Victory America Day…

November 3rd 2026 was not just election day, it was one of the big days in America history, It is up there with the day the Declaration of Independence was signed, the day the Civil War ended, the week the march from Selma to Montgomery happened, the day the New Deal was signed, V-E and V-J days, and so many more significant days in our long road to making people safe and finding Democracy.

Of significance is the fact that Victory America Day is like so many big days, a point where the country and its people make another step forward by confronting issues that needed to be changed and then to put in place new formats. Evolutionary factors always play a part in this, and for the past 100 years economics and capitalism have been core items along with race and more recently women’s reproduction rights.

As the country has moved along the so-called maturity curve, different things have moved to the top. Certainly, slavery was the factor in the Civil War. Getting the economy back on a solid footing in the Depression, Fighting Nazism and Axis in WWII were other factors.

Looking to our more recent 100 years after WWII, rebuilding and building out the infrastructure along with confronting the fact that racism was not ended by the Civil War, were front and center during the 1945 to 1970 period.

Then after 1970, for many people living today, things got dicier internally. As the need for infrastructure became less demanding the desire for the populace to make more money was left searching for ideas. The easiest first solution that arose was to use inflation, expand the money supply. The age-old question as to whether U.S. Presidents create their problems or are victims of bigger waves came to the forefront for Jimmy Carter. Carter who was probably the most moral President that this country has elected had the misfortune to step into that inflation wave and it shredded his Presidency. Ronald Reagan then had a story to tell, an economic ideologist, he surrounded himself with others who had more ideas for people to make money, mainly through asset plays rather than working. Working had been how the country financed its success for the 50 years after the 1930’s depression and the New Deal. Of course, as the top half of the country had a higher asset to income ratio, money gradually moved toward the top of the wealth scale.

So, step forward to 2020, and look back, to what is called the financialization wave, that had 40 years under its belt 1980-2020, we saw a huge group of Americans who felt left out. During those 40 years, we saw Reagan, Bush-1, Clinton, Bush-2, Obama, and Trump Presidencies. The common problem that they all succumbed to was the belief that making more money was the key factor for Americans. What none of them addressed was the fact that everyone was chasing asset values, for most people what was in view was the stock market and housing prices. That led to the 2008-2009 Great Recession and the Fed’s Bernanke solution, give them more money, don’t bankrupt the abusers. By 2020 people were unhappy to say the least and COVID was in the air,

Biden got a chance but Covid and the fear of everyone dying became the centerpiece, and looking back while a huge number of people were saved from dying, too much government money ended up in the hands of the asset players. Up stepped Donald Trump in 2024 with what was essentially, we are going to make you all rich. That was the essence of the MAGA, “Make America Great Again” motto. Of course that is an impossibility. And, what jumped into view in 2026 for all to see was realization that Trump and the wealthy got really rich, and the young people starting out and for those people who are locked into the bottom half of the asset/income scale, things go worse, assets went up more than wages.

Now the country and the newly elected Blue Wave have to deal with some big questions, did the Blue Wave win because of the Iran War, the financing of the Israel war machine, the Trump corruption, affordability due to high prices, the failure of Authoritarianism, or the wanting to save Democracy. My take is that these were all factors in the winning, but what it will take to be a solid governing coalition will be to come up with solutions that will flip the Asset / Wage spiral. This will not be a quick fix, keep in mind that the story I present here starts at the New Deal, almost 100 years ago.