America was founded on the promise for liberty and justice for all, however, President Trump’s new agenda highly contradicts what has been worked at for hundreds of years. By defunding and promising to take down institutions that were created to promote equality for everyone, America is close to becoming a country of ruin.
The wealth distribution in America as of 2016 was worse than the wealth distribution was during the French Revolution (1790s), and the gap is only increasing.
It is evident that Trump is working to centralize power to a small group of people, such as Elon Musk, and JD Vance. Musk being brought into Trump’s election campaign as a central figure has led many to question why the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is so involved in politics. Trump is centralizing power by allowing people with a non-political background to be ‘the face’ of what is representing America at the moment, contravening the purpose of a democracy, and the right to choice.
“I’ve done my part by voting, but you know that’s all I can do against it… And with these new policies being enacted it’s gonna be harder for people to do anything about it,” senior Micheal Austin said.
Austin referred to the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau founded in 2008, where operations have been frozen as of Feb. 1. “Any kind of organization dedicated to making sure the average working man doesn’t get ripped off being abolished is definitely not a good thing,” Austin said.
The wealth gap in America as of 2025 consists of a small group of people that own around 22 trillion USD collectively as of 2024, while the bottom 50% collectively have around 4 trillion USD. This top 0.1% of people consists of billionaires such as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sean Combs, otherwise known as P. Diddy. They each own insanely wealthy corporations that have integrated themselves into American lives, like Amazon, Tesla, and Meta. At some point or another they’ve made money off of almost everyone as a consumer.
With money comes status, and with enough of both, these people can do things like easily pay off their crimes without having to let justice be served. They become above the law, because they simply have enough money to be able to pay off the bail set for their crimes.
New evidence in Comb’s case suggests that he hosted ‘white parties’ and committed various sex crimes since the 1990s, and wasn’t charged until 2024. Victims of these crimes didn’t have justice served until decades later, and even worse, they watched their perpetrators be glorified in the spotlight of the entertainment industry.
Another member of the one percent, Jeffrey Epstein, was a perpetrator and predator for most of his life, but owned Epstein Island from 1998 up until his death in prison in 2019. He was charged for his crimes, including conspiracy to defraud the US, conspiracy against the rights of citizens. But many still believe him to be innocent, and President Trump has even blatantly expressed his admiration for Epstein, and had a close relationship with him.
Not only can the rich just use their power for their own personal benefit, they’re also inserting themselves into politics. Musk, Zuckerberg, and Bezos were all front row at President Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20. These men have absolutely no background in politics, and they shouldn’t be in a place to make decisions about the American government simply because they’re rich and powerful.
Musk has not only been inserting himself into Trump’s campaign, instilling fear of an oligarchic society into Americans; he also used the promise of a one million dollar check as an incentive to vote, violating federal voting laws. And yet, nothing has been put in place to prevent this from happening again, although the Justice Department has said it might not be legal, there has been nothing put in place to stop this from happening.
“Americans recognize it in theory, they know that the people at the very top are to blame, they just don’t know how it manifests,” senior Isabella Davis said.
Sophomore Evan Zorn highlighted the defunding and dismantling of the Department of Education.“That all ends up with less availability for public education and lower quality of public education, which means that people are less likely to realize that this is going on and more likely to go along with this simple nationalist idea that Trump paints,” Zorn said.
It’s apparent from how long Combs and Epstein got away with their crimes, that the law plays favorites when it comes to money, and there’s no way of telling how many of the people that ‘run’ our country are using it to harm others.
