(I originally posted this about 6 months ago, before Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” slashed taxes for the very rich while cutting services for many less fortunate Americans, before Trump began his erratic embrace of tariffs, before ICE began grabbing thousands of non-white and ‘foreign-looking’ people off the streets, and before Trump persuaded the Republican-controlled Congress to claw back the money it had appropriated to support public broadcasting, and before…et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I think it’s even more relevant today, and I think it’s long past time for Democrats to leave their circular firing squad and embrace everything that is in the public good: public transportation, public parks, public schools, public health, and more.)

For the sake of argument, let’s assume that your family’s wealth is roughly average, which means that you’re worth about $1 million, a big jump from 2019.  “Both median and average family net worth surged between 2019 and 2022, according to the U.S. Federal Reserve. Average net worth increased by 23% to $1,063,700, the Fed reported in October 2023, the most recent year it published the data. Median net worth, on the other hand, rose 37% over that same period to $192,900.”

So if you are the average American, you are a millionaire, but before you get too excited, you are worth roughly 1/600,000 of what Elon Musk is worth!

I’m talking about the same Elon Musk who spent $300,000,000 to buy the last presidential election and, as it turns out, to purchase our government.  Three hundred million dollars is a fortune for nearly everyone else, but for Musk it was chump change.

Suppose you ( just barely a millionaire) had spent the same portion of your wealth that Musk did.  $300 million of his estimated worth of $600,000,000,000–SIX HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS– is .0005% 

And .0005% of your fortune is $500!

Maybe you’re richer, worth $3 million.  Well, 5 thousandths of 1 percent of your $3M is $3000.   

Even if you’re really rich–worth $30,000,000–your ‘Musk equivalent cost’ is still chump change, $30,000.

That’s right, we sold our country for a pittance.  And as I see it, those who willingly and wittingly bought into the MAGA line have also sold something–their souls. (Those Trump voters have been misinformed and miseducated by the Fox/right wing media machine for years deserve sympathy, not condemnation.)

Those who sell themselves are, to put it crudely, whores.  And those who sell themselves for .0005% are CHEAP WHORES.

That’s where America is right now, in the hands of greedy megalomaniacs, power-hungry opportunists, and vengeful white Christian nationalists.

How do we escape their grasp and recapture our country?  I suggest at least five courses of action: 1) support the ACLU and other organizations that are filing lawsuits, 2) join forces with anyone who supports local public institutions like schools and libraries, 3) support Democrats, Republicans, and Independents who take public stands against MAGA, 4) support independent journalism wherever you find it, and 5) stand with those the Trump Administration is attacking (which now includes Lutherans and Catholics who are supporting compassionate services for immigrants).

It’s long past time for liberal Democrats to stop focusing on sectional interests like gender, race, and immigrant status and pay attention to the needs of a shrinking middle class suffering from growing income inequality.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders sounded the warning back in 2017, when he urged everyone to “understand that absolutely these are very difficult and frightening times. But also understand that in moments of crisis, what has happened, time and time again, is that people have stood up and fought back. So despair is absolutely not an option.”

If we don’t work together, MAGA will eventually come for you, and for me, and all of us!