2024 presidential election US needs a socialist movement to break two-party chokehold

• Published date: 13 August 2023
• Author: MARK HARRIS
• Publication title: Sunday Tribune

That’s certainly true for wealth inequality. The average net worth of the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans was 15 times greater last year than it was in 1982, according to the Institute for Policy Studies. Indeed, the richest 1% of Americans own more than half of all stock and mutual fund investments

Along with the growth of poverty, since 2019 life expectancy in the US has also been on the decline, registering the largest two-year drop in a century.

That’s the American Dream in digest form, a paradise of wealth for the corporate elite but elusive prosperity for the many millions of working Americans who create that wealth. Welcome to the “rich” nation where nearly 25% of the population regularly experiences food insecurity, the ranks of reported homeless persons is more than half a million, and close to 38 million people live in official poverty.

The US fares worse in maternal, infant and youth mortality rates compared to many other high- income nations. The poor public health response to the Covid-19 pandemic, lack of universal health-care coverage, and a fragmented health system infrastructure are key factors driving the decline.

At the root of the failures is the corporatised health-care system. As Becker’s Hospital Review reports, pharmaceutical and health insurance CEOs are among the highest-paid executives. That’s saying something when median CEO pay was $22.3m in 2022. Unfortunately, all this executive class beneficence hasn’t translated into better health care for the public. Last year, an estimated 38% of Americans said they or a family member postponed medical care, often for serious conditions, because of cost concerns.

It’s fair to ask how democratic can any society be that is so economically unequal. The answer of course is not much. The US is a skewed version of a democratic society, one that works for all only in the world of political rhetoric. Political democracy here is more managed than cultivated, with moneyed elites in charge and the influence of corporate power dominant.

With the 2024 presidential campaign shaping up as a potential rematch between President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump, the electoral choices are highly circumscribed. Tellingly, an NBC News poll showed a strong majority of American voters don’t want either candidate to run.

Even with Trump facing multiple federal criminal indictments, as well as an array of primary challengers, he remains the first choice for president among Republicans, with more...