Aghast at the churning subversion of political norms, the majority of Americans are witnessing institutions crumbling in the hands of a fetid, foul mouthed, flagrant liar in the role of "Leader of the Free World". We stand, gape-jawed, as state legislators, following the president’s lead, refuse to condemn neo-Nazis, and children are taken from parents... sent to internment camps.
Meanwhile, nothing that Trump says or does seems to affect the loyalty of his base. Scandal after scandal, his approval rate hasn’t significantly budged. Forty percent of the population is consistently thrilled by Trump’s minority rules edicts. Whether it's anti-abortion, anti-gay, or anti-immigration policies, his supporters think he’s doing the Lord’s work! As for that democracy thing, "good riddance. We never liked it anyways."
What a government claims itself to be, and how it operates, are not necessarily the same thing. Russia calls itself a democratic republic and recently“re-elected” Putin, but it functions as an oligarchic dictatorship. The National Socialist German Workers Party—the Nazi Party—was neither socialist nor pro-worker’s rights in any sense. It was fascist, supporting the merger of corporate interests with genocidal authoritarianism. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea—North Korea—is neither a democracy or a republic. It is a dynastic dictatorship.
In terms of political organization, despite the lofty words of the founders; the U.S. is neither a democracy nor a republic. It is an oligarchy.
In a true democracy, a fully enfranchised citizenry decides an election directly, with laws being enacted through a majority vote. In a republic, citizens elect representatives who vote on their behalf. But “voting on their behalf,” does not necessarily mean “voting according to their wishes.” Once in office, elected officials are not bound to faithfully represent the majority views of their constituents nor even the best interests of the nation, nor what benefits humanity. Decisions are "guided" by monied interests. So much so that corruption is routine and institutionalized. Want some law to benefit yourself, it only takes money going to the right place, and it's all perfectly legal.
The Native councils of Alaska unanimously opposed opening the Arctic Circle for oil drilling, protesting that it will damage the environment and irrevocably destroy their way of life. Alaska’s senior senator, Republican Lisa Murkowski, voted against their objections, clearing the way for theTrump administration to enact a law that opens the area for drilling.
Similarly, the tax reform bill of 2017 was historically unpopular, with less than 25 percent of all voters supporting it. In the end, because Republicans control the House, Senate, and Oval Office, a few dozen men overruled the wishes of 200 million Americans, and passed a bill that exacerbates an already catastrophic income inequality , while openly benefiting the extremely wealthy.
The U.S. is an oligarchy.
Under these conditions, the hollowing-out of the federal government is proceeding as planned.
Trump is no mastermind, but the journalistic interpretation of what is happening is consistently backwards, and that the “chaos” they speak of in the White House is, rather, the symptom of power being consolidated.
On some pathetic level, a Trump presidency makes sense, he an individual who rose to prominence because he embodied the unconscious truth of a particular moment.
The particular truth of our time is horribly ugly.
By logic, Trump should not be standing at all. And yet, there he IS.
Enabled by his father’s wealth to buy his way to prestige.
Enabled by banks to get out of unprecedented numbers of bankruptcies.
Enabled by the tax code to avoid paying taxes for at least 18 years.
Enabled by misogyny to repeatedly humiliate and assault women without consequence.
Enabled by credulity and ignorance to con the masses.
Those same masses—and the moguls of conservative media propaganda, who profit handsomely from despair—now want to see the world burn, and they want an insider to light the torch.
That’s Trump. Who better to understand the systemic moral failures of capitalism than the opportunist who has taken advantage of them for all 70 years of his existence?
Around the world, people WANT the economy to go to hell.
They WANT the cities to fall.
They WANT the catharsis of chaos.
The resentment is misguided and inchoate and will only hurt the meek, the poor, the huddled praised by the Psalms because theirs is the kingdom of Heaven. But this earth, not so much.
Inside a republic of consumers—this being the inevitable outcome of late-stage capitalism—he represents corporations-as-people, and dollar bills are the only votes that count.
The consequences of his administration are easy to predict.
It’s neofeudalism, where wealth and resources are concentrated in the hands of very few, and the disempowered grovel for crumbs.
There will be no more professional class, no bourgeoisie or educated “elites,” who are bothersome because they challenge theocratic hierarchies from within.
This cratering is already quite visible in Kansas and Oklahoma, where Republican-controlled governments have bankrupted their states, wreaking havoc among ordinary citizens who no longer have funds for public schools, repairing roads, or other public works. Make no mistake, these social disasters are not side effects of “pro-business” tax laws, but the obvious purpose of policies that favor a structural system enabling the wealthy oligarchy to gather more and more power.
The U.S. is an oligarchy.
* The caveat to Trump’s win, of course, is election meddling by Russia, which, among other things, used American social media to manipulate voters. Specifically, via Facebook, a firm called Cambridge Analytica accessed the private data of more than 50 million users, and used it to help elect Trump. “Facebook has styled itself as a neutral platform for information,” reporter Megha Rajagopalan wrote earlier this year. “But its role in spreading propaganda and fake news, as well as its relationship with government, shows how easily that neutrality can be exploited by autocrats.”
She was writing about Cambodia, but could easily have been written about many other countries including the U.S.
Back in 2010, The New Yorker ran a profile of Zuckerberg, who had a revealing exchange with another student. He told his friend that he had personal information on thousands of students at Harvard College thanks to his control of Facebook. Astonished, his friend asked “What?! How’d you manage that one?” Zuckerberg messaged back: “People just submitted it. I don’t know why. They trust me. Dumb fucks.”
Consider that Mark Zuckerberg is the fifth wealthiest person in the world, and Putin is rumored to be No. 1. Eliminate the nationalist frameworks, and suddenly it becomes obvious that the world’s wealthy want foxes to run the henhouse. Between fanning the flames of division, planting ridiculous fake news stories that spread virally on social media, elections are rigged via gerrymandering, voter-suppresion -ID laws, & dark money
Despite losing by nearly 4 million votes, Trump won the election.
This is an Oligarchy.
It's not Russia per se that is meddling in elections, it's an international group of oligarchs.
The people who already own most everything.
It's not enough...it never is.
They want the EU to fail, they want more direct control of nation's governments.
They want organizations like the United Nations to disappear.
Dictatorships, you see, are orderly while democracies are messy and harder to control.
They've grown tired of the effort it takes to keep up the illusion of even a pseudo-democracy.
Why do you suppose the oligarchy hates collective bargaining and unions so much?
Yes, sure they seek to get labor as cheap as possible, but it's more than that. It's an obsession.
The Kochs, Mercers, DeVos & Murdochs of the world are organized against you.
And it's an advantage they want kept for themselves...they don't want YOU organized.
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