*** “Aristocracy”; “is a high social class..Its members claim to be, or are considered by others to be, superior to other people..because of family ties, social rank, wealth, or ability. Historically the word..referred to a form of government controlled by a few wealthy or socially prominent citizens.” [ World Book encyclopedia ]
*** “Oligarchy”: “is any type of government in which power is held by a relatively few people. An oligarchy may take many different forms..In most oligarchies, the ruling group has power because of its wealth or military authority.”
{ World Book encyclopedia ]
1] “The Oligarch Election” [Tim Murphy; January-February; Mother Jones ]: “…It was Musk who lobbied Trump to put JD Vance on the ticket. Musk was the one funding the get-out-the-vote effort. Musk was the guy who turned one of the world’s biggest social media platforms into a black hole….Musk was the guy who was going to be given the keys to the federal budget….Musk was the name people kept bringing up on their own….Musk did offer something different..in the relationship between money and power he represented. This was the oligarch election. And Musk was the richest and most powerful oligarch of them all.”
“In Musk’s case, the work was made possible by landmark Supreme Court decisions..which opened the floodgates to an ever-growing and frankly horrifying gusher of often-untraceable cash….Musk’s power has been enabled by the monopolistic growth of the internet economy, and..collapse of the hard-news media industry..”
“The oligarch election was not just about Musk…Dean Phillips’ primary challenge to Joe Biden was partly funded by billionaire investor Bill Ackman….Robert F. Kennedy Jr, whose campaign was an almost wholly owned subsidiary of Timmothy Mellon….Vance got to the Senate because Thiel personally introduced him to Trump..and spent $15 million to get him elected.”
“These donors often set the terms of the debate. Trump said so explicitly at a fundraiser..promising fossil fuel executives a host of goodies…[was for restricting Tik Tok]..then changed his mind after a meeting with the Pennsylvania billionaire and Tik Tok investor..”
“A peek at the disclosures of the Senate Leadership Fund, a leading Republican outside group..Leading the way was billionaire Ken Griffin, a hedge funder who once said that ultrawealthy elites have “insufficient influence” in American politics…followed by $25 million from another investor, Paul Singer..[who flew]..Supreme Court Justice Samuel Aito to Alaska on his private jet, and $15 million from Miriam Adelson…Stephen Schwarzman..who once compared President Barack Obama’s efforts to close the carried interest loophole to Hitler’s invasion of Poland…Silicon Valley mogul Marc Andresson…a couple of Waltons…Rupert Murdoch…”
***!!!***!!! “A study done by Princeton professor Martin Gillens shows that between the 1980s and the 2010s, policies supported by the rich ended up being passed into law between 60% and 70%…Similarly, policies supported by business and special-interest lobbies..being passed into law between 60% and 70%… In contrast, policies supported by a majority of voters ended up being passed into law only about 30%..and every single time..it also had the support of either business lobbies, the rich, or both…not a single policy supported by a majority of voters but opposed by the rich and the business community ended up being passed into law.” [“Tax The Rich”; Morris Pearl, Erica Payne & the Patriotic Millionaires]
***!!!***!!! Read this again – it is a practical, real world DEFINITION OF OLIGARCHY ***!!!***!!!
***!!!***!!! “…eighty cases that were decided by a 5-4 opinion of the Roberts Five [Justices Roberts, Alito, Kennedy, Thomas, Scalia or Gorsuch], each of which served one of the following conservative interests: [1] controlling the political process to benefit conservative candidates and policies; [2]2 protecting corporations from liability and letting polluters pollute; [3]. restricting civil rights and condoning discrimination; [4]. advancing a far-right social agenda….the appendix also identifies..judicial principles these conservative justices generally espouse, but which they arguably disregarded in these cases to achieve a desired outcome, including: [1] stare decisis; [2]2 judicial restraint; [3] originalism; [4]4. textualism; [5]5 aversion to fact finding.” [Senator Sheldon Whitehouse; “The Scheme’; Appendix A – a list of a 73-0 voting record!!! – for 2005-2019 ONLY, other anti-democratic decisions followed}
***!!!***!!! Read again – this describes a Far Right process for achieving a PLUTOCRATIC THEOCRACY ***!!!***!!!
2]. “The Transitional Oligarchy: Democracy’s Lat Stand?” [Thom Hartmann; 12/15/24; The Progressive Populist]: “We’ll soon again have a billionaire president – helped to power by the richest billionaire..with his election campaign funded in large part by at least $2 billion in direct, reported donations from roughly 150 billionaire families. It appears the other roughly 350 billionaires who openly funded Trump in 2020 chose to instead donate to “dark money” SuperPacs….And none of that covers the additional billions in “free media’ Trump got from FOX “news”, right-wing hate radio, and Elon Musk..”
***. In 1955, the top federal tax bracket was 91%. Now it is 37%. In 1956, at the height of American economic power – “we’ had 1 billionaire. Now, “we” have about 750. 1947-73, WE had a thriving mixed blue-white collar middle class, the envy of the world. That was before. THE. EMPIRE. struck back: attacking unions; packing courts; deciding “shareholder value” was THE ONLY thing that mattered; Republicans cut rich people’s taxes [income and inheritance]
3] “As Anthony Scaramucci, onetime communication director for the former president, told Politico in a critique of Trump’s billionaire supporters: “You need a democracy to have effective capitalism. If you don’t, you get cronyism. You get oligarchy. You get crony capitalism. You get arbitrary and capricious administration to the law, which reduces people’s tendency to invest in your country.” [Jamelle Bouie; “There’s a Reason Trump Has Friends in High Places”; 6/16/24; New York Times] ***!!!***!!! “You get OLIGARCHY.” ***!!!***!!!
*** “Fascism is government by the few and for the few.” [ United States Army; 1945; Orientation Fact Sheet ]
4] “What we should fear most is Mr. Trump transforming our government into a modern-day Tammany Hall, instilling a kleptocratic leadership that will be difficult, if not impossible, to dislodge….Government, like fish, rots from the head down. Mr. Trump’s [first term] example freed up cabinet members to award huge contracts to their friends, business associates and political allies, while others ran their departments like personal fiefs….He sees politics, like business, as a zero-sum game in which he wins only if someone else loses. These are the instincts that drive corruption, kleptocracy and grift…”
“In a kleptocracy..corruption is a feature..By controlling government assets..kleptocrats cement their control of government…recall Vladimir Putin and his oligarchs…Now we face that danger…The consequences will echo for generations..” [Caroline Fredrickson; “What Worries Me Most About Trump”; 4/14/24; New York Times]
*** “To usurp supreme and absolute authority..in a free state and subject it to tyranny, the people must have already become corrupt by gradual steps from generation to generation.” [ Machiavelli ]
5] “..Trump’s drain-the-swamp administration proceeded to crystalize and put into practice – in barefaced way unseen in the United States in a century – ..systematic corruption…Meanwhile, the big business strand of America’s emerging kleptocratic network was awarded control of the agencies whose job is to protect the public..”…………..
“..Dark Money..by Jane Mayer, and Democracy in Chains, by historian Nancy MacLean, are must reads..chart the development of a U.S. integrated kleptocratic network…It is the most sophisticated, powerful, and threatening such organism to anchor itself in the United States since the Gilded Age..captains of the most lucrative industries…At its center..the multi-billionaire energy, mining, and chemical mogul Charles Koch…what the hydra wants is ..is frightening. They want private, not democratic, control of the country’s resources.” [Sarah Chayes: “On Corruption in America”} ***!!!***!! READ THIS AGAIN – read Mayer and MacLean – footnotes & documentation ***!!!***!!!
*** Other similar sources: “American Kleptocracy,” Casey Michel; “Corruption in America,” Zephyr Teachout: “Kleptopia,” Tom Burgis; “How Democracies Die,” Steven Levitsky & Daniel Ziblatt; “On Tyranny,” Timothy Snyder; “American Nightmare,” Henry Giroux; “Twilight of Democracy,” Anne Applebaum; “Fascism A Warning, Madeleine Albright; “How Fascism Works,” Jason Stanley
*** “The best way to take control over people and control them utterly is to take a little of their freedom at a time, to erode rights by a thousand tiny and almost imperceptible reductions. In this way, the people will not see those rights and freedoms being removed until past the point at which these changes cannot be reversed.” [Adolf Hitler]
6] YOUR rights and freedoms HAVE BEEN TAKEN AWAY, 1980-2025, one after another by the rich and their corporations, by Far Right zealots ; and increasingly since 2005 – by most likely THE MOST CORRUPT “supreme court” in American history. Some is related above. The Far Right has: attacked & neutered unions; moved American jobs overseas; taken away “defined benefit’ pensions; PERVERTED American law; privatized government functions; deregulated industries; rigged the tax codes; defunded the IRS; hamstrung government agencies protecting YOU; captured government; corrupted government with “dark money”; not enforced anti-trust laws – enabling price-gouging monopolies; destroyed traditional “Mom & Pop” businesses & farms; allowed online corporations to destroy brick-&-mortar businesses; corrupted professional news media; corrupted health care; corrupted education; corrupted sports; weakened, if not destroyed, what WAS the prosperous middle class; and MUCh more…………..
For those wondering WHY “America is heading in the wrong direction” – THIS is most of YOUR answer, but YOU can read: “Who Stole the American Dream,’ Pulitzer Prize winner Hedrick Smith; “The Betrayal of the American Dream,” double Pulitzer winners Barlett & Steele; “Evil Geniuses,” Kurt Andersen; “Free Lunch,” Pulitzer winner D.C. Johnston; “Economic Apartheid,” Collins & Yeskel; “The Price of Inequality,” Nobel Prize winner Joe Stiglitz.
OR. – YOU can do your own research: compare 1947-1979 and 1980-2025 income, wealth, tax rates. They’ll prove to YOU how the lower 90-95% got SCREWED over by the rich and corporations
Wonder WHY lifeis harder for you – see the oligarchy. Wonder why YOUR costs are higher – see the oligarchy. Wonder why YOURA job may be in jeopardy – se the oligarchy. Wonder why YOUR taxes are too high – see the oligarchy [ because YOU are paying their taxes] Wonder why government doesn’t work – see the oligarchy [because they don’t want government to work against them]. Wonder why we have a CORRUPT “supreme court” – see the oligarchy [these are the Republican “justices’ they want]. Wonder why. America APPEARS to be so “divided’ – see t he oligarchy [divide and conquer works]. Wonder why YOUR retirement might not be as good as your parents – see the oligarchy [YOUR retirement $$$ is in THEIR pockets!!!]. Wonder why health care is so expensive – see the oligarchy.
Do YOU really think D.J. Trump and his OLIGARCH friends are gonna make life better for YOU??????? Well, see, I’ve got this bridge out in ………………..
With Justice For All 