Do you , inhabitant of the marvelous and menacing late-modern world , detect something missing – some kind of vitality , meaning , connectedness , love , beauty , or wonder ?
If so , you 've likely searched for a story to explain it .
A popular narrative offers that something rather ugly happened on the way to modernity .
As the Middle Ages gave way to the upheavals of the Reformation , the Enlightenment , and rising capitalism , a vanguard of scientists , professors of reason , Protestants , and money men ( for they were almost @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the shackles of the past .
They fashioned bold new ideas and ways of being , but in doing so crimped the human spirit and frayed the ties that bind us to our neighbors , to nature , and to our own hearts .
Even the needful and cherished material objects in our lives — the cooking pot , the plow , the spindle — lost their sacred glow .
It 's a tale of disenchantment : a cultural coming-of-age in which the protagonist wakes up from charmed sleep and , as the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ accepts that it is time to buckle down to business , relying on self-discipline and a strong work ethic to see the way through .
In this story , people take on secular attitudes and values .
They turn from community to competition .
The sin of greed becomes the desirable trait of `` self-interest '' and the habit of devotion gives way to the quest for domination .
Veneration morphs into venality .
We ditch the old totems and taboos and work like crazy , trying our best to be thrifty and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , now our chief focus .
By the time we arrive at the 21st century , the neoliberal regime and its chosen institution , the global corporation , are bringing us dazzling products that promise to meet our wants and needs .
The system may be rapacious and exploitive , true .
We may often feel twinges of unfulfillment and uncertainty , yes .
But that 's the price we pay for the goodies and convenience .
The dispirited must suck it up , for , as Maggie Thatcher famously insisted , there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ really the whole story ?
Did human beings flip a switch and give up the psychic , moral , and spiritual longings that had been with us for millennia ?
Did we no longer need connection to something greater than our own bank accounts ?
Did we lose the feeling for something sacred and enchanted in the universe ?
Possibly not .
Critics of the disenchantment narrative have long noticed that if you look closely at western modernity , this ostensibly secular and rational regime , you find it pretty much teeming with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ promises of grace .
Maybe the human yearning for enchantment never went away ; it just got redirected .
God is there , just pointing down other paths .
As scholars like Max Weber have noted , capitalism is a really a religion , complete with its own rites , deities , and rituals .
Money is the Great Spirit , the latest gadgets are its sacred relics , and economists , business journalists , financiers , technocrats , and managers make up the clergy .
The central doctrine holds that money will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if we heed the dictates of the market gods .
As the rap artist Run DMC once put it , money becomes salvation : Under Mammon , we shall reach a state of blessedness in which all our desires are realized : a heaven on earth .
We become gods ourselves .
All throughout the modern era , poets , dissenting scholars , writers , political radicals , and a motley assortment of ordinary apostates kept insisting that we are under the deadly spell of a false religion .
Eugene McCarraher 's The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Religion of Modernity is a magisterial account in this vein .
The author sets out to explain how we came to find ourselves devoted to the jealous god Mammon , and how we might get free .
In distinction to some like-minded thinkers , McCarraher holds that capitalism is not a disenchantment , or even a reinchantment , but rather a misenchantment , a `` parody or perversion of our longing for a sacramental way of being in the world . ''
He sees the condition peaking at beginning of the 21st century @ @ @ @ @ @ @ crises , political and social unrest , and now , as Ruskin scholar Jeffrey Spear and I have described , a pandemic in which the neoliberal priests demand human sacrifice to the cult of Mammon .
Here we are , many of us alienated , anxious , sick , bored , and slogging through with a suspicion that the dream of an iPhone in every pocket leaves much to be desired , and haunted by a feeling that capitalism did n't make us gods , but turned us into monsters who treat each @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to a garden of economic delights , our religion has befouled our home on Earth .
If the spell is beginning to wear thin , McCarraher thinks we should be thankful and prepare to repent and renew ourselves .
But first , we need to `` tell a different story about our country and its unexceptional sins . ''
His prophetically fired , thousand-page volume is that alternative story — not only a detailed history of the movement from an enchanted to a misenchanted world , but a condemnation of false prophets and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ different way of existing .
This is big , heady stuff .
And heartening stuff for the weary .
McCarraher begins with the advent of capitalism in the 17th century , tracing the progress of a set of ideas and values through the smoke of England 's factories and the new creed 's migration to America , where it is duly anointed by Puritans , evangelicals , and Mormons , whose founder Joseph Smith issues economic oracles .
We travel on to America 's launch as a nation , when the founders dedicate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ brotherhood and profit-seeking , a contradictory project embodied in Thomas Jefferson , who promotes a republic of frugal , virtuous yeoman while blowing — McCarraher does n't mention this point — ridiculous sums pimping out his mansion .
The tale continues through the Gilded Age , when the corporation acquires a soul in the form of `` personhood '' and capitalists seek to fashion a `` heavenly city of business '' through mechanized production .
Here we find spirit and capital co-mingled , as titans of business like Cornelius Vanderbilt attend séances where @ @ @ @ @ @ @ D. Rockefeller , Sr. , the son of a traveling snake oil salesman known as `` Devil Bill , '' insists that `` God gave me my money . ''
We come along to the think tanks and college seminars of the mid-20th century , where a rising order of magician-priests , the University of Chicago-trained economists and wonks , seek to remake everything , including the state , in the image of the market .
They use their best sleight-of-hand to protect Mammon from any interference from democracy while making it all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ American Century morphs into the `` neoliberal Market Everlasting , '' and Adam Smith 's Invisible Hand becomes the Not-So-Invisible Fist , described by Thomas Friedman , an exceptionally loyal neoliberal clergyman , in a 1999 New York Times magazine piece quoted by McCarraher : The rest is more and more of us getting clobbered by that almighty fist .
McCarraher 's tale brings plenty of fascinating twists and turns .
America produces potent witnesses against Mammon — often met with stark brutality — among Black Americans , whose initial position in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into the god 's lies and ruses .
There are also the failed romances of communal societies where people try but ca n't ultimately escape the burden of misenchantment .
And we find prescient writers , like Henry David Thoreau and Herman Melville , who see the market clearly as a god of servitude .
But the Word that wins the day is that of Ralph Waldo Emerson , America 's cardboard answer to Nietzsche , who , in the guise of a `` romanticism of the future , '' preaches `` the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the cut-throat ways of capitalism as the undisputed way of the world , a view captured in a chilling line from `` The Young American '' : `` If one of the flock wound himself , or so much as limp , the rest eat him up incontinently . ''
This gobble-gobble gospel is enthusiastically embraced by business writers , managers and libertarians like Ayn Rand , a priestess of Mammon bent on `` bringing to a graceless apogee the American divinization of power that began with Emerson . ''
McCarraher offers an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ partly arises as a religious enterprise , with magazine publisher Freeman Hunt plugging a gospel of entrepreneurial divinity and the worship of technology , herding the flock towards a particular strain of misenchantment later called the `` technological sublime . ''
The promoters of scientific management , for their part , offer a beatific vision for control freaks — a devotion to timekeeping and standardized behavior that may have partly originated in medieval monasteries .
McCarraher illustrates how we start to break down on the road to `` progress . ''
We become @ @ @ @ @ @ @ control in the external world , but inside indulge in hedonistic daydreams first stoked by sentimental religion and popular novels , and later , by consumer culture and the self-help industry .
We 're all wrapped up in our fantasies as Mammon 's economist-priests order the faithful to suffer any conflict or scarcity for the promise of material happiness that awaits .
He points out that it was Adam Smith himself , in the Theory of Moral Sentiments , who revealed the Great Lie fed to the congregation in a description of a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the rich and famous , becomes `` enchanted '' and vows to work tirelessly to fulfill his desire for luxuries – only to find out in the end that it has all been a trivial pursuit .
Pitiful , but how else do you keep him in line ?
The misenchantment McCarraher describes is so pervasive that it even infects dissenters , like unions that downsize their ambition from power to just a little redistribution ; beatniks and hippies whose bohemian visions are swallowed up into consumer culture and corporate consciousness ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Occupy Movement provides powerful anticapitalist testimony , but it looks like a lot of the `` 99 percent '' want to `` take back '' the American Dream , not awaken from it .
With the exception of the rising number of socialists ( many of them young people ) , a huge chunk of the population buys into the concept of progress based on unlimited economic growth and technological development , all of it driven by expanding material wants and expectations for godlike control of life .
We are left with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the stewards of humanity , like Jeff Bezos , who would like very much to rocket us all off to a technoparadise in space , where we can live happily ever after in temperature-regulated oscillating tubes .
McCarraher asks , is progress really progress if it looks like that ?
But wait , you say .
Does n't western modernity deliver some good things ?
We have a safety net in our old age .
We have certain protections from exploitation a medieval peasant could n't expect .
In most place other than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to universal health care .
Yes , we do , acknowledges McCarraher .
But these benefits have been brought to us by people who fought against the misenchantment , like unions , welfare states , and radical movements .
Fair enough .
But what is the alternative ?
McCarraher does n't offer an easy way out , warning that our depleted imaginations prevent us from seeing much of anything but a life of indentured servitude to capital .
Do we turn to poetry ?
The ecstasy of the body ?
Radical politics ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Voluntary poverty ?
Artisanal anarchism ?
Do we commune with nature ?
Well , maybe as long as there 's a spark of what McCarraher calls `` sacramental vision , '' perhaps it really does n't matter .
In order to be alert and resist Mammon 's spell , we basically need something that posits the life of the spirit against the death culture of the market .
As writer and monk Thomas Merton put it , we also need to know that the score , to grok the fact that the claims @ @ @ @ @ @ @ need to commit ourselves to living by new values infused with affection , reverence , and spiritual adventure .
McCarraher finds the most invigorating opposition to capitalist misenchantment in the Romantic tradition .
He draws sustenance from the writing of 19th century critic John Ruskin , who pronounced economics a pseudoscience and declaimed against the `` Goddess of Getting on , '' urging people to give up the urge to dominate and control .
Though some Romantics were undoubtedly reactionary , as the author concedes , their focus on morality , the dignity @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for meaningful purpose is traceable in the work of dissenters ranging from Leo Tolstoy to Marx and Engels to Martin Luther King , Jr..
It shows up in the Anglo-Catholic sacramentalism of Vida Dutton Scudder , the gift-economy writing of Mary Austin , and the Personalist opposition of Dorothy Day , who rooted her challenge to industrial capitalism in Christian humanism .
It appears , too , in Lewis Mumford 's opposition to death culture and the authoritarian trends in technology , and in New Left writers like Norman O .
Brown , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ possibilities of the world .
In all of these can be detected Ruskin 's dictum that `` there is no wealth but life . ''
McCarraher finds the visions of Romanticism to more resilient and humane than those of Marxism , and more nuanced and accurate in their assessment of human nature .
He believes they provide a `` language for the human magnificence we witness in the wake of devastation … a language that expresses our longings both for a sense of the world 's magnitude and for fleshly access to transcendence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ best hope for an imaginative and political antithesis to capitalist enchantment resides in the lineage of Romantic , sacramental radicalism . ''
It 's pretty clear that his is not a secular romanticism .
The author is inspired by the poetry Gerard Manley Hopkins , the calls to fellowship of Pope Francis , and Christians who have preserved the reverence for the natural word , the ideal of communion , and an understanding of exploitation as an offense against human divinity .
He is partial to the idea is that we do n't @ @ @ @ @ @ @ already live in one — a world stamped by the grandeur of God and , as Hopkins put it , the `` dearest freshness deep down things . ''
Recognition of this wondrous vitality around us can help us to live a more fearless , vibrant life , confident of our real worth apart from the calculus of capitalism and reassured by the bounty and goodness of the world .
Well…certainly it is inspiring when Pope Francis calls the earth a shared inheritance to be enjoyed by all .
But frankly , this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in his version of God 's universe , women still rank as inferior beings , unfit to control their own bodies or speak directly to the Creator .
The problem is that when people get to talking about nature as bearing the watermark of its creator , that being inevitably turns out to be male , and we find ourselves ensorcelled by a misenchantment as deadly as Mammon 's creed , the cult of patriarchy , which gets noticeably little attention in McCarraher 's thousand-page book .
In fact , the two misenchantments @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 's co-option of sacredness , for example , tends to cast women as the ever-generous and bountiful handmaidens of Mammon .
Pope Francis may chastise us that our call to `` universal communion '' is corrupted by a lack of trust in God , but if you are female , you could perhaps be forgiven for not trusting God .
Theology has degraded women more than any other influence , and to this day , the world 's religions still conform to economist Heidi Hartmann 's definition of patriarchy as `` relations between @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and which , though hierarchical , establish or create interdependence and solidarity among men that enable them to dominate women . ''
The ideal of brotherhood often pretends to universalism , but in practice draws from the narrow experiences of powerful men .
Too often , it 's just an ideal of bros .
There 's also the issue that reading messages of love and abundance in nature assumes a benevolent , anthropomorphic Creator .
But it 's hard to square that with Stephen Jay Gould 's observation that there are many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our human moral sensibilities , such as the ichneumon fly , which lays eggs on the host 's body and paralyzes it so it ca n't move as it 's slowly eaten alive .
You just ca n't get all Gerard-Manley-Hopkins on the ichneumon fly , I 'm sorry to say .
It is for this reason that feminist ecologists like Valerie Plumwood have cautioned us to see ourselves as part of nature but also to be respectful about nature 's otherness , and to avoid reading our own moral lessons from it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has looked to nature for moral inspiration and drawn terrible lessons , such as the lesser status of anyone who is not a straight white male .
Finally , there are dangerous strains of sacramental enchantment , as the global rise of Pentecostalism and strains of the far right illustrate .
Not every Romantic visionary is amenable to the idea of the sort of commonwealth McCarraher would like to see .
The author is clear that he does n't want a return to pre-modern technology or social relations , and undoubtedly he wants @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unfortunately , God is still hopelessly behind the times .
Could n't we just ditch the word altogether ?
Still , with all that said , McCarraher 's book is a highly rewarding and powerful expression of the longing for a more hospitable way of living and a potent call to orient ourselves towards our capacities as caring , creative , and convivial beings , rather than the nasty horde of hustlers Mammon insists that we are .
As Americans move toward a new administration looking to be fully aligned with the misenchantments @ @ @ @ @ @ @ list of Silicon Valley tycoons set to help steer his ship of state – McCarraher 's book is a welcome wake-up call and a reminder that while we did n't compose the narrative we live inside , we do have choices about the ending .
So thank you , Professor McCarraher , for helping us to think outside the temple .

Do you, inhabitant of the marvelous and menacing late-modern world, detect something missing – some kind of vitality, meaning, connectedness, love, beauty, or wonder? If so, you've likely searched for a story to explain it.
A popular narrative offers that something rather ugly happened on the way to modernity. As the Middle Ages gave way to the upheavals of the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and rising capitalism, a vanguard of scientists, professors of reason, Protestants, and money men (for they were almost always men), sought to break the shackles of the past. They fashioned bold new ideas and ways of being, but in doing so crimped the human spirit and frayed the ties that bind us to our neighbors, to nature, and to our own hearts. Even the needful and cherished material objects in our lives — the cooking pot, the plow, the spindle — lost their sacred glow.
It's a tale of disenchantment: a cultural coming-of-age in which the protagonist wakes up from charmed sleep and, as the harsh light strikes newly awakened senses, accepts that it is time to buckle down to business, relying on self-discipline and a strong work ethic to see the way through.
In this story, people take on secular attitudes and values. They turn from community to competition. The sin of greed becomes the desirable trait of "self-interest" and the habit of devotion gives way to the quest for domination. Veneration morphs into venality. We ditch the old totems and taboos and work like crazy, trying our best to be thrifty and restrained so that we can accumulate wealth, now our chief focus. By the time we arrive at the 21st century, the neoliberal regime and its chosen institution, the global corporation, are bringing us dazzling products that promise to meet our wants and needs. The system may be rapacious and exploitive, true. We may often feel twinges of unfulfillment and uncertainty, yes. But that's the price we pay for the goodies and convenience. The dispirited must suck it up, for, as Maggie Thatcher famously insisted, there is no alternative.
But is disenchantment really the whole story? Did human beings flip a switch and give up the psychic, moral, and spiritual longings that had been with us for millennia? Did we no longer need connection to something greater than our own bank accounts? Did we lose the feeling for something sacred and enchanted in the universe?
Possibly not. Critics of the disenchantment narrative have long noticed that if you look closely at western modernity, this ostensibly secular and rational regime, you find it pretty much teeming with magical thinking, supernatural forces, and promises of grace. Maybe the human yearning for enchantment never went away; it just got redirected. God is there, just pointing down other paths. As scholars like Max Weber have noted, capitalism is a really a religion, complete with its own rites, deities, and rituals. Money is the Great Spirit, the latest gadgets are its sacred relics, and economists, business journalists, financiers, technocrats, and managers make up the clergy. The central doctrine holds that money will flow to perform miracles in our lives if we heed the dictates of the market gods.
As the rap artist Run DMC once put it, money becomes salvation:
"Money is the key to end all your woes
Your ups and your downs, your highs and your lows
Won't you tell me last time that love bought you clothes?
It's like that, and that's the way it is"
Under Mammon, we shall reach a state of blessedness in which all our desires are realized: a heaven on earth. We become gods ourselves.
All throughout the modern era, poets, dissenting scholars, writers, political radicals, and a motley assortment of ordinary apostates kept insisting that we are under the deadly spell of a false religion. Eugene McCarraher's The Enchantments of Mammon: Capitalism as the Religion of Modernity is a magisterial account in this vein. The author sets out to explain how we came to find ourselves devoted to the jealous god Mammon, and how we might get free.
In distinction to some like-minded thinkers, McCarraher holds that capitalism is not a disenchantment, or even a reinchantment, but rather a misenchantment, a "parody or perversion of our longing for a sacramental way of being in the world." He sees the condition peaking at beginning of the 21st century, followed by calamitous years of economic crises, political and social unrest, and now, as Ruskin scholar Jeffrey Spear and I have described, a pandemic in which the neoliberal priests demand human sacrifice to the cult of Mammon.
Here we are, many of us alienated, anxious, sick, bored, and slogging through with a suspicion that the dream of an iPhone in every pocket leaves much to be desired, and haunted by a feeling that capitalism didn't make us gods, but turned us into monsters who treat each other horribly. Rather than bringing us to a garden of economic delights, our religion has befouled our home on Earth.
If the spell is beginning to wear thin, McCarraher thinks we should be thankful and prepare to repent and renew ourselves. But first, we need to "tell a different story about our country and its unexceptional sins." His prophetically fired, thousand-page volume is that alternative story — not only a detailed history of the movement from an enchanted to a misenchanted world, but a condemnation of false prophets and an imaginative conjuring of possibilities for a different way of existing. This is big, heady stuff. And heartening stuff for the weary.
One Nation, Under Mammon
McCarraher begins with the advent of capitalism in the 17th century, tracing the progress of a set of ideas and values through the smoke of England's factories and the new creed's migration to America, where it is duly anointed by Puritans, evangelicals, and Mormons, whose founder Joseph Smith issues economic oracles. We travel on to America's launch as a nation, when the founders dedicate the new country to the ideals of brotherhood and profit-seeking, a contradictory project embodied in Thomas Jefferson, who promotes a republic of frugal, virtuous yeoman while blowing — McCarraher doesn't mention this point — ridiculous sums pimping out his mansion.
The tale continues through the Gilded Age, when the corporation acquires a soul in the form of "personhood" and capitalists seek to fashion a "heavenly city of business" through mechanized production. Here we find spirit and capital co-mingled, as titans of business like Cornelius Vanderbilt attend séances where the dead provide stock tips and John D. Rockefeller, Sr., the son of a traveling snake oil salesman known as "Devil Bill," insists that "God gave me my money."
Hallelujah!
We come along to the think tanks and college seminars of the mid-20th century, where a rising order of magician-priests, the University of Chicago-trained economists and wonks, seek to remake everything, including the state, in the image of the market. They use their best sleight-of-hand to protect Mammon from any interference from democracy while making it all look quite spontaneous. Thus, the American Century morphs into the "neoliberal Market Everlasting," and Adam Smith's Invisible Hand becomes the Not-So-Invisible Fist, described by Thomas Friedman, an exceptionally loyal neoliberal clergyman, in a 1999 New York Times magazine piece quoted by McCarraher:
For globalization to work, America can't be afraid to act like the almighty superpower that it is. The hidden hand of the market will not work without a hidden fist. McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell-Douglas, the designer of the F-15, and the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technology is called the United States, Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps…
The rest is more and more of us getting clobbered by that almighty fist.
McCarraher's tale brings plenty of fascinating twists and turns. America produces potent witnesses against Mammon — often met with stark brutality — among Black Americans, whose initial position in the atrocious slave economy gives them profound insight into the god's lies and ruses. There are also the failed romances of communal societies where people try but can't ultimately escape the burden of misenchantment. And we find prescient writers, like Henry David Thoreau and Herman Melville, who see the market clearly as a god of servitude. But the Word that wins the day is that of Ralph Waldo Emerson, America's cardboard answer to Nietzsche, who, in the guise of a "romanticism of the future," preaches "the enchanting mendacity of power" and pronounces the cut-throat ways of capitalism as the undisputed way of the world, a view captured in a chilling line from "The Young American": "If one of the flock wound himself, or so much as limp, the rest eat him up incontinently."
This gobble-gobble gospel is enthusiastically embraced by business writers, managers and libertarians like Ayn Rand, a priestess of Mammon bent on "bringing to a graceless apogee the American divinization of power that began with Emerson." McCarraher offers an intriguing look at how American business journalism partly arises as a religious enterprise, with magazine publisher Freeman Hunt plugging a gospel of entrepreneurial divinity and the worship of technology, herding the flock towards a particular strain of misenchantment later called the "technological sublime." The promoters of scientific management, for their part, offer a beatific vision for control freaks — a devotion to timekeeping and standardized behavior that may have partly originated in medieval monasteries.
McCarraher illustrates how we start to break down on the road to "progress." We become split creatures who submit to calculation and control in the external world, but inside indulge in hedonistic daydreams first stoked by sentimental religion and popular novels, and later, by consumer culture and the self-help industry. We're all wrapped up in our fantasies as Mammon's economist-priests order the faithful to suffer any conflict or scarcity for the promise of material happiness that awaits. He points out that it was Adam Smith himself, in the Theory of Moral Sentiments, who revealed the Great Lie fed to the congregation in a description of a poor boy who, glimpsing the lifestyles of the rich and famous, becomes "enchanted" and vows to work tirelessly to fulfill his desire for luxuries – only to find out in the end that it has all been a trivial pursuit. Pitiful, but how else do you keep him in line?
The misenchantment McCarraher describes is so pervasive that it even infects dissenters, like unions that downsize their ambition from power to just a little redistribution; beatniks and hippies whose bohemian visions are swallowed up into consumer culture and corporate consciousness; or environmentalists who accommodate capitalist expansion. The Occupy Movement provides powerful anticapitalist testimony, but it looks like a lot of the "99 percent" want to "take back" the American Dream, not awaken from it. With the exception of the rising number of socialists (many of them young people), a huge chunk of the population buys into the concept of progress based on unlimited economic growth and technological development, all of it driven by expanding material wants and expectations for godlike control of life.
We are left with domineering captains of industry who pose as the stewards of humanity, like Jeff Bezos, who would like very much to rocket us all off to a technoparadise in space, where we can live happily ever after in temperature-regulated oscillating tubes.
McCarraher asks, is progress really progress if it looks like that?
But wait, you say. Doesn't western modernity deliver some good things? We have a safety net in our old age. We have certain protections from exploitation a medieval peasant couldn't expect. In most place other than the United States, we have access to universal health care. Yes, we do, acknowledges McCarraher. But these benefits have been brought to us by people who fought against the misenchantment, like unions, welfare states, and radical movements.
Fair enough. But what is the alternative?
The Visionary Commonwealth
McCarraher doesn't offer an easy way out, warning that our depleted imaginations prevent us from seeing much of anything but a life of indentured servitude to capital.
Do we turn to poetry? The ecstasy of the body? Radical politics? Revolution? Spirituality? Zen sutras? Voluntary poverty? Artisanal anarchism? Do we commune with nature?
Well, maybe as long as there's a spark of what McCarraher calls "sacramental vision," perhaps it really doesn't matter. In order to be alert and resist Mammon's spell, we basically need something that posits the life of the spirit against the death culture of the market. As writer and monk Thomas Merton put it, we also need to know that the score, to grok the fact that the claims of the world are fraudulent. We need to commit ourselves to living by new values infused with affection, reverence, and spiritual adventure.
McCarraher finds the most invigorating opposition to capitalist misenchantment in the Romantic tradition. He draws sustenance from the writing of 19th century critic John Ruskin, who pronounced economics a pseudoscience and declaimed against the "Goddess of Getting on," urging people to give up the urge to dominate and control. Though some Romantics were undoubtedly reactionary, as the author concedes, their focus on morality, the dignity of human beings, and the search for meaningful purpose is traceable in the work of dissenters ranging from Leo Tolstoy to Marx and Engels to Martin Luther King, Jr.. It shows up in the Anglo-Catholic sacramentalism of Vida Dutton Scudder, the gift-economy writing of Mary Austin, and the Personalist opposition of Dorothy Day, who rooted her challenge to industrial capitalism in Christian humanism. It appears, too, in Lewis Mumford's opposition to death culture and the authoritarian trends in technology, and in New Left writers like Norman O. Brown, who focused on the sensuous textures and possibilities of the world. In all of these can be detected Ruskin's dictum that "there is no wealth but life."
McCarraher finds the visions of Romanticism to more resilient and humane than those of Marxism, and more nuanced and accurate in their assessment of human nature. He believes they provide a "language for the human magnificence we witness in the wake of devastation … a language that expresses our longings both for a sense of the world's magnitude and for fleshly access to transcendence." He contends that "our best hope for an imaginative and political antithesis to capitalist enchantment resides in the lineage of Romantic, sacramental radicalism."
It's pretty clear that his is not a secular romanticism. The author is inspired by the poetry Gerard Manley Hopkins, the calls to fellowship of Pope Francis, and Christians who have preserved the reverence for the natural word, the ideal of communion, and an understanding of exploitation as an offense against human divinity. He is partial to the idea is that we don't need to go seeking paradise; we already live in one — a world stamped by the grandeur of God and, as Hopkins put it, the "dearest freshness deep down things." Recognition of this wondrous vitality around us can help us to live a more fearless, vibrant life, confident of our real worth apart from the calculus of capitalism and reassured by the bounty and goodness of the world.
Well…certainly it is inspiring when Pope Francis calls the earth a shared inheritance to be enjoyed by all. But frankly, this makes it all the more galling that in his version of God's universe, women still rank as inferior beings, unfit to control their own bodies or speak directly to the Creator. The problem is that when people get to talking about nature as bearing the watermark of its creator, that being inevitably turns out to be male, and we find ourselves ensorcelled by a misenchantment as deadly as Mammon's creed, the cult of patriarchy, which gets noticeably little attention in McCarraher's thousand-page book. In fact, the two misenchantments have traditionally reinforced each other: capitalism's co-option of sacredness, for example, tends to cast women as the ever-generous and bountiful handmaidens of Mammon.
Pope Francis may chastise us that our call to "universal communion" is corrupted by a lack of trust in God, but if you are female, you could perhaps be forgiven for not trusting God. Theology has degraded women more than any other influence, and to this day, the world's religions still conform to economist Heidi Hartmann's definition of patriarchy as "relations between men, which have a material base, and which, though hierarchical, establish or create interdependence and solidarity among men that enable them to dominate women."
The ideal of brotherhood often pretends to universalism, but in practice draws from the narrow experiences of powerful men. Too often, it's just an ideal of bros.
There's also the issue that reading messages of love and abundance in nature assumes a benevolent, anthropomorphic Creator. But it's hard to square that with Stephen Jay Gould's observation that there are many things on Earth that are shocking to our human moral sensibilities, such as the ichneumon fly, which lays eggs on the host's body and paralyzes it so it can't move as it's slowly eaten alive. You just can't get all Gerard-Manley-Hopkins on the ichneumon fly, I'm sorry to say. It is for this reason that feminist ecologists like Valerie Plumwood have cautioned us to see ourselves as part of nature but also to be respectful about nature's otherness, and to avoid reading our own moral lessons from it. After all, many a theologian has looked to nature for moral inspiration and drawn terrible lessons, such as the lesser status of anyone who is not a straight white male.
Finally, there are dangerous strains of sacramental enchantment, as the global rise of Pentecostalism and strains of the far right illustrate. Not every Romantic visionary is amenable to the idea of the sort of commonwealth McCarraher would like to see. The author is clear that he doesn't want a return to pre-modern technology or social relations, and undoubtedly he wants an evolved approach to God. But unfortunately, God is still hopelessly behind the times. Couldn't we just ditch the word altogether?
Still, with all that said, McCarraher's book is a highly rewarding and powerful expression of the longing for a more hospitable way of living and a potent call to orient ourselves towards our capacities as caring, creative, and convivial beings, rather than the nasty horde of hustlers Mammon insists that we are.
As Americans move toward a new administration looking to be fully aligned with the misenchantments of money and technology – witness the list of Silicon Valley tycoons set to help steer his ship of state – McCarraher's book is a welcome wake-up call and a reminder that while we didn't compose the narrative we live inside, we do have choices about the ending.
So thank you, Professor McCarraher, for helping us to think outside the temple.


alternet--2020-12-19--Biden's transition team fires back denying both sides agreed to Pentagon's holiday halt of meetings

President-elect Joe Biden 's transition team is pushing back against the Pentagon 's claim about the halt in meetings amid the Christmas holidays .
Shortly after President Donald Trump 's new acting Secretary of the U.S. Department of Defense ( DoD ) Christopher Miller announced an abrupt halt to the agency 's meetings with the incoming Biden administration , the president-elect 's transition team confirmed that the decision was not mutual like the Pentagon suggested , according to Talking Points Memo .
During a press briefing , Biden 's transition director Yohannes Abraham argued that they were not informed of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ around the same time Pentagon staff members received instruction to halt the meetings .
Abraham also made it clear that there was no mutual agreement to halt briefings amid the holidays .
Abraham later added that Biden 's review team for the Pentagon was only `` informed yesterday that meetings were being pulled down , and they immediately and appropriately escalated it . ''
He also said , `` Let me be clear : There was no mutually agreed-upon holiday break .
In fact , we think it 's important that briefings and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there 's no time to spare , and that 's particularly true in the aftermath of the ascertainment delay . ''
Abraham also stressed how time is of the essence with the incoming administration being just weeks away from Inauguration Day .
It is also important to note that Trump 's initial refusal to cooperate with the transition also contributed greatly to the delayed start of the process .
So , the transfer of power is likely two weeks behind schedule as it is .
The Biden transition team 's response came just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Department of Defense officials were also shocked by Miller 's decision .
In a statement released about his decision , the acting secretary also suggested that the agency is now `` working to reschedule approximately 20 interviews with 40 officials until after January 1 . ''

President-elect Joe Biden's transition team is pushing back against the Pentagon's claim about the halt in meetings amid the Christmas holidays.
Shortly after President Donald Trump's new acting Secretary of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Christopher Miller announced an abrupt halt to the agency's meetings with the incoming Biden administration, the president-elect's transition team confirmed that the decision was not mutual like the Pentagon suggested, according to Talking Points Memo.
During a press briefing, Biden's transition director Yohannes Abraham argued that they were not informed of the abrupt change until Thursday which is around the same time Pentagon staff members received instruction to halt the meetings. Abraham also made it clear that there was no mutual agreement to halt briefings amid the holidays.
Abraham later added that Biden's review team for the Pentagon was only "informed yesterday that meetings were being pulled down, and they immediately and appropriately escalated it."
He also said, "Let me be clear: There was no mutually agreed-upon holiday break. In fact, we think it's important that briefings and other engagements continue during this period as there's no time to spare, and that's particularly true in the aftermath of the ascertainment delay."
Abraham also stressed how time is of the essence with the incoming administration being just weeks away from Inauguration Day. It is also important to note that Trump's initial refusal to cooperate with the transition also contributed greatly to the delayed start of the process. So, the transfer of power is likely two weeks behind schedule as it is.
The Biden transition team's response came just hours after it was reported that senior Department of Defense officials were also shocked by Miller's decision. In a statement released about his decision, the acting secretary also suggested that the agency is now "working to reschedule approximately 20 interviews with 40 officials until after January 1."


alternet--2020-12-19--Legal experts lambaste 'Kraken' lawyers for attempting to blame filing error on SCOTUS clerk

Legal experts and law observers were left flabbergasted by Sidney Powell and her `` Kraken '' legal team 's latest attempt to invalidate the results of the presidential election .
Although the Electoral College has affirmed President-elect Joe Biden 's win , Powell and her associates are still arguing that the results in four battleground states were `` unconstitutional , '' according to Law & Crime .
Earlier this week , Powell filed a motion requesting lawsuits in Arizona , Georgia , Michigan , and Wisconsin be consolidated .
However , the U.S. Supreme Court only has cases relative to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Arizona and Wisconsin cases have already been tossed out .
`` The Arizona and Wisconsin Petitions were electronically filed and hand-delivered to the Court on December 12 .
Nonetheless , on December 17 , the Clerk 's office marked both 'Rejected ' on the Court 's ECF database , '' the motion stated .
`` When inquiry was made about this notation , undersigned counsel was informed that a Clerk 's Office analyst had disallowed them , for reasons unspecified , without participation by any Justice of the Court .
Counsel was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ via U.S .
Mail . ''
However , the glaring `` errors , procedural mistakes , and falsehoods '' quickly caught the attention of legal experts who wasted no time chiming in .
Attorney Akiva Cohen took to Twitter with a string of more than 10 tweets highlighting various errors within the court documents .
Cohen also highlighted the most conspicuous mistakes tweeting that `` cases have to *exist* in order to be consolidated , and the cases do n't exist until they 're docketed , '' adding , `` They did n't @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so the court could n't review them and say `` hey , let 's consider these together '' even if it wanted to . ''
To make matters worse , Powell continued with an attempt to blame the U.S. Supreme Court clerk for their rejected cases .
`` We find this ( presumably innocent ) lapse atypical of the proud traditions in the Office of the Supreme Court Clerk .
More important , we are confident that deficiencies in the Arizona and Wisconsin Petitions , if there be any , are curable , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ request that the Court deem those submissions filed nunc pro tunc and consolidate them , once filed , with the Michigan and Georgia Petitions . ''
The attempt quickly drew disdain from more legal experts .
In fact , federal civil and criminal appellate attorney Matthew Stiegler was shocked by what he read saying , `` I can not express how relieved I am that such evil is presented with such stupidity . ''
Brad Heath , a crime and justice reporter for Reuters , flatly disapproved of the brief as he argued @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sense . ''
`` The brief does n't argue implied consent - it just says legislators endorsed Trump slates .
It does n't make sense , '' Heath tweeted .
`` The legislature was out of session in Georgia .
How does its failing to stop somebody from doing something when it is not even in session constitute consent ? ''
In response to Powell 's false claim about the `` competing slate of electors '' arguing : `` There are electors who cast real electoral votes , and there are self-appointed a**clowns @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the same day . ''
With each failed attempt at overturning the election results , Trump 's campaign legal team is taken less seriously .

Legal experts and law observers were left flabbergasted by Sidney Powell and her "Kraken" legal team's latest attempt to invalidate the results of the presidential election. Although the Electoral College has affirmed President-elect Joe Biden's win, Powell and her associates are still arguing that the results in four battleground states were "unconstitutional," according to Law & Crime.
Earlier this week, Powell filed a motion requesting lawsuits in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin be consolidated. However, the U.S. Supreme Court only has cases relative to Georgia and Michigan on its docket because the Arizona and Wisconsin cases have already been tossed out.
"The Arizona and Wisconsin Petitions were electronically filed and hand-delivered to the Court on December 12. Nonetheless, on December 17, the Clerk's office marked both 'Rejected' on the Court's ECF database," the motion stated. "When inquiry was made about this notation, undersigned counsel was informed that a Clerk's Office analyst had disallowed them, for reasons unspecified, without participation by any Justice of the Court. Counsel was informed that an explanation would be provided via U.S. Mail."
However, the glaring "errors, procedural mistakes, and falsehoods" quickly caught the attention of legal experts who wasted no time chiming in. Attorney Akiva Cohen took to Twitter with a string of more than 10 tweets highlighting various errors within the court documents.
Cohen also highlighted the most conspicuous mistakes tweeting that "cases have to *exist* in order to be consolidated, and the cases don't exist until they're docketed," adding, "They didn't bother submitting copies of the Petitions, so the court couldn't review them and say "hey, let's consider these together" even if it wanted to."
To make matters worse, Powell continued with an attempt to blame the U.S. Supreme Court clerk for their rejected cases.
"We find this (presumably innocent) lapse atypical of the proud traditions in the Office of the Supreme Court Clerk. More important, we are confident that deficiencies in the Arizona and Wisconsin Petitions, if there be any, are curable," Powell said. "We respectfully request that the Court deem those submissions filed nunc pro tunc and consolidate them, once filed, with the Michigan and Georgia Petitions."
The attempt quickly drew disdain from more legal experts. In fact, federal civil and criminal appellate attorney Matthew Stiegler was shocked by what he read saying, "I cannot express how relieved I am that such evil is presented with such stupidity."
Brad Heath, a crime and justice reporter for Reuters, flatly disapproved of the brief as he argued that it simply "doesn't make sense."
"The brief doesn't argue implied consent - it just says legislators endorsed Trump slates. It doesn't make sense," Heath tweeted. "The legislature was out of session in Georgia. How does its failing to stop somebody from doing something when it is not even in session constitute consent?"
In response to Powell's false claim about the "competing slate of electors" arguing: "There are electors who cast real electoral votes, and there are self-appointed a**clowns who played 'grown-up person dress-up' on the same day."
With each failed attempt at overturning the election results, Trump's campaign legal team is taken less seriously.


alternet--2020-12-19--Treasury Dept. under scrutiny for questionable approval of $700M loan

The U.S. Treasury Department is under scrutiny amid concerns raised by Rep. French Hill ( R-Ark . )
, who serves on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform , questioning whether or not the Treasury , and U.S. Department of Defense , should be able to process loans during the pandemic , reports The Hill .
During a phone call with reporters , Hill raised questions about one particular loan authorized under the $ 2.2 trillion CARES Act .
According to Hill , the Pentagon reserved approximately $ 700 million for an Overland Park , Kansas shipping firm @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Department classified the company as `` critical to national security , '' Hill has questions about the essentialness of the company .
According to Bloomberg , YRC does not meet the requirement to be listed as a firm critical for national security despite its specialization in military logistics .
`` To say that this process was hidden behind the wall of intense interagency bureaucracy would be an understatement , '' Hill said .
`` I do n't find a rationale for YRC to be essential to national security .
I have heard nothing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ '' Hill remarks came shortly after he , along with other committee members spoke with Ellen Lord , the Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment undersecretary .
The Arkansas Republican claimed the Pentagon `` appeared to go against its own internal guidelines for approving which companies might be eligible for the loans , including looking at whether there were viable alternative companies to carry out the work . ''
`` The answer is overwhelmingly yes , '' Hill said .
`` There are more stable , more available union and non-union carriers . ''
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( D-Fla. ) , a Democratic lawmaker appointed to the oversight panel , recently voiced their concerns to the House Armed Services Committee .
The two are hoping to incorporate more measures to review and monitor the financial competence of the Defense Department 's contractors and subcontractors .

The U.S. Treasury Department is under scrutiny amid concerns raised by Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.), who serves on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, questioning whether or not the Treasury, and U.S. Department of Defense, should be able to process loans during the pandemic, reports The Hill.
During a phone call with reporters, Hill raised questions about one particular loan authorized under the $2.2 trillion CARES Act. According to Hill, the Pentagon reserved approximately $700 million for an Overland Park, Kansas shipping firm called YRC Worldwide. While the Defense Department classified the company as "critical to national security," Hill has questions about the essentialness of the company.
According to Bloomberg, YRC does not meet the requirement to be listed as a firm critical for national security despite its specialization in military logistics.
"To say that this process was hidden behind the wall of intense interagency bureaucracy would be an understatement," Hill said. "I don't find a rationale for YRC to be essential to national security. I have heard nothing that changes my view on that."
Hill remarks came shortly after he, along with other committee members spoke with Ellen Lord, the Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment undersecretary. The Arkansas Republican claimed the Pentagon "appeared to go against its own internal guidelines for approving which companies might be eligible for the loans, including looking at whether there were viable alternative companies to carry out the work."
"The answer is overwhelmingly yes," Hill said. "There are more stable, more available union and non-union carriers."
Hill, along with Rep. Donna Shalala (D-Fla.), a Democratic lawmaker appointed to the oversight panel, recently voiced their concerns to the House Armed Services Committee. The two are hoping to incorporate more measures to review and monitor the financial competence of the Defense Department's contractors and subcontractors.


alternet--2020-12-20--'Working to shut out progressives': Here's how House Democrats blocked AOC from a key committee seat

In an early indication of which ideological faction of the Democratic Party will control the policy agenda in the upcoming Congress , a House body tasked with deciding committee assignments overwhelmingly voted Thursday to deny progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a spot on the powerful Energy and Commerce panel , instead handing the seat to centrist Rep. Kathleen Rice .
The landslide 46-13 vote in favor of Rice by the House Steering and Policy Committee—which is chaired by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ( D-Calif. ) —was viewed as establishment backlash against Ocasio-Cortez over her willingness to publicly break with the party @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Pelosi 's leadership , as she did in an interview with The Intercept released this week .
But Ocasio-Cortez , a supporter of the Green New Deal and Medicare for All , did receive significant support from the New York congressional delegation in her push for the coveted slot on Energy and Commerce , which has jurisdiction over a broad array of policy areas including climate and public health .
House Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler ( D-N.Y. ) , dean of the New York delegation , signed a letter in support of Ocasio-Cortez @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other members .
Rice—a New York Democrat who , unlike Ocasio-Cortez , voted against Pelosi for speaker last year—received some support from the state delegation as well .
Reporting on Thursday 's secret-ballot vote indicates that Ocasio-Cortez 's support for Medicare for All and the Green New Deal , both of which would come under the purview of the Energy and Commerce Committee , was a factor in the vote to hand the seat to Rice , who does not support either progressive policy .
`` Some senior Democrats , including on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ voiced concerns about Ocasio-Cortez landing the seat , '' Politico reported .
`` Some feared that the firebrand Democrat , who backs progressive priorities like the 'Green New Deal ' and 'Medicare for All , ' could cause issues as Congress attempts to draft bipartisan health and climate policies next year . ''
Ocasio-Cortez was not the only progressive rejected by the Steering Committee in favor of a moderate , business-friendly Democrat .
In addition to Rice , the committee also gave Energy and Commerce spots to Reps. Lori Trahan ( D-Mass .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Kim Schrier ( D-Wash. ) , and Lizzie Fletcher ( D-Texas ) .
`` It is very clear the party leadership is working to shut out progressives and has no intention of working with the left to 'build back better , ' '' argued journalist Walker Bragman , a contributor to The Daily Poster .
As The Intercept 's Lee Fang pointed out on Twitter , all five of the Democrats chosen for Energy and Commerce seats `` are pro-business New Dem caucus members , all beating progressives vying for seats .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ are winning these early battles , '' noted Fang , `` which will set the legislative agenda for the next two years . ''
This story has been updated to reflect a change to The American Prospect 's reporting , which originally misstated the nature of a report on fracking co-authored by Rep. Diana DeGette ( D-Colo. ) .

In an early indication of which ideological faction of the Democratic Party will control the policy agenda in the upcoming Congress, a House body tasked with deciding committee assignments overwhelmingly voted Thursday to deny progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a spot on the powerful Energy and Commerce panel, instead handing the seat to centrist Rep. Kathleen Rice.
The landslide 46-13 vote in favor of Rice by the House Steering and Policy Committee—which is chaired by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)—was viewed as establishment backlash against Ocasio-Cortez over her willingness to publicly break with the party brass on key policy matters and criticize Pelosi's leadership, as she did in an interview with The Intercept released this week.
But Ocasio-Cortez, a supporter of the Green New Deal and Medicare for All, did receive significant support from the New York congressional delegation in her push for the coveted slot on Energy and Commerce, which has jurisdiction over a broad array of policy areas including climate and public health. House Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), dean of the New York delegation, signed a letter in support of Ocasio-Cortez, as did more than a dozen other members.
Rice—a New York Democrat who, unlike Ocasio-Cortez, voted against Pelosi for speaker last year—received some support from the state delegation as well.
Reporting on Thursday's secret-ballot vote indicates that Ocasio-Cortez's support for Medicare for All and the Green New Deal, both of which would come under the purview of the Energy and Commerce Committee, was a factor in the vote to hand the seat to Rice, who does not support either progressive policy.
"Some senior Democrats, including on the Energy and Commerce panel, had privately voiced concerns about Ocasio-Cortez landing the seat," Politicoreported. "Some feared that the firebrand Democrat, who backs progressive priorities like the 'Green New Deal' and 'Medicare for All,' could cause issues as Congress attempts to draft bipartisan health and climate policies next year."
As The American Prospect's Alexander Sammon wrote Friday:
Most vocal in his opposition to Ocasio-Cortez's candidacy was Texas' Henry Cuellar, the caucus's most conservative member. After Ocasio-Cortez was nominated and seconded, Cuellar opposed, commenting: "I'm taking into account who pays their dues and who doesn't work against other members whether in primaries or in other contexts," according to a source with knowledge of the meeting...
Many of the representatives that came out most forcefully against Ocasio-Cortez have close ties to oil and gas, especially Cuellar. But perhaps more important was Cuellar's personal opposition to AOC, as evidenced by his statement. Ocasio-Cortez backed Cuellar's primary challenger, 27-year-old progressive Jessica Cisneros, in March's primary. Cuellar won narrowly, with backing from the Koch political network and some last minute campaigning from Speaker Pelosi herself.
Ocasio-Cortez was not the only progressive rejected by the Steering Committee in favor of a moderate, business-friendly Democrat. In addition to Rice, the committee also gave Energy and Commerce spots to Reps. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.), Angie Craig (D-Minn.), Kim Schrier (D-Wash.), and Lizzie Fletcher (D-Texas).
"It is very clear the party leadership is working to shut out progressives and has no intention of working with the left to 'build back better,'" argued journalist Walker Bragman, a contributor to The Daily Poster.
As The Intercept's Lee Fang pointed out on Twitter, all five of the Democrats chosen for Energy and Commerce seats "are pro-business New Dem caucus members, all beating progressives vying for seats."
"The moderate and conservative Dems are winning these early battles," noted Fang, "which will set the legislative agenda for the next two years."
This story has been updated to reflect a change toThe AmericanProspect's reporting, which originally misstated the nature of a report on fracking co-authored by Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.).


alternet--2020-12-20--Scathing report finds Trump economic legacy 'one of the worst among all US presidents'

When President Donald Trump departs the White House next month , he will leave in his wake a nation devastated by a pandemic he failed to confront and an economic scene characterized by rising poverty , widespread hunger , a looming eviction tsunami , and mass layoffs that have left the U.S. with fewer jobs than when his administration began .
And for that , a scathing new report ( pdf ) by Democrats on the congressional Joint Economic Committee ( JEC ) argues , the outgoing president `` only has himself to blame . ''
Released Friday in response @ @ @ @ @ @ @ President ( pdf ) , the assessment of Trump 's economic performance during his four years in office runs directly counter to the rosy depiction frequently offered by the president himself , who seldom missed an opportunity to boast about the state of the stock market even in the midst of nationwide material suffering brought on by the coronavirus pandemic .
`` American businesses and workers are struggling to survive because President Trump refused to listen to advice from public health experts and economists about the best way to handle the coronavirus , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the incoming JEC chair , said in a statement .
`` In fact , his handling of the coronavirus will hurt the economy for years to come .
That is President Trump 's economic legacy—one of the worst among all U.S .
presidents . ''
The new report examines Trump 's economic record dating back to the beginning of his administration , which began with soaring promises on jobs , trade , wages , healthcare , and other key policy matters .
While Trump inherited an steadily improving economy , the president @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sustain and strengthen the economic expansion , '' the JEC report argues .
As many analysts predicted before its passage and implementation , the $ 1.5 trillion Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that Trump signed into law in December of 2017 delivered most of its benefits to the rich and failed to produce anything resembling an economic boom .
`` President Trump 's televised claim that the tax cuts would be 'one of the great Christmas gifts to middle-income people ' proved to be deeply misleading , '' the JEC report notes .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ heavily favored the very wealthy , with the top 1 percent of households—those with average incomes of almost $ 2 million—projected to receive an average tax break of nearly $ 50,000 in 2020 . ''
`` This is approximately 64 times the average tax cut of the middle 20 percent of households , who were projected to receive an average tax cut of $ 780 , '' the report continues .
`` The poorest 20 percent were projected to receive an average tax cut of just $ 60 . ''
Trump 's trade @ @ @ @ @ @ @ finds .
The president 's oft-touted trade war with China `` resulted in hundreds of thousands of lost U.S .
jobs . ''
`` A study by Moody 's Analytics found that by September 2019 it had cost the U.S. economy nearly 300,000 jobs , '' the JEC notes .
While the president 's economic performance prior to the coronavirus pandemic was far from successful , Trump 's handling of the Covid-19 crisis and resulting economic collapse was catastrophic , pushing millions more into poverty and leaving countless Americans unable to afford basic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has around 10 million fewer jobs than it did at the start of the pandemic .
The JEC observes that after Congress and the White House approved the $ 2.2 trillion CARES Act in March—providing a temporary $ 600-per-week boost to unemployment benefits and a round of one-time stimulus payments to many Americans— '' the administration and Senate Republicans refused to work to negotiate another package until a few weeks before the expiration '' of the unemployment supplement , a lapse that dramatically slashed the incomes of millions of people .
`` The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and its grudging response to limit the resulting economic damage , have exposed and widened vast structural inequalities , '' the report states .
`` Low-income workers and people of color have been most harmed by Covid-19 and the ensuing recession .
They are more likely to be exposed to the virus , to be hospitalized and to die from it . ''
The JEC Democrats conclude that `` by all objective measures—job growth , unemployment , gross domestic product—President Trump leaves the economy in much worse condition than he found it .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ not tell the whole story—his failure to use the power of the presidency to fight the coronavirus will weigh down the U.S. economy for years to come , '' the report says .
`` His successor will be left with an extraordinary challenge—to reverse the failures of the Trump administration .
He must also move beyond them to ensure that the United States builds back better from this crisis , fully utilizing the talents and resources of all of its people to build an economy that is fairer , stronger , more inclusive @ @ @ @ @ @

When President Donald Trump departs the White House next month, he will leave in his wake a nation devastated by a pandemic he failed to confront and an economic scene characterized by rising poverty, widespread hunger, a looming eviction tsunami, and mass layoffs that have left the U.S. with fewer jobs than when his administration began.
And for that, a scathing new report (pdf) by Democrats on the congressional Joint Economic Committee (JEC) argues, the outgoing president "only has himself to blame."
Released Friday in response to the 2020 Economic Report of the President (pdf), the assessment of Trump's economic performance during his four years in office runs directly counter to the rosy depiction frequently offered by the president himself, who seldom missed an opportunity to boast about the state of the stock market even in the midst of nationwide material suffering brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.
"American businesses and workers are struggling to survive because President Trump refused to listen to advice from public health experts and economists about the best way to handle the coronavirus," Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), the incoming JEC chair, said in a statement. "In fact, his handling of the coronavirus will hurt the economy for years to come. That is President Trump's economic legacy—one of the worst among all U.S. presidents."
The new report examines Trump's economic record dating back to the beginning of his administration, which began with soaring promises on jobs, trade, wages, healthcare, and other key policy matters.
While Trump inherited an steadily improving economy, the president "failed to pursue policies that would sustain and strengthen the economic expansion," the JEC report argues.
As many analysts predicted before its passage and implementation, the $1.5 trillion Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that Trump signed into law in December of 2017 delivered most of its benefits to the rich and failed to produce anything resembling an economic boom.
"President Trump's televised claim that the tax cuts would be 'one of the great Christmas gifts to middle-income people' proved to be deeply misleading," the JEC report notes. "Analysis reveals that the tax cuts heavily favored the very wealthy, with the top 1 percent of households—those with average incomes of almost $2 million—projected to receive an average tax break of nearly $50,000 in 2020."
"This is approximately 64 times the average tax cut of the middle 20 percent of households, who were projected to receive an average tax cut of $780," the report continues. "The poorest 20 percent were projected to receive an average tax cut of just $60."
Trump's trade promises were similarly empty, the report finds. The president's oft-touted trade war with China "resulted in hundreds of thousands of lost U.S. jobs."
"A study by Moody's Analytics found that by September 2019 it had cost the U.S. economy nearly 300,000 jobs," the JEC notes.
While the president's economic performance prior to the coronavirus pandemic was far from successful, Trump's handling of the Covid-19 crisis and resulting economic collapse was catastrophic, pushing millions more into poverty and leaving countless Americans unable to afford basic necessities. At present, the U.S. has around 10 million fewer jobs than it did at the start of the pandemic.
The JEC observes that after Congress and the White House approved the $2.2 trillion CARES Act in March—providing a temporary $600-per-week boost to unemployment benefits and a round of one-time stimulus payments to many Americans—"the administration and Senate Republicans refused to work to negotiate another package until a few weeks before the expiration" of the unemployment supplement, a lapse that dramatically slashed the incomes of millions of people.
"The administration's mismanagement of the coronavirus, and its grudging response to limit the resulting economic damage, have exposed and widened vast structural inequalities," the report states. "Low-income workers and people of color have been most harmed by Covid-19 and the ensuing recession. They are more likely to be exposed to the virus, to be hospitalized and to die from it."
The JEC Democrats conclude that "by all objective measures—job growth, unemployment, gross domestic product—President Trump leaves the economy in much worse condition than he found it."
"However, the numbers do not tell the whole story—his failure to use the power of the presidency to fight the coronavirus will weigh down the U.S. economy for years to come," the report says. "His successor will be left with an extraordinary challenge—to reverse the failures of the Trump administration. He must also move beyond them to ensure that the United States builds back better from this crisis, fully utilizing the talents and resources of all of its people to build an economy that is fairer, stronger, more inclusive, and more resilient."