We Must “Renew the Foundations of Democracy,” But We’re Failing Miserably

It could be argued that the United States had done a reasonably good job at the task that Jimmy Carter mentions here, up until perhaps 1980.  At that point, the top tax rate went from 70% to 28%, the educational system began to falter, union membership fell by two-thirds, the incarceration rate started to skyrocket, and social programs designed to keep kids in school, off drugs, and out of jail dropped off.

What was formerly a large and prosperous middle class is now a bunch of frustrated and ignorant racists, armed to the teeth, who teamed up with the billionaires to elect a two-bit conman as president.