The Murder of America’s Middle Class

A National Divorce Is On the Cards…

Does America need a national divorce?

One of the country’s mouthiest politicians this week is claiming it does. I won’t name said politician because today’s dispatch really isn’t about that person. Instead, it’s about the question raised and the specific verb employed—“need.”

Does America need said divorce?

I would certainly argue no—America does not need a national divorce.

Like almost all divorces, this one, were it to occur, would be painful, messy, and devastating to the family (the American population). The kids (the rest of the world) would forever be scarred by the split.

The divorce would also cause extreme financial pain for the two halves of the country, much like real-life divorce causes financial pain for both partners in its aftermath.

That said, divorce often isn’t about “need” so much as it’s about a fait accompli that just happens because partners have already grown apart and realize one day that the marriage is irretrievable.

And that’s where I worry that, just maybe, the mouthy politician is on to something.

For more than a decade now, I’ve been warning that a cleaving is likely in the cards for America.

Back in the day—let’s call it 2011-2012—I was seeing early signs that two Americas were emerging and I was writing about it. Almost to a person, people dismissed my commentary as stupid.

Yet, here we are, a decade later, in an age where the word “secession” regularly appears in mainstream media headlines, and where a member of Congress can tweet about the need for Americans to divorce and go their separate ways.

Today’s fault lines largely reflect the so-called Red v. Blue divide. But that’s a much too simplistic take.

Though political, religious, and social differences do color this question, the root cause is color blind. It’s a have/have not divide that crosses political, religious, and social boundaries.

Those boundaries have always defined America, which anyone should expect in such a heterogenous society. Just look at the 1950s and 1960s and the fight for equality and protests against America’s involvement in the Vietnam War. Those moments—bordering on crises, for sure—never threatened the integrity of the union.

But today, political and media voices regularly question that unified integrity and wonder aloud if a cleaving might just be the best path forward.

Why? How did we get here?

The answer lies in the 1980s, when the seeds of divorce were planted.

I am specifically talking about taxation policies, the breaking of the unions, and the deregulation of the financial industry that benefited Wall Street at a terrible cost to Main Street.

Many people will disagree with that assessment since it was thanks to those policies that the Great Bull Market of the ’80s and ’90s began.

OK, but what about this chart?

The trend lines are based on Social Security wage data, and show quite effectively that changes to the way Wall Street works, and shifts in tax policy, created an environment where the rich have seen their wealth explode higher, while much of the American workforce missed out on attaining new wealth.

Or this chart, which more clearly demonstrates just how dramatically government policy altered the trajectory of the once-vaunted middle class:

The only takeaway that matters here is that the dark-blue line, productivity, keeps moving up at a steady pace from 1948-2021… but wages, the light-blue line, stagnate right about the time that deregulation steamrolls the economy.

Those gray numbers in the middle of the chart show that from 1948-1971, productivity and compensation moved in near-lockstep fashion. After ’79 (the beginning of deregulation) compensation lagged productivity growth by a factor of nearly 4x.

Those two charts are the seeds of today’s discontent in America.

Or let’s just call it what is really is: The Murder of the Middle Class.

Those charts explain why a national divorce is certainly possible.

What would stop a divorce?

A strong-willed group of politicians on both sides of the aisle unifying to disregard the lies of the wealthy, the corporate class, and the lobbyists (who as an industry should be euthanized) and restructure society so that the middle class can once again take root and flourish as it did from the end of World War II until the 1980s.

Look, the middle class isn’t aiming to become millionaires.

They’re quite happy heading off to factory jobs and middle-manager jobs. They don’t complain about that. By global standards, American workers are amazingly productive. They’ve got a work ethic built into their DNA.

But in return they expect the ability to earn that middle-class lifestyle America promises but increasingly fails to deliver on. They are burned out on this political model that rewards the wealthy and corporations at the expense of their sweat (their productivity).

Who can blame them?

A once broadly fair economy has been tilted against them. That story all dads tell about walking to school barefoot in the snow, uphill both ways, across broken glass… that is today’s American middle class.

They can’t win for losing. More likely, they lose for winning.

Now, 40 years after the 1980s Era of Deregulation planted those seeds, the discord is ready to harvest.

The middle class is rightly pissed, and they’re not going to take it anymore.

They’ve already started their own revolution.

So, no, America doesn’t need a divorce.

But don’t be surprised if divorce is already a fait accompli because of the way politicians, the courts, Corporate America, and the loathsome slime known as lobbyists have murdered the middle class with policies aimed at benefiting the wealthiest while robbing the workers.

Trouble with a capital T lies ahead for America…