How Norway Became Freer Than America

If we want a country that looks more like Norway and less like the feudal state Trump and his bought-off justices envision, we must fight for it…

Earlier this month, Louise and I vacationed across several different cities and rural areas in Norway, the country from which my grandfather emigrated to the United States in 1917. The place was immaculate, modern, and, astonishingly, seemed entirely free of homelessness. Official stats say around 3,000 people lack housing across the entire country. That’s about the number you’ll see sleeping on sidewalks in a single Los Angeles neighborhood.

Depending on the city, it looked like half or more of the cars on the road were electric. Norway has mandated that, starting this coming January, all new cars sold in that nation must be zero-emission. Charging stations are everywhere. Already, 89 percent of all new cars sold there last year were fully electric.

But the real eye-opener wasn’t the electric cars or tidy sidewalks; it was the democracy. Norway is a functioning democratic republic, but not in the American sense where billionaires run the show to their own benefit.

It’s a country that practices democratic socialism, a term that causes conniptions among Fox “News” anchors and libertarian think tanks but simply means this: The people vote for leaders who actually implement policies the majority wants.

Sadly, that’s not the case here pretty much at all, at least since the Reagan Revolution. Back here in the United States, six billionaire-corrupted Supreme Court justices just told us that democracy doesn’t matter anymore. That the desires of millions of Americans can be rendered meaningless, especially if billionaires and their puppets want it that way.

Yesterday, this Trump-packed Supreme Court quietly — in an unsigned ruling on their badly-abused so-called “shadow docket” with no public debate and no explanation — handed down one of the most destructive rulings in modern history.

In a 6–3 decision, the justices greenlit Trump’s plan to gut the Department of Education, firing 1,400 people, freezing $6.8 billion in funding, and throwing the constitutional guarantee of equal access to education under the proverbial bus. It also flies in the face of the constitutional requirement that the president “take care that the laws be faithfully executed” by spending money Congress appropriates and keeping open agencies Congress created.

Justice Sotomayor’s dissent was scathing, calling the ruling “indefensible” and warning it would “cripple the federal government’s ability to ensure civil rights are enforced in education.”

The highest court in our land just sided with a twice-impeached, sexual-assaulting, insurrection-inciting president to dismantle the very agency responsible for making sure children with disabilities get accommodations. That Black and Brown, Jewish and Muslim students aren’t systematically discriminated against. That poor children in poor neighborhoods can still get a good education. That people with massive student debt can get some small breaks. That schools have at least some federal oversight.

Compare that to Norway.

While American billionaires are buying legislators and court decisions to keep their taxes low, their subsidies for the fossil fuel industry flowing, and to crush unions, Norwegians are investing in their people.

Nobody in Norway ever goes bankrupt from medical bills. College and trade schools are free. Unions are everywhere, wages are high, and stiff taxes on the morbidly rich ensure that public services like education and healthcare are publicly funded rather than run by greedy corporations and billionaire CEOs.

How do they do it? Why is it so different there compared to here?

Because in Norway, and across most of Europe, democracy is real. Citizens are automatically registered to vote. Elections are free of voter suppression, and dark money is illegal. Politicians are answerable to the people, not to fossil fuel barons or Wall Street banksters.

And so, people can vote for legislators who can actually give them what they want:

— Universal healthcare
— Free higher education
— Robust public transit
— Workers’ rights and living wages
— Climate action, not climate denial

Meanwhile, in America, six corrupt Republicans on our Supreme Court have become an unelected, billionaire-funded wrecking crew that’s gleefully tearing down every public institution that threatens plutocratic rule.

This disparity, this tragedy, is no accident here in our country.

As I’ve written about for years and most recently detailed in The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America, it began in the modern era with Lewis Powell’s 1971 Memo, a blueprint for corporate America to seize the courts, media, education, and politics. Nixon rewarded Powell by putting him on the Supreme Court the following year, and the rest is tragic history.

From Buckley v. Valeo to Citizens United, this Court and its billionaire benefactors have redefined bribery as “free speech” and legalized the wholesale purchase of politicians. And, of course, Supreme Court justices.

This week’s shadow docket ruling is just the latest in that decades-long march toward oligarchy and, now, dictatorship.

The irony? The majority of Americans want a Norway-style system.

— 66% support Medicare for All
— 58% support free college and student debt cancellation
— 64% support taxing the ultra-rich more heavily
— 60% of workers say they’d join a union if they could

So why don’t we have it?

Because six corrupt Republican Supreme Court justices, and the corrupt rightwing billionaires who bought them and support their lavish lifestyles, won’t let us.

They’ve legalized voter suppression, gutted campaign finance laws, blessed gerrymandering, and are now attacking public education, the very foundation of a functioning democracy.

The lesson of Norway isn’t that the people there are somehow better. It’s that they’ve built institutions that respect the will of the majority and block the power of the morbidly rich. And when their democratic institutions are under threat, they act.

In America, we must do the same.

— End lifetime appointments to the Supreme Court and put in term limits.
— Ban dark money in politics.
— Rebuild public education, not dismantle it.
— Tax the morbidly rich.
— Expand and protect voting rights.

This isn’t a left-right issue; it’s a democracy-versus-oligarchy issue. And this week’s Supreme Court ruling should be a five-alarm fire.

If we want a country that looks more like Norway and less like the feudal state Trump and his bought-off justices envision, we’ve got to fight for it.

The billionaires may have the Supreme Court, the White House, and Congress, at least for now. But we still have the numbers.

And in a democracy, that still means something, if we make it mean something.

Louise’s Daily Song: How Norway Became Freer Than America

The song that was inspired by this article is here.
My reading this article as an audio podcast is here.
My newest book, The Last American President: A Broken Man, a Corrupt Party, and a World on the Brink comes out soon and is now available for pre-order.
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