“Love [of all kinds] has never been a popular movement, and no one’s ever wanted really to be free.” — James Baldwin
Donald Trump is America personified. He inherited money, plowed it into real estate, then hired the best accountants and security while buying off politician after politician. As soon as paying politicians no longer worked, he became one. When it’s the Catholic Church, they call you Pope, but when it’s Trump, they call you the Devil.¹
Were the Pope and Trump any less charismatic, their grift would be obvious. In exchange for a tax exemption, the Church was supposed to eschew politics, but European historians know the Church’s raison d'etre is cozying up to the King, then guiding him to the Pope’s businesses, er, charitable work. Trump is no different—his tax exemptions also require him to keep politicians near, lest they become enamored with taxes instead of debt to fund services. You might think I’m ignoring major differences, but it’s you who doesn’t understand. Every institution in America today, from immigration to schools, represents grift.
Higher education and religion now share the same elemental form: a tax dodge plus real estate expansion. Primary and secondary schools are conduits for public pensions with ROIs so unreasonable, Wall Street speculation must be invited to every table, including the one labeled “in loco parentis.” America’s military? It may have lost Vietnam, but the military-industrial complex won. Drugs and hippie culture? Big Pharma, with record profits, now one of VP Kamala Harris’s largest campaign contributors. Rock n’ roll? Can any musician truly claim counter-culture when tech companies, aligned with military R&D, control the algorithms dictating what we hear (and see) online?
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Please don’t say politics. Harris and Trump have been copying each other’s substantive policies so unabashedly, it’s comical. At one point, after the GOP publicized a child tax credit, Harris proposed exactly the same credit—but a thousand dollars more. With a month until Election Day, the main differences between the candidates appear to be Trump’s greater willingness to declassify information and issue executive orders requiring Supreme Court input. Such homogeneity exists only when civilian institutions have transferred real power to military generals and defense contractors. Perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised, given the fecklessness of lower-level attorneys and judges, who failed to protect civil liberties post-9/11. Politics everywhere runs on power, and the easiest path to it is weapons, which favors military influence. Unfortunately, every empire’s military relies on fear, distraction, and propaganda.“The President is Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy. As such, his office marks the victorious result of a long effort to make the civilian authority supreme over the military… Long before the American Revolution, it was established in England that the army was subordinate to the civilian authority and that the laws for the government of the armed forces were written by the civilian authority.” — William O. Douglas, The Anatomy of Liberty (1963)
Amidst our new “Kulturekampt,” smaller churches and other tax-exempt religious entities are surprisingly best-positioned to support new entrants. Corporations want only the best; governments under Catholic Church influence deliberately weaken the public sector to transfer responsibilities, then taxes, then debt to the private sector; law school is too expensive, too cliquish, and too favorable to legacy graduates; and mainstream journalism, on its best days, is mendacious or untrustworthy. Religion, whether run by honest bishops or politically-inclined real estate tycoons, still needs actual people. Not the ones who question too much, of course—just people who won’t realize they’re at their local church because there isn’t a non-religious community center nearby or other signs of competent local government.
Non-mainline churches used to be special. They helped integrate the South, opposed the Vietnam War early, and produced competent musicians. Tellingly, the only activity they’re still good at is entertainment, which doesn’t justify a tax exemption. Their status as “last institution standing” means any American who actually understands debt, the Catholic Church, and law will never gain traction nationally—not in politics, not in corporations, and not in schools. In other words, truth doesn’t have a chance in the light.
The only reason our grand experiment lasted so long is because of America’s vastness. Post-Europe, American immigrants could buy land and build communities far apart from each other. The second outsiders threatened normalcy, judges and lawyers installed segregation. The North invested in police, technology, and prisons, and the South politely drew lines showing everyone their place. Meanwhile, real estate was gobbled up and treated favorably under tax laws, creating the foundation for entrenched political power. There are still places to go if you believe in liberal Western values: Norway; Australia; Scotland; and non-Québécois Canada. I've not done a statistical analysis, but any belief system rendering less than 0.1 percent of its geography fair for new entrants won’t handle competition well. But hey, it was a damn good run, wasn’t it?
© Matthew Rafat (October 2, 2024 from Singapore)
1. During the Trump administration, the Catholic Church received special permission to get over one billion USD in COVID19 funds.
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