American Politics: A Parody of Justice

The idea that America is a meritocracy, a nation where people get what they deserve, is central to our cultural identity and political rhetoric. In economic terms, this idea means that people who work harder and more skillfully will earn a higher salary. Although this may be true for some, personal wealth is increasingly determined by the economic and social status of one's upbringing. For many Americans, it seems that no amount of effort or skill can lift them out of poverty. While our lack of economic justice is a very serious problem, there is another side to inequality in America that is perhaps even more serious. Citizens at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder suffer not only from a severe lack of opportunity, but also from a disproportionate amount of legal suspicion and punishment. While the poor earn less and the rich earn more, the poor are punished more and the rich are punished less. These two trends are two sides of the same coin, the increasing stratification of American society into distinct classes.

The accountability of our elites has been in decline since Ford granted a pardon to Nixon, and it may be at its lowest point right now. After it became clear that the phone companies helped the Bush administration violate American civil liberties, Congress simply made those actions retroactively legal. When the financial system collapsed due to the short-sighted and often fraudulent activities of Wall Street, the culprits remain unpunished. These rich executives not only avoided legal repercussions for their destructive behavior, they were “bailed out” with remarkably favorable terms. Many of them even  gained powerful positions in the government, allowing them to steer public policy even further in favor of the corporations. The aftermath of the financial crisis was not really a rescue of Wall Street by the government, but rather the collection of ransom from the government by Wall Street. These companies are smart; they must have known what was going to happen. They knew that they would be able to get whatever they needed from the government because the entire economy was at stake, and they were already in a position to influence the government's response to the crisis.

What America needs is the change that Obama promised but never fulfilled. If Obama had pressed charges on both the Bush administration and the top Wall Street corporations, it would have sent a message to all Americans that justice would be restored. Instead, Obama has embraced the very same structures of power that he promised to change. He tried to be a compromising president when we needed someone unafraid of challenging the status quo. Obama has all the right rhetoric, and he claims to be limited by the Republicans in Congress, but this is just a facade. In reality, neither of the two dominant parties are willing to challenge the status quo. They simply want to steer the metaphorical ship of state slightly to the left or the right, when it should be turned around completely. Unfortunately, we may have to wait until the 2016 elections to have a chance at a leader willing to make real change. Until then, it seems that nothing short of a revolution could make America once again a land of “liberty and justice for all”.