Mexification

Badtux says it has happened here. And that it is complete, approximately 30 years after the beginning of the Reagan presidency. He points to an op-ed by Nicholas D. Kristof:

In my reporting, I regularly travel to banana republics notorious for their inequality. In some of these plutocracies, the richest 1 percent of the population gobbles up 20 percent of the national pie. 

But guess what? You no longer need to travel to distant and dangerous countries to observe such rapacious inequality. We now have it right here at home — and in the aftermath of Tuesday’s election, it may get worse. 

The richest 1 percent of Americans now take home almost 24 percent of income, up from almost 9 percent in 1976. As Timothy Noah of Slate noted in an excellent series on inequality, the United States now arguably has a more unequal distribution of wealth than traditional banana republics like Nicaragua, Venezuela and Guyana.

...

And so on. And so forth. If you are a certain age, and if you were born into the American middle class, you are by now nodding your head vigorously. I was born in the lower class, touched the middle class in mid-career, watched in dismay as my fortunes leveled off and then turned downward, and am nodding my head vigorously. It'd be hard to miss the course of things.

Unless you are the whole bloody Democratic Party superstructure, including President Obama. Then you are convinced that such things never happen, oh no, not in America, land of opportunity.

Fuck that. We've been had. And Dem leaders continue to be had. And our "Mexification" ... Badtux's term for the unapologetic elimination of the middle class by the folks who have money and/or income... continues unabated.

Expect the same to continue as long as Republicans run any part of our government... and also as long as Democrats run any part of our government.

Be sure to read Badtux's post, especially for the concluding joke.