Only The Wealthy Matter
This statement has been the overwhelming meta narrative running through human political history forever. I studied ancient history for many years and this was true in ancient Greek and Roman civilisations too. The aristocracy has always seen itself as the only thing that really mattered. Only the wealthy matter is top of the bill in Trump’s America right now. The evidence for this is manifest in multiple places. Trump’s big beautiful bill cut taxes for billionaires and slashed spending on the poor. The Trump cabinet is populated by more billionaires than ever seen before. Big Tech oligarchs lined up to kiss the ring of President Donald Trump at his inauguration. Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, inserted himself into the Trump administration via DOGE to garner attention on this stage. The messaging is clear – only the wealthy really matter.
“This bottom half of households in America — 66 million of them — had $4.1 trillion all together at the end of 2024. The 905 billionaires in the United States hold a combined $7.8 trillion in wealth, according to Forbes data from September 29, 2025. This alarming narrowing of wealth has given those at the very top political influence and power that undermines our democracy.”
Only Socialism For The Rich
America does not believe in socialism, not for the poor at any rate. It does for the wealthy, when banks and big companies need bailing out, as during the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC). This tells us that only the wealthy matter. Everyone else can go and suffer or starve. The bullshit that passes for political discourse in the United States is hypocritical to the extreme.
Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, whilst the very wealthy get billion dollar handouts. It is obscene.
“the total direct cost of crisis-related bailouts on a fair value basis was about $498 billion, which amounted to 3.5 percent of gross domestic product in 2009. As for who directly benefitted, Lucas found that the main winners were the large, unsecured creditors of large financial institutions. While their exact identities have not been made public, most are likely to have been large institutional investors such as banks, pension and mutual funds, insurance companies, and sovereigns.”
Wealthy Businesses Mattered During Covid
Only the wealthy matter, otherwise you are not even in the conversation. In Australia, during the Covid pandemic the LNP Coalition federal government funded very wealthy companies as part of JobKeeper.
“About $6.2 billion in JobKeeper wage subsidies were paid to businesses with more than $10 million in turnover that did not experience a minimum 30 per cent fall in turnover in the first six months of the scheme.”
“The Government has acted decisively to protect lives and livelihoods, committing $311 billion in direct economic and health support since the onset of the pandemic. This action has been central to Australia’s world-leading response to COVID-19.”
The Wealthy Avoid Paying Their Fair Share of Tax
The ‘only the wealthy matter’ credo has echoed throughout history. Judgements have been passed upon those who are worth looking after and those considered collateral damage if things go belly up. Taxation in the 21C is another place where how much wealth you have defines the level of tax you pay. Americans of the right wing persuasion reckon that the more money you make the less tax you should have to pay, especially since President Ronald Reagan. The wealthy downunder spend hundreds of thousands with tax accountants to ensure that they don’t pay much tax. Family trusts, negative gearing and other such devices are utilised to minimise their taxable income. Wealth hardly gets taxed In Australia and we copy the Yanks shamelessly in regard to this. American corporations doing business downunder do not pay their fair share of tax. They do this via tricks like shifting profits to tax havens to reduce the billions they make here.
Only the wealthy matter, when it comes to who pays their fair share of tax.
White Meant Wealthy
White supremacy is another feature of the Trump regime in America. White Americans have been ensuring that only white folk get rich for decades and centuries. They had segregation as an unspoken policy in regards to where they lived. Whites only was the rule. Banks would not finance African Americans. Real estate agents would not sell homes in these areas to blacks. This is one of the reasons why you got black ghettoes in the cities full of rundown apartment blocks because African Americans were excluded from the suburbs. Owning residential property is the defining determinant of wealth in America and Australia. Renters are locked into ongoing poverty in comparison to home owners. Institutional racism has ruined the lives of millions by obstructing economic opportunity.
“data from the Federal Reserve’s Distributional Financial Accounts, shows that between 2019 and 2022, total wealth increased for all racial and ethnic groups. However, according to the Survey for Consumer Finances, median Black wealth increased from $27,970 to $44,890, but continued to lag other racial groups. In 2022, median wealth was approximately $62,000 for non-white Latino or Hispanic households; $285,000 for white households; and $536,000 for Asian American households.”
“The other weird thing is that someone like President Trump has never served as an elected member of the house of representatives or the senate. Trump has never served the people in any of these capacities but their system allows him to stand for President. The essence of politics is supposed to be about service, but I don’t think Americans really understood that part of it. They are so enamoured of the individual that they think governing is all about the President. Politicians are, in essence, elected civil servants, there to serve the American people. I don’t think that anyone mentioned this to Donald Trump. The American political system is pretty weird.”
Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of What Price Life?; America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump; and other titles. NOW AVAILABLE AT APPLE BOOKS & GOOGLE PLAY BOOKS. Google Play Books AUDIOBOOK
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