived in Davos as a Party Wrecker. He Leaves Praised as a Pragmatist,” by Peter S. Goodman and Keith Bradsher, The New York Times, 1/26/18).
On the heels of Davos, we read reports that not only was the U.S. economy on track for its ninth year of continued growth, but that all of the major world economies were in the midst of expansion (Source: “Every One of the World’s Big Economies Is Now Growing,” by Peter S. Goodman, The New York Times, 1/27/18). Buried in the fine print of these reports was the likelihood that the expanding economies had yet to impact wages and the fact that the bulk of the benefits of these improved economies were accruing to the 1%, exacerbating income inequality.
The uncomfortable truth, though, is that many of us in the professional class also stand to reap the benefits of the expanding economy. The regressive tax cuts that benefit corporations and the ultra-wealthy are also causing spikes in the value of our 401Ks and increases in our take home pay. The temptation, as we contemplate how best to spend the bump in our bank balance, will be to dismiss the consequential harm being wrought by this administration on marginalized communities as insignificant collateral damage.
Given our physical isolation from poverty and our enduring residential segregation, there is a very real risk that the persecution and suffering of detained immigrants forced to perform slave labor, of African Americans harassed and killed by the police or LGBT people stigmatized and discriminated against, will be out of sight, out of mind for many Americans. That is to say nothing of the damage to our environment from Trump’s aggressive deregulation which will literally be invisible until it shows up in lungs damaged by deteriorating air quality or cancer spikes caused by the nationalization of Flint water supply standards.
We need to bear this in mind as we read the efforts to rationalize the presence of a toxic, callow white supremacist like Stephen Miller in The White House. Remember this as you read preview articles about the upcoming State of the Union speech by Trump which pretend that a business friendly speech in Davos presages a change in the fundamental character of the intemperate, intolerant, lawless person currently holding the office of President of the United States.
One year in, the urge to normalize is taking hold, but the real danger of this presidency has not receded for any one of us. Resist the urge to privilege your portfolio over your values and your material comfort over your reverence for the Rule of Law. The question for each of us is, “Will you sell your birthright for a mess of pottage?”