Friends,
In 1857, a white Southerner named Hinton Rowan Helper wrote a groundbreaking book that exposed a hard truth about the American economy: racial hierarchy was keeping common white Southerners in deep poverty by preventing investment in public goods like schools and libraries. Helper recognized that the plantation elite used the institution of slavery to maintain a monopoly on power, leaving the majority of white people without a voice or a stake in the system.
Today, that same divide and conquer playbook is being sold by a new group of elites. We see it in the noise of the Trump circus—a constant stream of distraction designed to keep working-class white Americans and people of color from uniting under our shared economic and political universal rights. Folks like Trump sell the illusion of white privilege to maintain a system of inequality, ensuring that the working class fights over crumbs while the wealthy walk away with the profits.
That is why our movement is so critical. We are not falling for the division. We are running on a platform built on economic solidarity, guaranteeing universal economic and political rights for everyone, regardless of background. Prosperity is not a limited resource—it is something we create together.
The so-called "Big Beautiful Bill" is the most egregious example of this playbook in action: trillions of dollars have been transferred from the 99% of us to the 1%, further entrenching inequality and undermining the economic security of everyday Americans.
This is why I ran for Congress on universal, cradle-to-grave economic rights for all—with a $1,300 Freedom Dividend at the center, paid for by billionaires who do not pay their fair share. How much longer until we are fed up? How much longer until we realize that we are being played by the oldest trick in the book? How much longer until we unite under economic justice, freedom, and solidarity for all?
In Solidarity,
Gamy Enriquez, MPA
* Helper, H. R. (1857). The Impending Crisis of the South: How to Meet It. Burdick Brothers.
* McGhee, H. C. (2020). The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together. One World.
* Roediger, D. R. (2007). The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class. Verso.
* Fogel, R. W., & Engerman, S. L. (1974). Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery. Little, Brown.
* Genovese, E. D. (1974). Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made. Pantheon Books.
