LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Is economic inequality a detriment for democracy?

It has been reported that 68% of people worldwide believe that economic inequality at home is the greatest threat to democracy. It has also been reported that income inequality threatens democracy by mistrusting political institutions, global corporations and big tech.

A democracy is best defined by the words of Abraham Lincoln: "A government of the people, by the people and for the people." It is we the people who will need to follow through to determine if this economic inequality is a threat to our democracy.

The incoming Republican administration on Jan. 20, 2025, will have a Cabinet and advisors to the 47th president with an estimated collective wealth of $450 billion. This is probably the largest assembly of the richest set of advisors to a president who is a millionaire. We will have four years with this new administration, and we the voters must determine if this is a threat to our democracy.

The so-called richest man in the world, Elon Musk, is being considered to be on the president's Cabinet as the new proposed Department of Government Efficiency. His estimated net worth is $451.51 billion. The Federal Reserve as of 2022 estimates that the world's wealthiest 10% of Americans hold more than 88% of all available equity in corporations and mutual fund shares (with just the top 1% controlling more than twice as much equity from the bottom 50%) of all Americans combined.

There is a word called "plutocracy." The meaning: Government by the wealthy, a group of wealthy people who control a government. Our democratic republic government is divided into three branches of local government. Legislative/the Congress, Executive/the Presidency and Judicial/the Supreme Court. The legislative makes the laws, the executive carries out laws, and the judicial evaluates the laws. The reason we have three branches of government was because it was created on the concept of checks and balances.

The three branches of government are designed to check and balance each other to prevent any one branch from gaining too much power. These checks and balances are essential for preserving any democracy. We will need to rely on our Constitution and the people we just elected to uphold to their oath of representing the American people and preserving and protecting our Constitution and our democracy.

Going forward, let us watch closely how our new 47th president of the United States along with his Cabinet will conduct business to all the American people. A quote by President Franklin D. Roosevelt: "Government by organized money is just as dangerous as government organized by the mob."

A quote from Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) a book "The Prince 1513:" "The first method of evaluating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men around him."

Thomas E. Carter

Rio Rancho