(Photo: jorome / Shutterstock.com)
nequality created the presidency of Donald Trump. Will that presidency now create more inequality? That remains to be seen. Precious few of the 60 million Americans who cast their votes for Trump want to see a more top-heavy America. Most Trump voters—and most Clinton voters, too—see an American economy rigged to advantage the nation’s wealthiest.
Voters want that rigging ended. On Election Day, a resounding 75 percent of Americans told Reuters that “America needs a strong leader to take the country back from the rich and powerful.”
Donald Trump has no plan for shrinking the wealth and power that rests so heavily upon the rest of us. But his voters, the balloting Tuesday shows, do stand ready to support concrete initiatives that directly challenge privilege.
In red-state South Dakota, where Donald Trump won 62 percent of the vote, a bipartisan coalition to rein in predatory lending crushed industry opposition to ending business as usual, despite being outspent by a ratio of 16-to-1. Short-term payday-loan interest rates in South Dakota currently average 574 percent. The measure that passed on Tuesday—with astounding 76 percent support—sets a 36 percent cap.
The key to building that support? Reynold Nesiba, an economist at Augustana University in Sioux Falls and an activist with the state’s Cap the Rates Coalition, told us that patiently working across party lines made all the difference.
…