Sep 9, 2017 5 min read

Robert Reich, the former secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, published a series of op-eds in Salon and Newsweek recently condemning President Trump, arguing that Trump should be impeached, perhaps not least of all for suspected collusion with Russia to influence our presidential election.

I have the greatest respect for Reich, and agree with the viewpoint of his 2013 film “Inequality for All,” where he makes a compelling argument that Americans are being betrayed by Wall Street elites and their political partners in Washington, D.C. Globalization has outsourced so many jobs that it has impacted our tax base radically, resulting in a lower standard of living for millions of Americans.

The income disparity between billionaire elites on Wall Street and the other 95 percent of Americans is now more pronounced than any time in our nation’s history.

Reich argues that our middle class is collapsing, and if you live outside New York City or San Francisco, you can feel it every day.

While I agree with Reich’s perspective, I am compelled to point out that it was President Clinton (who appointed Reich) and the Democratic Party to which they both belong, that are directly responsible for our economic crisis, the election of Donald Trump, and the radicalized politics that now threaten violence in our streets.

Clinton signed the China Trade Relations Act of 2000, which threw open the doors for the offshoring of American jobs to a communist country half-a-world away. It directly benefited Walmart in Clinton’s home state of Arkansas to the tune of billions of dollars, and ensured the political pull of Wall Street elites who secured Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat in New York that year. Bill’s buddies at Walmart, and Hillary’s friends on Wall Street, made billions, while men and women who have voted for the Democratic Party for decades saw their jobs disappear.

Clinton argued it was better to open our doors to China to prevent them from becoming militarily hostile and regionally aggressive in the face of possible economic failure. If that is true, then why is it that when the Soviet Union’s economy collapsed in the 1980s, we did not see the Soviets go rogue? If Ronald Reagan had suggested we send American jobs overseas to the Soviet Union to help the communist government there stay in power, what do you think the reaction of the average American would have been?

The sad fact is that the Democratic Party lost touch with the middle class, and cut the political tree limb they were sitting on – organized labor, union workers, coal miners – in exchange for financial support from Wall Street elites and their political partners overseas. These Wall Street elites are now billionaires, while middle-class Americans can barely make ends meet, and college kids are working minimum-wage jobs.

It also does not help Democrats when they embrace the radical politics of fringe groups who most Americans cannot identify with on an emotional or intellectual level. Since the vast majority of Americans are not gay or transgender, or being shot by the racist cops our national media see lurking everywhere, perhaps Democrats should look in the mirror to grasp the hard facts of what they have become. We looked to the Democratic Party to protect the interests of working Americans, but a bunch of Judas betrayers sold us out for 30 pieces of silver, so now Americans are being economically and politically crucified.

Both parties now get more and more financial support from hedge fund managers, who plug millions of dollars into protest groups that are putting us on the path of violence and bloodshed. Just Google the names of the top three donors to Black Lives Matter, none of whom are poor, black, or marginalized in any way. Their entire goal is to pit people against one another in public, to divide and distract us from what they are doing in secret every day.

The next time the Democratic Party wants to actually do something for working and middle-class Americans who are not gay, transgendered, or an oppressed minority from Mexico or the Middle East, consider the following: First, they should enact tort reform to stop lawsuit abuse against health care providers, which is the real reason health care is so expensive in the United States. Do that, and more Americans will be applying for a national health care plan, rather than bankruptcy.

Second, Democrats should wake up to the fact that China is a communist country, and shares none of the liberal values they claim to represent. The Chinese do not believe in the democratic process, or take a soft touch approach to drug crimes and the death penalty.

Third, if Democrats don’t like gun violence, then bring back jobs, stability and belief in the American Dream, rather than allowing their party to be led by a pack of slave-labor profiteers on Wall Street. There is a reason they go to every poor country in the world looking for a better deal, putting us all on the road to serfdom.

Finally, get politics out of our schools, and allow teachers to focus on what kids need to know in order to survive in this economy, and teach for jobs rather than tests. The left has done everything it can to take dress codes, corporal punishment, and consequences out of classrooms, while cell phones, short shorts, and No Child Left Behind reign supreme.

Mazgaj is a substitute teacher at West Greene High School and has degrees from West Virginia University and Wheeling Jesuit University.