journalist Neal Gabler wrote in Salon in 2017, “America is deeply divided between those who are considered (and consider themselves) winners, and those who…are considered by the winners to be losers. Losers are cultural pariahs—the American equivalent of India’s untouchables….You have to be a winner to have any respect, including self-respect.” The “prosperity gospel,” without ever mentioning the word Calvinism, holds that wealth is bestowed by God upon the worthy, and withdrawn from the undeserving.
