Four Ways Republicans Broke America—And How We Can Fix It
The last fifteen years in U.S. American politics have been nothing short of utter hell. But how did we get here? How did the United States become so bitterly divided that families barely speak to each other, that neighbors view each other with suspicion and hostility, that basic human rights have become “political issues”?
The easy answer is Donald Trump. But Trump is merely a symptom of a deeper disease that has been growing for decades: greed. A small ruling class — predominantly white men — has systematically worked to dismantle the bonds of community and compassion that hold human society together, all in the service of accumulating ever more wealth and power for themselves.
Their remarkably effective strategy has been centered around these four key points — four things that have seemingly broken our country.
#1. Exploit “objective” journalism
First, the ruling class learned how to manipulate the media’s commitment to “objectivity.” Modern journalism operates under a fatal flaw: the compulsion to present “both sides” of every issue, even when one side is demonstrably false.
This misguided notion of balance means that if a senator says the sky is purple, journalists must report it alongside scientists saying it’s blue — as if both positions deserve equal weight. As long as you have the right credentials — whether as a politician, CEO, or other authority figure — media outlets feel obligated to amplify your voice, regardless of truth.
Climate change offers the perfect example of how the wealthy exploit this weakness. Despite overwhelming scientific consensus about human-caused global warming, fossil fuel companies spent billions manufacturing doubt. They funded fake research organizations, paid scientists to question the evidence, and ran sophisticated media campaigns suggesting the science wasn’t settled.
This playbook has been used repeatedly on issues from tobacco’s health effects to trickle-down economics, allowing the wealthy to protect their profits by muddying the waters of public discourse.
#2. Divert attention from economic issues
A major problem for the ruling class is that the U.S. is actually a fiscally liberal country. Our government’s most popular program — with a 90% approval rating — is Social Security. This public pension program is fundamentally socialist, not capitalist, in nature.
Similarly, Medicare enjoys a sky-high approval rating, another cooperative program that is socialist. Other “far-left” ideas like expanding Medicare to everyone, making four-year college free, guaranteeing paid family leave, and raising taxes on the wealthy all poll extremely well in the U.S.
As the historian Heather Cox Richardson has documented, the ruling class couldn’t attack these programs directly or they would lose. So they diverted attention from our economic exploitation to manufactured culture wars. By stoking white racial resentment and moral panic about “family values,” they convinced many Americans to vote against their own economic interests.
The strategy was breathtakingly cynical but effective: While workers argue about bathrooms and critical race theory, the wealthy quietly dismantle labor protections, cut corporate tax rates, and shift more of the tax burden onto working families. They understood that as long as we were fighting each other over racial and cultural issues, we wouldn’t unite to challenge the economic system that was enriching them at our expense.
#3. Create alternative information ecosystems
All of that was exacerbated and amplified by the creation of self-reinforcing media echo chambers that transformed political disagreements into alternate realities.
Fox News pioneered this approach in the 1990s, establishing itself not just as a conservative news outlet but as an alternate information universe. Viewers weren’t just getting different opinions — they were getting completely different facts. This wasn’t an accident; internal documents and testimony have revealed Fox News executives and hosts knowingly spread false information to keep their audience engaged and angry.
But what Fox News started has metastasized in the social media era. Algorithms designed to maximize engagement (and thus, time spent and corporate profits) push users toward more extreme content, creating ideological bubbles where conspiracy theories flourish unchecked. These platforms don’t just confirm existing biases — they deepen them, making it increasingly difficult for people to even understand those who see the world differently.
When your uncle shares that questionable Facebook post, he’s not just expressing a different opinion — he’s living in a completely different information ecosystem. The result is a fractured society where we can no longer agree on basic facts, let alone solutions to our common problems.
#4. Dismantle or kill any real opposition
All of this is compounded by the fact that there’s no real opposition to the ruling class in this country. The wealthy systematically destroyed the U.S. American left in the decades following World War II. Using the Cold War as cover, our own government launched a massive campaign to crush any movement that challenged capitalism or corporate power. The “Red Scare” wasn’t just about rooting out supposed communists — it was about eliminating any voices calling for economic justice or radical change.
This campaign reached its most violent heights in the targeting of Black leaders who connected racial justice to economic justice. Most horrifically, our own government murdered Fred Hampton, the 21-year-old chairman of the Illinois Black Panther Party, in his bed in 1969. Hampton’s crime? Building multiracial coalitions of poor and working people while advocating for socialist policies to help all communities thrive. He challenged capitalism — and he was executed for it.
Hampton wasn’t alone. Time and again, when Black leaders began effectively organizing working people across racial lines or critiquing capitalism, they faced intense government repression. This was no coincidence — the forces of wealth and power recognized that multiracial solidarity among working people posed an existential threat to their control.
The destruction of the U.S. American left created a massive void in our political life. Legitimate critiques of capitalism were silenced. Discussions of class and economic justice became taboo. An entire language for understanding systemic exploitation was nearly erased from U.S. public consciousness. In its place, we got an ideology of pure individualism that runs directly counter to Jesus’s teachings about community, solidarity, and care for one another.
The results of all this have been devastating. Wealth inequality has reached levels not seen since the Gilded Age. Millions lack access to healthcare, housing, and other basic needs in the richest country in history. And now, nearly 70% of U.S. Americans believe our political and economic systems either need major reform or complete replacement.
That is a stunning majority in a country that can’t agree on anything else.
How we can fix this
The sad truth is that our national crisis won’t end with any single election. Donald Trump is just one manifestation of working class rage — rage that has been carefully misdirected by the wealthy against other working people rather than the system that exploits us all.
We must first accept that what got us here didn’t happen overnight, and what will get us out won’t happen overnight either. The ruling class spent decades systematically dismantling our sense of shared destiny and common good. Rebuilding it will require an equally sustained effort.
But here’s the good news: it can be done. Despite all the forces trying to divide us, most U.S. Americans still fundamentally care about each other. Even those caught in right-wing media bubbles or trapped in scarcity mindsets retain that basic human impulse toward compassion and community. Our task is to reawaken and redirect that impulse.
For those of us who follow Jesus of Nazareth, this work takes on special urgency. Jesus showed us what it looks like to build beloved community in the face of empire. He demonstrated how to resist systems of oppression while extending radical love to all — even our opponents. He taught that another world is possible, but only if we have the courage to imagine and create it together.
This means moving beyond just voting (though voting matters) to the harder work of movement building, including having difficult conversations, organizing in our workplaces and communities, creating alternative structures of mutual aid and community care, and standing in solidarity with the most vulnerable.
None of this will be easy. The forces of greed and division are deeply entrenched and well-funded. They will fight viciously to maintain their power and wealth. But as people of faith, we must take the long view. We know that love is stronger than fear, that community is more powerful than chaos, and that God’s arc of justice bends toward liberation.
Jesus showed us the way. He taught us that love of neighbor isn’t just a personal virtue — it’s a revolutionary force capable of transforming the world. The question is whether we have the courage — and patience — to follow it.
Sign up for my weekly e-mail
Hi! If you liked this story, considering signing up for weekly newsletter for Christian Socialists on progressive politics, economics, and spirituality. https://bit.ly/thedawnishere
