Americans will come to a crossroads on November 5th. If we elect Trump, we go down the road of being entitled bullies to each other, our allies, and nature itself. In Trump’s world, he who dominates wins. America’s wealth will continue to flow to the very top, and protections for those of us at the bottom will fade away.
Trump has already successfully divided us into antagonistic factions and set us up to view anyone’s gain as our loss. But life is not a zero-sum game.
Once upon a time, Americans valued the common good. Now, the tragedy of failing to value the common good is wreaking havoc on our ability to exist as a functioning country. In economics, tragedy occurs when privileged groups take more than their fair share of resources. For example, the top 1% make more money than the bottom 50% combined (https://www.aeaweb. org/research/chart/inequality-passthrough- income-us).
Consider air and water, life-supporting shared resources. An example of tragic outcomes can be starkly visualized by anyone who lived through the’sixties and ‘seventies. Unregulated, unrestrained corporate interests completely ignored the common good by pouring sewage into rivers and belching poisons into the air. The public started to wake up to this when the Cuyahoga River in Ohio was so polluted it caught fire.
By the early 1970s, the newly established Environmental Protection Agency commissioned the project Documerica. The dismal images produced boosted public support for government oversight to bring back drinkable water and breathable air. Then, as now, there are missions that can be accomplished only at the federal level. Support for the EPA is still widespread. Not surprisingly, most Americans want to keep breathing.
However, Project 2025, the 900-page plan for a second Trump presidency, was written by extreme right-wing groups and former Trump staffers who want to privatize or abandon the common good. As one “small” example, the farm bill they envision will cut all governmental support for growers to strategically plant “conservation rows” that help keep the soil in place (“Farm programs, USDA would shrink under Project 2025 goals for ag,” https://investigatemidwest. org). If you don’t think this is important, look at images from Oklahoma’s Dust Bowl.
Regulations on pollution for auto manufacturers, big oil, and big industry will be dismantled under Trump’s plan to let corporations compete internationally without the bother of accounting for “externalities,” such as toxic chemicals, run-off of excrement from centralized feeding operations (CAFOs), and too many other sources of air, water, and soil contamination to list.
Project 2025 plans to all but do away with the EPA (“Project 2025 would ‘essentially eviscerate the EPA,’ former staff warn,” www.theverge.com). Let that sink in. The plan is to pump the economy with no regard for public health or future generations.
Further, the common good provided by public education, the post office, free libraries, the rule of law, the freedom of women and minorities, pollution regulations, civil rights, and the separation of Church and State are all at risk under Plan 2025. Please do not take us down that road on November 5, 2024. Let us breathe the air, drink the water, and preserve religious and personal freedom. Even though Trump increased the national debt by a four-year record high of almost eight trillion, Republicans claim that Democrats give away too much of the public treasury. Certainly. Biden and Harris have invested time, energy, and money in infrastructure, bringing manufacturing back to America, backing workers’ rights, enforcing pollution control, reducing inflation, supporting struggling families, and public education for all.
As in Roosevelt’s New Deal, these funds support the common good of the public. We need this investment as a nation. Separate, warring interests will take us down a deadend road. We can only thrive if we preserve what is left of the common good.