We have become a country of whiners. The current president is among the biggest whiners I have seen since I became eligible to vote. A whining bully is perhaps one of the more despicable things you can do as a human being. Following the current president’s lead, millions of Americans have become prolific whiners. The U.S. has a history of much less whining and much more effort to do what needs to be done; however, for the past few decades, we have turned to whining and complaining about almost everything.
The whining about affordability is amazing. People want political leaders, most notably the president, to do something about the high cost of housing, groceries, utilities, and other necessities they consume regularly. As stated before, presidents have much less control over daily living expenses because that is largely the product of capitalism. Presidents also receive far too much blame. Capitalism, particularly related to daily living expenses, is more related to supply and demand, coupled with corporate profitability, and often greed. Have you regularly noticed that when prices go up, they seem to go up quickly, but do not go down as quickly when it is appropriate? The government has imposed price controls on consumer goods decades ago; however, after succumbing to pressure from the capitalist those price controls were short-lived.
What most people should be whining about is that wages have not kept pace with inflation, allowing them to maintain their standard of living. A vivid example of this lag in earnings is that the minimum wage had its purchasing power peak in 1968, and that purchasing power associated with the minimum wage has declined ever since 1968. The minimum wage provides a baseline that drives most other wages in the country. The purchasing power of the minimum wage has been held down for most of the years since 1968, with irregular periodic increases in the minimum wage, then it has a similar impact on overall wage purchasing power. Most Republican politicians oppose raising the minimum wage, and some would like to eliminate it.
Want to whine about something? Make it a fact that the wealthiest nation on the planet is the only developed nation without some form of national government-supported health care. There have been numerous studies that have shown that a well-structured national health care program would save individuals, families, and businesses money and save the national government expenses, making it an overall benefit to all concerned. There was even a study commissioned by the Koch Brothers, an extremely conservative, very wealthy family, that concluded that a properly structured national health care program would save money for all those paying for the current health care system. The primary reason the U.S. does not have a nationalized health care system is that all those making money from the current profit-driven system have spent millions lobbying members of Congress to keep the profit-driven system in place.
Want to whine about something? Whine about the fact that our political system strives to divide the public into factions that allows the political environment to exploit and manipulate voters. Due to these competing sides, very little gets done that addresses the priorities expressed by the public in poll after poll. The public believes by over 80% that the rich do not pay their fair share of taxes, yet because the wealthiest in the country bankroll most political campaigns, having the wealthiest pay more in taxes is something rarely considered. A case in point is the solvency of Social Security, which could be solved indefinitely by raising the cap, currently set at $186,000, much higher. My preference would be somewhere between $400,000 and $500,000. That would produce a secure retirement income for everyone forever.
The current president habitually lies, and that personality trait, combined with constant whining, does not bode well for what lies ahead of us for the balance of his presidential term. It becomes difficult to listen to his droning on about every grievance he has with someone who did/does not worship his existence or did something he dislikes. The schizophrenic way the current president has approached tariffs is not based on any specific plan, but rather on the whim of the president. The Republican Party was once known for always telling everyone to lift themselves by their bootstraps, a bogus sentiment that never had any validity. Now, they have become the political party of whiners who bellyache about almost everything. Yes, whining is now something everyone, to varying degrees, does daily. United States of Whiners seems to now be more appropriate.
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