The fundamental premise of a democratic government is that voters will support those policies that benefit them, and they will oppose issues that are harmful. The problem in America is that society has become so complex that it is often difficult to determine whether or not a government policy is really beneficial. Republicans are often willing to finance expensive and sophisticated public relations campaigns to delude voters into supporting conservative policies that the middle and working classes should oppose. A prime example of this is the campaign against the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
Industrial countries all over the world provide some form of government health insurance for their citizens. However, Republicans in the U.S. were able to convince many Americans that public health insurance was a bad idea. Conservatives were able to persuade many racially bigoted citizens to believe that the ACA was a financially destructive plan of Barack Obama, the nation’s African American president. The health program was derisively called Obamacare.
That propaganda worked for a while when the ACA was launched in 2010. But as medical care became available for the first time for many American who would otherwise have to suffer in silence, the ACA came to the rescue and political support became increasingly more intense. Politicians who are adamantly opposed to aspects of the ACA now find themselves in political jeopardy.
There is a lesson from this experience that has not yet sunk in. It should be clear by now that the oligarchs and their allies have lied to the people. Their only consideration was to reduce taxes by eliminating the public expense of providing health care for everyone. The average citizen should now be aware of the sophisticated communication techniques available for the dissemination of hyper conservative propaganda.
Unfortunately, some American businesses have also become predatory enterprises. Decades ago, craftsmen took great pride in the quality of their products. They were more likely to stand behind their work. The emphasis now is to increase sales and turnover inventory. Charge the unsuspecting consumer a bit more. The fees involved in financial transactions provide opportunities for up charging unsuspecting consumers.
While the administration in the White House now purports to be the friend of the average citizen, there seems to be an effort to strip Americans of all protections against predation. There is a move to render impotent the citizen’s greatest advocate, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a product of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act.
The fundamental strategy is to remove enforcement authority from the bureau and replace it with an impaired congressional oversight. The move was initiated by the payday loan industry that keeps working class borrowers in a never ending cycle of indebtedness. The FPB enforcement has made it more difficult for lenders to evade state restrictions on usury — laws that limit the interest rate lenders can charge.
Republicans that tried to convince voters to oppose the ACA now want to impair the effectiveness of the CFPB, so that the people will be sitting targets for the predators. It makes little sense for working men and women to identify their interests with those of the oligarchs.
