In this op-ed piece, Maxwell King, president of The Pittsburgh Foundation, responds to the recent events in Charlottesville and elsewhere, and encourages the country’s leaders to speak out and be forthright about the growing threats to our country.
He writes, “America is terribly divided, and a primary reason is that economic injustice has been growing for four decades. Well over half the country lives one paycheck away from destitution in the event of a medical emergency or layoff or some other personal calamity, while a tiny percentage – myself included-- enjoys unprecedented levels of financial prosperity. So long as 1 percent of the population holds more wealth than the bottom 90-plus percent, the ties that bind all of us to the common good are fragile and unstable. It is this economic injustice that threatens to topple our country into populist authoritarianism, rage and racist hatred. We must resist the president’s tilt toward fascism and also must correct the underlying economic inequity that has fueled the angry response to it.”
On the hopeful side, he points to the thousands of ordinary Americans who arrived at a memorial service in Charlottesville last week, as well as those who came out in Boston in opposition to a potential showing of hate groups. With that as a foundation, he closes by writing, “The people are leading. It's time now for the country's leaders to follow them in the same unequivocal denunciation of fascism.”