(Premise: nobody is up for dialogue, so the affluent simply leave a tip on the table for all the social service/education providers and their clients, and then call it a day.)
Years back, when I got hooked on demographics, I began assuring anxious Hispanic students with whom I was interacting that the diversity trend was in their favor. Overall, the United States would be a country of multiple minorities sometime before 2050. (P.S. At birth, it already is.)
I then added with a wry smile, “the only question is whether power transfers peacefully.”
We both agreed that was a huge, and incredibly challenging, question.
Note that when I make reference to demographic change that statistically shows minority population growth and white stagnation or decline, this is a numerical observation, not to be construed as somehow philosophically connected to those who regard this as “white displacement.” In fact, the United States has the opportunity through education and entrepreneurial flexibility to be not only the first nation of multiple minorities, but one which could facilitate their upward mobility –if it can get its act together and if racial antagonism does not prove to be an irreversible cancer.
Today, the demographic diversity pyramid in colleges, businesses, and a lengthy list of organizations has the greatest percentage dispersion of ethnicities at the lowest level. This percentage declines at the middle level and dwindles to a small number at the executive level. Change in the composition of this pyramid is practically inevitable given fertility rates and the composition of women of child-bearing age.
This expectation has nothing to do with the current surge in immigration, nor with any future fluctuations in its numbers. It is a here-and-now extrapolation.
Maybe the Big Agreement to be described below is not directly related to these comments on demographics, but indirectly it is: income and ethnic strata overlap. I confess up front that I have taken a bit of creative license, conflating and combining stereotypes and data skews and documentable assertions. (Isn’t writing fun when you control the Send button!)
Time-out for a trigger warning which maybe explains everything. At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, Gouverneur Morris, who represented Pennsylvania, rendered this opinion, “The Rich will strive to establish their dominion and enslave the rest. They always did and they always will.”
More calmly put, at times it can seem like there is a Big Agreement between affluent America (AA; no distinctions made for luck, inheritance, or intelligence) and non-affluent America (NA, includes the welfare system, those serving it, and tax-avoidance foundations; no connotation or connection intended to bad luck, poverty at birth, or intelligence).
AA has the luxury of choosing: personal, direct involvement in the hard work of developing policies that structurally would address the widening fissures within our country – or – the equivalent of leaving a tip, money for NA to do with what they wish – which on the record is to fund an elaborate potpourri of social service programs which typically defy evidence-based analysis using mutually agreed upon tools.
If AA desires a policy dialogue and raises for discussion issues like family formation, work ethic, deferred consumption, or education reform, the AA messenger is immediately attacked. NA shouts out, “what about reforming – the police, drug policy, prisons!” And then comes the conversation ender: “AA is white, male, racist. Therefore AA has no standing in our fight for social justice.”
The voice of AA becomes difficult to hear; it is only the sound of money (now soundless in the age of TechnoWorld) which resonates in the Big Agreement, the gratuity left to NA.
Contrary to what is often alleged, AA is aware of history, when white males with hypocritical (at best) views “confused” this country by combining a cogent governance structure with two incredible blemishes: acceptance of both slavery and second-class status for women.
All these years later, anything that AA suggests about certain components of moving from NA to AA is rendered useless by those two stupendous errors. Relatives of those mistakes have continued to plague the country to this day, even as significant change has occurred. Neither racial minorities nor women are remotely proportionally represented in AA.
While AA is not credible – in the popular view – they do have, uh, that asset called money. In its frustration – or maybe glee in being able to opt out of what you might call regular life — AA signs off on a Big Agreement. When it checks out, It is willing to click on the 20% box instead of 15% but it will not whip out its platinum card and convey a serious chunk of its net worth to a collective NA which overall has little interest in discussing a different way of living. The 20% tip itself has no negative impact on the lifestyle of AA. Ironically, sadly, the tip seemingly does little to move the needle for NA.
The AA-NA relationship holds regardless of unfolding demographic change or the continuing evolution of TechnoWorld or the comings and goings in other countries. In fact, none of the trends elsewhere – Europe with problems; Russia and China gaining in influence, despite the former’s invasion of Ukraine and the faltering Chinese economy; Japan aging out; and India trying to balance economic growth with religious divisiveness — send a message to AA or NA, a communication that might read – ‘you need to take care of your internal issues if you are to have any chance of peacefully maintaining a leading voice in world politics.’ The USA being a beacon for those seeking jobs is insufficient; if anything, the AA-NA equation is exacerbated.
Okay, there is inherent cynicism in describing anything like a Big Agreement. Maybe it’s the refuge of a scoundrel writer. But with President Biden’s son, Presidential candidate Trump, and New Jersey Senator Menendez all under indictment, how could anybody be cynical!
Amusing? Addendum
Imagine if Trump had a speechwriting assistant who wrote the following: “everybody knows China’s credibility with numbers and contracts is sub-optimal; most realize that NATO countries are not putting in their fair share of funding; immigration is in need of an overhaul, inclusive of a border strategy; despite its intentions, the UN has done little to prevent aggression throughout the world.”
In each case, Trump’s personal choice of verbiage on the issue buried fundamentally accurate observations with so much stylistic negativity that no serious two-party discussion was feasible. On racial matters and those of diversity, both his substance and his style were so off-putting that even a skilled speechwriter could not make it acceptable to more than a percentage of people, alas, a percentage that was greater than most would wish.
Meanwhile, a bit of analysis by Trump supporters would disclose that they are no more immune to the AA-NA imagery than anybody else. Fundamentally his disciples do not know where they are, or why, to which one unarticulated response is an increased suicide rate among older white men.
(This blog was written before Hamas attacked Israel and the latter responded.)