Democracy cannot Survive Leaders Who Profit from Division
Democracy cannot Survive Leaders Who Profit from Division
What we are witnessing today is
not a policy debate. It is a test of whether democracy can survive leaders who
manufacture fear, exploit division, and protect systems that enrich the
powerful while grinding ordinary people down.
Recent Immigration and Customs
Enforcement activity in the Twin Cities is not an isolated enforcement action.
It is part of a deliberate political strategy that substitutes punishment for
progress and spectacle for solutions. When leaders choose raids over reform,
scapegoats over accountability, they reveal their priorities clearly. This is
not about safety or order. It is about control.
Many who supported Donald Trump,
including voters from immigrant and minority communities, are now confronting
the consequences of that choice. Immigration enforcement has expanded in ways
that reach beyond undocumented workers to lawful immigrants and even U.S.
citizens. What was sold as economic protection has relied instead on racial
hierarchy and cultural exclusion. History is clear about where that path leads.
These outcomes were not accidental, and they were not hidden. They were enabled
by people willing to trade democratic values for tax cuts, political identity,
or the illusion of belonging.
America’s history does not allow
us the comfort of denial. This nation was built by immigrants on stolen
Indigenous land, powered by enslaved labor, and sustained by generations of
workers whose contributions were never fully recognized. The ideals symbolized
by the Statue of Liberty, refuge, opportunity, and dignity, were never meant to
be selectively applied. To profit from a system built on migration while
criminalizing people fleeing violence and persecution is a moral collapse
disguised as policy.
The economic justifications
offered for this cruelty do not withstand even basic scrutiny. The United
States carries a national debt nearing forty trillion dollars, yet leaders
refuse to confront the policies that actually drive economic pain. Immigrants
are essential to health care, agriculture, construction, technology, and
service industries. Fear-driven governance does not strengthen economies. It
hollow them out. History shows that nations lose both moral authority and
economic power when they abandon solidarity for scapegoating.
Anger toward both major political
parties is not only justified, it is overdue. Democrats and Republicans alike
have allowed corporate power to capture public policy. Corporations profit from
unaffordable health care, bloated defense budgets, rising housing costs, and
exploited labor. Immigration enforcement does not challenge this system. It
protects it. Workers are targeted. Employers are shielded. The structure
remains intact.
The most dangerous consequence of
this failure is how effectively working people have been turned against one
another. White Americans who have fought wars, labored through economic
decline, and survived a dismantled social safety net have real grievances. They
deserve dignity, care, and economic security. But their anger is repeatedly
weaponized against immigrants and minorities rather than directed at the
corporations and political leaders who engineered their suffering. Division
becomes a substitute for justice.
Let us be clear: many of the
nation’s crises persist because they are profitable. Health care remains
unaffordable because powerful industries depend on it. Defense spending expands
not to protect people, but to feed contractors. The cost of living rises while
wages stagnate because scarcity is lucrative. Rural communities are left
without infrastructure, education, or access to the next-generation economy
because neglect keeps power concentrated. These are not policy mistakes. They
are deliberate choices.
The solution is not a party
switch. It is a power shift. We must elect leaders who cannot be bought by the
interests that benefit from pain and instability. Leaders who are serious about
lowering health care costs, cutting wasteful defense spending, reducing the
cost of living, and investing in rural infrastructure so that opportunity is
not determined by geography. We need leaders who refuse to divide us, who
understand that governing means solving problems, not exploiting suffering.
But elections alone are not
enough. Accountability must be relentless. Voting is the entry point, not the
finish line. Demands must be public. Timelines must be enforced. Broken
promises must be met with consequences. Organizing cannot pause between election
cycles. Democracy does not defend itself. People do.
For those who feel undecided,
exhausted, or tempted to disengage, understand this: neutrality is not
harmless. Inaction always benefits those who profit from the status quo. If
health care is unaffordable, if housing and education feel out of reach, if your
community has been abandoned while corporate profits soar, then this system is
not neutral toward you. It is working against you. The question is not who to
believe, but who you are willing to challenge.
A government worthy of the people
must protect workers, honor sacrifice, uphold human dignity, and reject fear as
a governing tool. The crisis we face was built through silence, complicity, and
misplaced loyalty. It will only be undone through participation, pressure, and
collective refusal to accept leaders who profit from keeping us divided.
This is not about ideology. It is
about whether we allow democracy to be slowly drained of meaning, or whether we
reclaim it.
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