A supporter of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump rallies outside an early polling precinct as voters cast their ballots in local, state, and national elections, in Clearwater, Florida, U.S., November 3, 2024. REUTERS/Octavio Jones

President Donald Trump's 'Reverse Robin Hood" policies of taking from the poor and giving to the rich isn't just making people poorer, but it's leading to the "collapse of democracy and civil society," according to Salon's senior politics writer Chauncey DeVega.

"Whether the American people are capable of connecting poverty, inequality and homelessness to the collapse of democracy and civil society under Trumpism" is an entirely other question, DeVega adds.

Pointing to what he deems "The Big Vile Bill," DeVega cites a poll by University of Chicago and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research showing a "stark" divide in which it's clear, according to New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie, that the "American right sees the market as the ultimate decider of survival."

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In that poll, “Republicans are more likely than Democrats to cite personal choices as major factors for both poverty (77 percent vs. 49 percent) and homelessness (77 percent vs. 51 percent),” whereas, “In contrast, Democrats are more likely than Republicans to cite lack of government support as major factors for both poverty (61 percent vs. 21 percent) and homelessness (63 percent vs. 26 percent).”

DeVega says this split is deepening, and "since Trump’s return to power, this right-wing moral economy has become even more hard-hearted."

As a result, the right-wing "moral economy," DeVega notes, has led conservatives to "increasingly view human empathy as a weakness, something wholly alien," as seen recently when Fox News host Brian Kilmeade suggested executing homeless people.

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And while Republicans are "driven by small government ethos," DeVega says, "as Trump expands his power and control over all areas of American life, those same so-called principled conservatives who spent decades howling about 'states’ rights' and 'big government' have fallen deafeningly silent."

The performative patriotism of the right, draping themselves in American flags and waving pocket Constitutions, DeVega says, has now "been revealed as a sham — and about obtaining power to impose their will on other people."

And when it comes to the social safety net, "white working-class people who form the base of Trump’s MAGA movement — hold some alarming ideas," says DeVega.

Among those ideas the author notes: "They support government assistance primarily for white people like themselves, whom they deem deserving and to be 'real Americans.'"

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When they use programs like welfare or food stamps, they see it as temporary and justified, DeVega says.

"But when Black and brown people — especially women — use the same programs, they are labeled lazy, undeserving takers or 'welfare queens,'" the author writes.

These callous views, DeVega notes, are of another era. "A society’s values are, in large part, reflected by how it treats its most vulnerable members — and America in the 21st century is growing increasingly Dickensian."

As American society continues to fracture, the public and their leaders must broaden their understanding of how poverty and other forms of social inequality are directly linked to structural — and political — violence, DeVega says.

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“We live with this kind of violence, we experience it, every single day. We just don’t call it ‘political.’ To conservatives, it’s not even violence," writes author Jessica Valenti, who says that pregnant women dying of sepsis, abortion provider assassinations, school shootings and people dying from insurance claim denials are all examples of political violence.

“We live with this kind of violence, we experience it, every single day. We just don’t call it ‘political.’ To conservatives, it’s not even violence," Valenti says.

The social safety net that is supposed to protect people, DeVega writes, saying, "Healthy democracies have a strong social safety net that helps to prevent and alleviate poverty and other forms of social inequality."

Unfortunately, authoritarians and demagogues don't have much concern for the public good, DeVega says. In fact, they thrive on misery And therein lies the problem.

"These leaders have an interest in keeping their constituents vulnerable. Economic insecurity breeds malleability, and an increased willingness to seek out the protection of a strongman," DeVega concludes. "Inequality, they know, is a dagger to the heart of democracy — and it’s one they enthusiastically wield."

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