The cooperative nobody voted for by Virginia Robertson

There is an irony hiding in plain sight every July 4. While Americans celebrate Independence Day with fireworks, parades and speeches about liberty, the same date is also observed internationally as the International Day of Cooperatives. The coincidence is amusing at first glance. But viewed through the lens of modern American politics, it becomes something far more thought-provoking.

The United States often presents itself as the world's great experiment in representative democracy, a nation founded on the revolutionary idea that government derives its legitimacy from the consent of the governed. Yet over recent decades, that ideal has increasingly collided with another reality: the growing perception that the country's most consistent priority is not its citizens but its largest corporate interests and wealthiest shareholders.

That criticism did not begin with Donald Trump, nor will it end with him. Corporate influence has steadily expanded under presidents from both major parties. Lobbyists write legislation, campaign donors shape priorities, and billion-dollar industries enjoy access that ordinary citizens can scarcely imagine. But Trump's two administrations became, for many critics, the most unapologetic expression of that relationship. His rhetoric celebrated ordinary Americans, yet his governing philosophy often emphasized deregulation, tax reductions for corporations, and the language of business efficiency over public institutions.

It is tempting to think of America today not simply as a republic but as a peculiar kind of cooperative, not the democratic, community-based cooperative envisioned by the international movement, where every member has a meaningful voice, but one whose premium shareholders hold disproportionate voting power. In this version, influence scales with wealth, access, and market value rather than citizenship.

The metaphor is imperfect, but revealing. In a traditional cooperative, members share both responsibility and benefit. In today's America, many citizens increasingly feel they carry responsibility without sharing equally in the rewards. Productivity rises while wages stagnate. Corporate profits break records while housing becomes unattainable for younger generations. Stock markets flourish even as millions worry about healthcare costs, education debt, and economic insecurity. Success is measured by quarterly earnings reports rather than the long-term health of communities.

This transformation has altered not only policy but political language itself. Voters are frequently described as consumers. Public services become products. Universities become brands. Hospitals become revenue centers. Even citizenship increasingly resembles a market transaction in which one's value depends on purchasing power rather than democratic participation.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of this shift is how ordinary it now seems. Political debates revolve around reassuring financial markets almost as much as reassuring families. Every major policy announcement is immediately evaluated through the question: "How will Wall Street react?" Far less frequently does the first question become: "How will working people experience this?"

None of this means capitalism itself is the enemy. Markets have generated extraordinary innovation, prosperity, and opportunity. Businesses create jobs, develop technology, and improve living standards. The problem arises when markets cease being tools that serve society and instead become the society that government primarily serves.

America's founders certainly understood commerce. They were merchants, farmers, lawyers, and entrepreneurs. But they also feared concentrations of unchecked power. Their revolution was, above all, about preventing authority from becoming too distant from the people. Whether that authority wears the uniform of a king or the tailored suit of a multinational executive is ultimately beside the point.

So perhaps the shared date between Independence Day and the International Day of Cooperatives offers an unintended reminder. Independence is not merely freedom from outside rule. It also requires vigilance against internal systems that gradually shift political influence toward those with the deepest pockets.

Fireworks celebrate a declaration made in 1776. The harder question, nearly two and a half centuries later, is whether political independence still belongs equally to every citizen or whether the nation's most influential cooperative has quietly become one where the premium shareholders set the agenda while everyone else simply owns symbolic membership.