The damage being done to American society by escalating inequality is far worse that most people realize. I certainly did not realize it until I viewed a 17-minute TED talk on YouTube, by Richard Wilkinson, entitled “How Economic Inequality Harms Societies.” I urge you to watch it because it very convincingly shows that economic inequality is the root cause of a whole series of America’s societal problems, including (1) homicides, (2) imprisonment, (3) mental illness (including drug and alcohol addiction), (4) social mobility, (5) low math and literacy achievement, (6) obesity, (7) teenage births, (8) infant mortality, (9) life expectancy, and (10) trust.

Over the last 30 years U.S. politics has moved in a direction that continues to pass legislation that widens income and wealth inequality, and it has made all of these problems much worse. The only way America is going to turn these trends around is to recognize the terrible damage inequality is doing to our society and elect politicians who will reverse the current trend of escalating inequality.

As you can see in the video, the countries that are doing best in keeping these problems to a minimum are the Scandinavian counties with Democratic Socialist governments. Our last truly Democratic Socialist president was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He was so popular that he was elected to four terms in office. The only candidate who is a true Democratic Socialist in our current presidential election is Bernie Sanders, and I urge you to vote for him.

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