Description

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This is a how-to-fix-it book about populism, polarization and tribalism, which are tearing our democracy apart - and can ruin our economy if we become couch-potatoes.Venezuela is populism's canary in the coal mine. Chavez rode a wave of racial, populist resentment to power and destroyed Venezuela's democracy and then the economy. Twenty-two years later, Chavez cronies are still in power looting the national treasury as a poor, unemployed and sickly population starves or flees Venezuela as refugees. Few in Venezuela saw this disaster coming in Chavez's 1998 campaign or his first years in office. Likewise, only some Americans realize what can happen to the U.S. democracy no less the rule of law, the economy, trade, and family income nationwide if populism goes its merry way in the US as it did in Venezuela.American populism is dismembering systems that produced the most free and prosperous political economy invented by humankind. How to preserve democracy and prosperity is not just a political question for a toadying, supine Republican Party or a confused and scared Democratic Party in the 2020 election. Fundamental institutions need to step up and communicate to society in TV and the internet not just print - because America's not doing much reading anymore.Media - especially TV and the internet - need to cover the news with factual insight instead of pandering, entertaining and feeding ignorance, bias and isolated cults of violence spurred by mainstreamed conspiracy nonsense. Where is Edward R. Murrow?Education - especially in law and science - need to get back to basics, the facts, the reading, writing and arithmetic of the modern age. A whole generation is losing the discipline of thinking and communicating in depth to others. America is fragmenting. We need the verified, sourced facts of life in context.Business needs to explain to people that the only way to address inequality is for all Americans to have some ownership in enterprises big and small; and that every locality needs to explain to its population continuously the inter-dependent, international nature of all the material things in their community which provide the jobs, income, savings and future of that locality. Government needs to explain to citizens what it does, how it does it, and why it does it, and ask for citizen feedback via social media, internet reported on TV, so citizens see the value of government and what taxes pay for, which they are blissfully ignorant of at the moment. Most importantly, the society in unison needs to address wealth and income inequality, which is at the root of populism and polarization. Democracies cannot survive in a one-person-one-vote democracy living side-by-side a top 1% wealth equals the bottom 99% wealth economy. The solution is not a wealth tax but an investment of the 1% in the 99%, family by family, as in the Shark Tank TV program which should be replicated for every TV station in America telling continuous case stories. That is a win-win solution for 100% of the American people.America is in trouble. Old tragedies - the Indian genocide, slavery and Jim Crow, and the malign view of immigrants -- are coming home to roost. Opportunistic populists are using these unaddressed horrors to get and keep power over cult-like followers who hear, see and say no evil is there. To recapture the spirit of the union, America needs to get beyond Trump, who is just a symptom of the malady. The real story is not about Trump. It's about us, and our efforts to get healthy again. The politicians are not going to do this. We citizens are going to do it, or else we go into the dark.