*** “We can either have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentration in the hands of a few. But we can’t have both.” [ Justice Louis Brandeis ]
This post is intended to begin to open YOUR eyes to the magnitude of political influence amassed by America’s wealthiest people. It is expressed in tax code corruption, in laws not enforced, in laws written by and for the rich, in ‘supreme court” rulings like “citizens United,” and much more.
Following are some excerpts from “How Billionaires Took Over American Politics”. [Beth Reinhard, Naftali Bendavid, Clarence Morse, Aaron Schaffer; Washington Post Weekly; 11/23/25]. If YOU care about America, American society, American government, American justice – this is a MUST read.
1] “In an era defined by major political divisions and massive wealth accumulation for the richest Americans, billionaires are spending unprecedented amounts on U.S. politics…leading to a record-breaking surge of donations by the ultrarich in 2024. Since 2000, political giving by the wealthiest 100 Americans to federal elections has gone up almost 140 times..”
3] “..in three landmark decisions, starting with 2010’s Citizens United vs FEC, federal courts gutted post-Watergate campaign restrictions, clearing the way for donors to contribute unlimited money to elections. As a result, U.S. politicians are more dependent on the largesse of the billionaire class than ever before, giving one-four-hundreth of 1% of Americans extraordinary influence over which politicians and policies succeed…driving up campaign costs and eroding public confidence in American democracy.”
9] “..at least 17 billionaires, collectively worth more than $1 trillion, claimed coveted seats in the Capitol Rotunda – a historic concentration of wealth that seemed to herald a new class of American oligarchs, there to celebrate a president known for publicly rewarding his allies and punishing his opponents…..”It was so striking and so out in the open that the rich people are running the country”…….”
11] “..under Trump, the first billionaire president, the ultrawealthy have set up shop inside the corridors of government more openly than ever before…Trump’s Cabinet is the wealthiest in U.S. history..”
***. “Of all the forms of tyranny the least attractive and most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of plutocracy.” [ Theodore Roosevelt, Republican 26th U.S. President ]
2] “Over the past quarter-century, political, legal and economic changes have reshaped the relationship between wealth and political power in America. Economists say wealth is now more concentrated at the very top than at any time since the Gilded Age.”
4] “Donations are not the only path to power for the ultrawealthy; following Trump’s lead, some billionaires are parlaying their financial clout into public office. At least 44 of the 902 U.S. billionaires on Forbes magazine’s 2025 list, or their spouses, have been elected or appointed to state or federal office in the past 10 years..”
5] “America’s 902 billionaires are collectively worth more than $6.7 trillion, the most wealth ever amassed by the nation’s ultrarich… A little more than a decade ago, there were half as many billionaires in the U.S., with a total worth estimated at $2.6 trillion when adjusted for inflation.”
*** “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.”
[ Benito Mussolini ]
6]. “Overall, billionaires have rallied behind Trump’s Republican Party. More than 80% of the federal campaign spending by the 100 wealthiest Americans went to Republicans…Trump himself raised 15 times as much from the 100 richest Americans in 2024 than he did during his first presidential campaign, in 2016.”
7] “..over the past half-decade, many of tech’s wealthiest titans rebelled against the Biden administration’s criticism and policing of their industry…”
8] “When Trump first ran for office in 2016, he pitched himself as someone whose personal fortune made him uncorruptible. [ stop laughing !!!], and he promised to break the power of elites in Washington and “drain the swamp.” [stop laughing, you’re going to hurt yourself !!!]
***. “The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.” [. Adam Smith – yes – THE. Adam Smith. ]
10] “Billionaires didn’t acquire their influence in D.C. overnight. President Bill Clinton aggressively courted Wall Street, then signed a sweeping financial deregulation and a trade deal strongly backed by wealthy Americans. President George W. Bush also relied heavily on affluent donors, then pushed through tax cuts that benefited the rich, as well as the Troubled Asset Relief Program to bail out big banks. In 2008, Barack Obama became the first presidential candidate in the post-Watergate era to reject public campaign financing and instead raising huge sums from private donors.”
12] ‘..Trump has championed a deregulation and tax cut agenda that is bringing huge benefits to wealthy Americans..DOGE..slashed the regulatory state that polices – and infuriates – billionaires, along with their business activities. The IRS has lost thousands of workers, which cripples efforts to pursue tax cheats…The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, created to ensure that financial institutions treat their customers fairly, is on its deathbed. .Trump’s main legislative achievement, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, locked in lower tax rates for corporations and allowed the children of the super-rich to inherit $15 million tax-free, while cutting Medicaid programs that benefit the poor and the elderly.”
***. “You know, the only trouble with capitalism is capitalists. They’re too damn greedy.”
[ Herbert Hoover, Republican. 31st U.S. President ]
A future post will concern material from “Tax The Rich!” [ Morris Pearl, Erica Payne and The Patriotic Millionaires]. It will feature “Tax Tricks,” “Corporate Tricks<” Tax Lies. We leave YOU with this quote to chew on:
“According to the study [Martin Gilens], not a single policy supported by the majority of voters but opposed by the rich and the business community ended up being passed into law.”
Tag: economics
The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, LXXVII – Trump. GIVES More. Tax. Breaks to. Obscenely. Rich. Donors. and Friends – YOUR. Food. Costs. Go. Up!!!!!!!!!!
*** You can’t make this stuff up!!! – Day After Day – same headlines: Trump’s Craven Corruption and the increasing SUFFERING of ordinary [non- top 1%] people – like YOU. Review these reports:
– “Wealthy getting more tax breaks”. [ Jesse Drucker; New York Times; 11/7/25 ]
– “CEO’s Are Getting Richer. Everyone Else Is Falling Behind”. [ Sarah Anderson; The Progressive Populist; Oct., 2025]
– “At McDonald’s, low-income customers aren’t likin” it” { Jaclyn Peiser; Washington Post Weekly; 11/9/25 ]
– “The Undeclared Class War”. [ Wayne O’Leary; The Progressive Populist; August, 2025 ]
– “Our ‘inflation diet’ Is Starving Junk Food Sales”. [ Brooks Johnson; Minnesota Star Tribune; 10/27/25 ]
*** “The object of government is the welfare of the people. The material progress and prosperity of a nation are desirable chiefly so far as they lead to the moral and material welfare of all good citizens.”
[ Theodore Roosevelt, 26th U.S. President ]
I. “Wealthy getting more tax breaks”
1] “With little public scrutiny, the Trump administration is handing out hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts to some of the country’s most profitable companies and wealthiest investors.” [NOTE: WHY??????}
2]. “The primary target: The administration is rapidly gutting a 2022 law intended to ensure that a sliver of the country’s most profitable corporations pay at least some federal income tax.” [NOTE: WHY?????]
3]. “These breaks come in addition to the roughly $4 trillion package of tax cuts that President Donald Trump signed into law in July. The legislation passed entirely by Republicans, heavily benefits businesses and the ultrawealthy. It is projected to add trillions of dollars to the federal deficit ands came with steep cuts to health care for the elderly and food stamps for the poorest Americans.” [NOTE: read this again – this is the very definition of corruption and cruelty]
4] “The alternative minimum tax isn’t the administration’s only effort to roll back taxes on large businesses and wealthy individuals. Last month, the Treasury granted a new tax relief to foreign investors in U.S. real estate. In August, they withdrew regulations to prevent multinationals from avoiding taxes by claiming duplicate losses in multiple countries at once. And, as The New York Times previously reported, the Treasury and IRS have rolled back a crackdown on an aggressive tax shelter used by big companies…” [READ THUIS AGAIN – corruption anyone?]
***. “And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.”
[ John F. Kennedy, 35th U.S. President ]
5]. “The Treasury’s actions are probably contributing hundreds of billions of dollars to the federal deficit, tax experts said. That is on top of what the agency did during the first Trump administration..”
6] “Big companies effectively keep two sets of books – one for investors and another for the IRS. The profits they report to the IRS permit various deductions that can bring a firm’s tax rate far below the 21% corporate tax rate.”
7] “The One Big Beautiful Bill Act that Trump signed into law in July provided well over $1 trillion in relief for big companies when they calculate their income tax bills….. As a result, the regular tax bills of many businesses drop so sharply – below 15% – that that they could be newly subject to the alternative minimum tax.” [NOTE: faer not!!!!! – “lobbying’ took care of that !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]
*** “Do you decree righteousness, you rulers? Do you judge the people fairly? No, in your hearts you devise wickedness; your hands deal out violence on the land.” [ Psalm 47: 8 ]
II. “CEO’s Are Getting Richer. Everyone Else Is Falling Behind”
1] “CEO’s of the 100 S&P 500 firms with the lowest median wages – a group I call the ‘Low-Wage 100″ – have enjoyed skyrocketing pay over the past six years. As a group, these CEO’s now earn 632 times more than their median employees, I found in a new report for the Institute for Policy Studies. Their pay has risen nearly 35 percent since 2019 in absolute terms, While their median worker pay hasn’t even kept up with the U.S. inflation rate.” [ Greed? ]
2]. “It’s not for lack of cash. Between 2019 and 2024, these firms spent a combined $644 billion on stock buybacks. This once-illegal financial maneuver artificially inflates the value of a company’s stock – and with it, CEO pay. Even the most inept executives can rake in vast fortunes through this scam. Every dollar spent on buybacks represents a dollar not spent on workers. [. GREED, anyone????? ]
3] “The tradeoffs can be downright staggering. At Lowe’s..every one of their 273,000 employees could’ve gotten an annual $28,456 bonus over the past six years with the money the retailer blew on stock buybacks. Lowe’s median worker pay was just $30,606 last year. If McDonald’s had spent their buyback outlays on worker bonuses during this period, they could’ve given all their employees an extra $18,338 per year – more than the company’s median wage.”
*** “To lead the people, walk behind them.” [ Lao Tau ]
4]. “It’s bad for business too – most of these companies are spending more on buybacks than on vital investments like training employees or upgrading technology, equipment, and properties. And extensive research shows that extreme pay disparities undermine employee morale and boost turnover rates.”
5] “How could policymakers incentivize more equitable pay practices? They could increase taxes on corporations with huge CEO-worker pay gaps. Congress could also increase the 1% excise tax on stock buybacks that went into effect in 2023.”
*** “He that hastes to be rich has an evil eye, and considers not that poverty shall fall upon him.” [Proverbs. 28: 22]
III. “At McDonald’s, low-income customers aren’t lovin’ it”
1] “Lower-income customers aren’t finding much value in the menu at McDonald’s these days. Traffic dropped ‘nearly double digits” industry-wide among this demographic. Meanwhile, traffic among higher-income customers continued to grow across the fast-food sector.”
2] “McDonald’s is the latest example of a growing bifurcation among U.S. consumers. The wealthiest Americans are fueling consumer spending, while the working class – bogged down by waning wage growth, grocery inflation and the rising costs of living – are forgoing dining out….Chipotle chief executive Scott Boatwright told investors last week that “the gap has widened’ among its customers, with those in households earning less than $100,000…eating at the fast-food restaurant less frequently.” [ read this again, & again ]
***. “In imitation of our Master, we Christians are called to confront the poverty of our brothers and sisters, to touch it, to make it our own and to take practical steps to alleviate it.” [ pope Francis ]
3] “Walmart, Dollar General and Dollar Tree have also noted the growing pressure on their core low-income customers as they continue to pullback on spending in discretionary categories..”
4] “From 2019 to 2024, the average cost of a menu item rose 40 percent, according to a company fact sheet.”
***. “Take heed, and beware of greed, for a man’s life consists not in the abundance of the things he possesses.”
[Luke 12: 15]
IV. “The Undeclared Class War”
1] “A number of commentators have remarked recently on the symbolic expression of Trumpian corruption and ostentation… If you can’t afford to belong, don’t feel bad. most Americans can’t afford to ante up for much of anything in the nation’s capital these days. The town belongs to the billionaire class and their retainers – or political bosses.. Oligarchy is in the saddle, and the oligarchs know it.”
2] “It’s a strange combination: Fascistic apparatchiks resembling a mafioso peddling conspiratorial extremism, fear and vengefulness are paired with nouveau riche entrepreneurial billionaires willing to happily accommodate the extremist politicos to ensure the success of their personal, wealth-generating vision of a starwars economic future built on monetized technology. Put it all under the command of a godfather figure who is at once chief executive and chief oligarch. as well as chief enforcer, and you have what some have called a gangster government.” [re-read this!!!]
3] “The descent can be said to have begun in the 1980s, when the excesses hailed as freedom by Trump sycophant Bezos were delivered in large helpings to the upper orders under the smiling visage of Ronald Reagan. It was classic American laissez-faire capitalism in application; that is, deregulate and privatize, eliminate high-end taxation, and allow the market’s “invisible hand” to work its will free of government oversight. Assume the rewards will trickle down to the benefit of all…they never do; the signature characteristic of the system in its mature phase is overwhelming economic concentration and starkclass disparities.”
*** “There is class warfare all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” [Billionaire Warren Buffett, 2005]
4] “The group Americans for Tax Fairness reports that by the end of 2023, American billionaires were collectively worth a record $5.2 trillion – up an astounding $2.3 trillion, or 78%, since the passage of the Trump-GOP tax cut of 2017; that’s an annual increase of 13%, producing unheard of riches even by the standards of U.S. billionaires…..”
5] “a reasonable question is how such egregious capital concentration – it currently stands at 17% of American GDP – has been allowed to develop. The most obvious explanation is federal tax policy.” YES – it is that simple – this is CORRUPTION in action. There is NO justification that considers. ‘..to promote the general Welfare..” that can imagine tax cuts like these, let alone actually enact them.]
6] “Since the 1980s, virtually all federal taxes impacting billionaires – personal income, corporate income, long-term capital gains, shareholder dividend, and inheritance – have been cut roughly in half, radically reducing the money owed..” [. this isn’t rocket science – it’s blatant CORRUPTION ]
***. ‘You have despised the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you, and drag you before the judgment seats?” [ James 2: 6 ]
V. “Our ‘inflation diet” Is Starving Junk Food Sales”
1] “Rising food prices remain the top concern among consumers globally, according to a recent NielsenIQ study. Food inflation ranked higher than war, job security, housing costs and climate change. Almost all food is noticeably more expensive now compared with five years ago.”
2]. “But many food companies, like Hormel and Oreo-maker Mondelez, are still raising prices to preserve their profit margins… Then there is ‘shrinkflation,’ where prices ara stable, but packages contain less food.”
3] “Without sales growth comes a hunt for productivity. Nestle, the world’s largest food company, recently announced it’s cutting 16,000 jobs, about 6% of its workforce, and will bring in more automation in office jobs and at factories to become ‘an agile company.” The Swiss giant’s stock price rose 10% on the news.” [ SO, stay tuned….]
***. “Government is a trust, and the officers of the government are trustees; and both the trust and the trustees are created for the benefit of the people.” [ Henry Clay, U.S. Senator, 1829 ]
*** “The only orthodox object of the institution of government is to secure the greatest degree of happiness possible to the general mass of those associated under it.” [. Thomas Jefferson, Founding Father, 3rd U.S. President ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, LXII – Privatizing YOUR Government
*** “For one person alone to have the Government of a people in his hands, would be too great a Temptation. It tends to excite and draw forth Pride of man, to make him unsufferably haughty; it gives him too much liberty to exert his corruptions and it encourages him to become a Tyrant and an oppressor, to dispense with Laws and break the most solemn oaths.” [ John Barnard, 1746 ]
This post is built around Cullen Murphy’s “Feudalism Is Our Future,” The Atlantic; July, 2025. Read it VERY carefully. Among other crimes against America, the Trump DICTATORSHIP is working to dismantle YOUR government – to split off government functions and give them to private companies to do for profit. PRIVATIZATION, along with. DEREGULATION, have been two major Republican goals since at least 1981. This will mean less transparency, less accountability, less concern for YOUR civil rights. Feudalism was ended to give ordinary people – like YOU – more rights, income, respect. WHY should you be surprised that the Trump DICTATORSHIP would want to bring it back?
*** “The very essence of a free government consists in considering offices as public trusts, bestowed for the good of the country, and not for the benefit of an individual or a party.” [ John C. Calhoun ]
6] “As the pace of privatization picked up in the 21st century, the idea of “neo-feudalism” began to interest scholars and theorists….Most of the scholars are profoundly wary: They foresee an erosion of transparency, a disregard for individual rights, and a concentration of power among an ever smaller group of wealthy barons, even as the bulk of the population is relegated to service jobs that amount to a modern form of serfdom.” [read & think on this again]
11]. “Oversight more broadly – of the environment, food, drugs, finance – has been drifting for decades into the hands of those being overseen. In their 2021 book, The Privatization of Everything, Donald Cohen and Allen Mikaelian documented the loss of public control over water, roads, welfare, parks, and much else. The deliberate dismantling of government in America in recent months, and its replacement with something built on privatized power and networks of personal allegiance, accelerates what was long under way.” [read & THINK on this again, and again…]
*** “The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of every good government.” [ Thomas Jefferson ]
1] “the Trump administration are beguiled by imperial Rome. They see themselves as interpreters of its lessons – beware immigration; uphold masculinity; make babies – and inheritors of its majesty.
2]. “More and more public functions are now likely to be outsourced. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has bveen pushing for years to privatize health care for veterans…Mehmet Oz, has argued for privatizing Medicare – a program he now oversees. The administration has shown interest in taking apart the National Weather Service and spinning off some of its functions. It is looking into fully privatizing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which underpin the nation’s mortgage industry.”
3]. “The president has floated the idea of privatizing the United States Postal Service. On his first day in office, he issued an executive order allowing the Justice Department to again send inmates to prisons run by private companies…He has promised to deport millions of undocumented people, and elements of that effort are being privatized. Politico reported this spring that investors led by Erik Prince….had sent a proposal to the White House arguing for the creation of a private military entity to set up “processing camps” and conduct roundups, possibly with the help of private citizens deputized to make arrests. The administration…did award a $151 million contract to the charter company CSI Aviation to operate deportation flights – an opportunity “too valuable not to pursue,” according to an executive of one of CSI’s subcarriers.”
4]. “In the 1980s and ’90s, privatization started gaining traction again….Anti-government sentiment created opportunities, and entrepreneurs seized them. Privatization was also pushed by policy makers who saw outsourcing as inherently more efficient….”
5] “..even before Trump took office a second time, there were roughly twice as many people employed by private contractors to do the federal government’s business as there were federal employees.” {!!!!! read this again !!!!! twice as many people ‘privatized” doing “government” work for private companies as real federal government employees. How many of the private company workers were targeted by the. DOGE BIG. FRAUD. to be eliminated???????]
*** “I think every nation has a right to establish that form of government under which it conceives it shall live most happy, provided it infracts no right or is not dangerous to others.” [ George Washington. ]
7] “Holding a monopoly of the money supply was once a hallmark of public power. In the span of a decade, private cryptocurrencies have undermined that control while at the same time enabling a wide range of illicit activities…In the U.S., Trump and his family are heavily involved in the crypto business. in April, the president announced that he would invite the top 220 investors in his $TRUMP meme coin to a private dinner; the value of the meme coin rose within hours by 60 percent..”
8]. “A monopoly on the legitimate use of force – replacing the knights and pikemen of sundry vassals with professional standing armies – was another traditional hallmark of public power….Globe-spanning private military companies such as the Wagner Group and Triple Canopy recall the roving mercenary Landsknechte of yore….From 2007 to 2012, the U.S. alone spent $160 billion on private security contractors. Growing up alongside them – an industry even larger in size – are the private intelligence-gathering companies, such as Palantir, on which the U.S. spends a significant portion of its intelligence budget.”
9] “In the U.S., anyone with money and a need now hires private security guards, who outnumber police officers by a ratio of 2 to l. Among companies based in the U.S., the third-largest global employer – After Amazon and Walmart – is a private security firm, Allied Universal.”
10]. “Privatization has also upended the law. One example:….the growing use of compulsory arbitration, written by corporations into private contracts, as a way of settling consumer and employment disputes. The public court system is clogged. Arbitration – the “outsourcing of jurisprudence,”…- creates a parallel private system, one in which efficiency may be more highly valued than public oversight or due process.” [note – check the winners & losers under corporate forced arbitration procedures. who do YOU think the “judge’ is gonna be !!!!!!!!! ]
12]. “In 2008, desperate for cash, Chicago privatized its parking meters, selling off the rights to all the revenue for 75 years to a group of investors led by Morgan Stanley. A “true-up” provision requires the city to compensate investors for lost revenue when meters are taken out of service……………..The rights to operate toll highways have been sold off by some jurisdictions to private companies, including foreign ones. The fine print in the contracts often prevents improvements to adjacent roads on the grounds that such enhancements would create undue competition. Private prisons generally put a quota clause into their agreements. States and municipalities may be hoping….to reduce their prison populations, but the beds in private prisons must be filled regardless.” [read all this again – THIS – is “privatization”. in action. how much of this waste did DOGE end????????????]
13]. “Control and accountability are the bedrock……. in a privatized world, government becomes “diffuse, unstable, unpredictable.” and the skein of responsibility more and more attenuated. contractors hire subcontractors, who hire subcontractors of their own.”
*** “The end of all good government is to cultivate humanity, and to promote then happiness of all, and the good of every man in all his rights, his life, liberty, estate, honor, etc., without injury or abuse done to any.” [John Wise]
The GOP’s Hatred of the Middle Class
“Why Republicans want to destroy the hidden link between Middle Class wealth and democratic power” – Thom Hartmann; The Progressive Populist; August, 2025.
*** “The most perfect community is one in which the middle class is in control and outnumbers both of the other classes.” [ Aristotle ]
In this post, as well as in others, and in ANY TRUE account of where 1981-2025 America is NOT the 1947-80 America that WAS a middle class society – by design and policy. Look at the unspun TRUE numbers: wages, incomes, wealth, tax rates, home ownership….
Ask yourself: WHY have economists called the 1947-75 period “the great compression”?
Look at income ratios between CEOs and their employees, 1947-80, versus, 1981-2025.
Ask yourself WHY we’ve gone from [maybe] l billionaire in 1956 to over 900 in 2025?????
KNOW THIS: one big key to 1947-80 middle class prosperity was that American wealth was SHARED – average people made enough, to mostly, have one wage earner. That began to change in the 1970s
For those of YOU who did not live then – think in terms of. THEFT. What the rich have done to YOU is STEAL YOUR SHARE. of America’s wealth. [This has been numerically PROVEN.]
Do YOU have good health insurance? Do YOU have a DEFINED BENEFIT pension? WHY are people in Scandinavian countries annually “THE happiest people on earth’????? What do their countries do for their people that America no longer does for its people????? THE answers for American misery are found in the answers to the above questions. KNOW THIS – what has happened, 1980-2025, IS. NOT. AN. ACCIDENT. KNOW ALSO – the people and groups the FAR RIGHT blames ARE NOT the villains, as their BIG LIES claim.
*** “If you tell a big lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.” [ Adolf Hitler ]
Following are excerpts from Thom Hartmann’s “Modernization Theory: The Key to Understanding the GOP’s Hatred of the Middle Class”; The Progressive Populist; August, 2025:
8] “On the other hand – and here is the GOP’s real goal – if you can do away with or diminish the wealth and political power of the middle class, you can more easily loot the government and act exclusively in the interest of the morbidly rich.” [Note: go to the numbers, 1981-2025. Just one example; WHO were the primary, and intended, beneficiaries of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts – the ones the GOP just made permanent???]
1] “A Pew poll published in late June finds that 59% of Americans say the GOP’s “Big Beautiful Bill” that cuts taxes for billionaires and raises them for working-class people “would hurt lower-income people and 51% think it would hurt middle-income people.” [Suppose you took Republican voters out of the poll – THEN what would it say?]
2] They”re correct. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said “the bill will measurably reduce the income and spending power of low-and middle-income people whie giving a $4 trillion gift to the morbidly rich.”
3]. “So, why would Republicans want to further reduce the size and wealth of America’s middle class?….There are two good reasons that answer that question.
4] “the first and simplest is that ever since five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court made it legal for billionaires and big corporations to bribe politicians, the GOP has done the bidding of the morbidly rich to the exclusion of everybody else…….with their Buckley and Bellotti decisions in the late 1970s, laying the foundation for..Ronald Reagan’s war against unions and working people..”
5] “..there’s a larger reason why Donald Trump and the GOP are working so hard to immiserate and impoverish working class Americans. That reason has to do with something called “modernization theory.”….Seymour Martin Lipset, famously wrote: “The more well-to-do a nation, the greater the chances that it will sustain democracy.”
6] “As Barrington Moore noted in his book “Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy”: “No bourgeois [middle class], no democracy.” In 2003, researchers Carles Boix and Susan Stokes found strong evidence that wealthier countries are more likely to be democracies, and once established, democracies are far more stable in richer nations.”
7]. “Similarly, in their book “Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy,’ Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson prove that when economic growth empowers new classes [especially the middle class], those groups will demand political reforms.”
*** “There is class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
[ Warren Buffett ]
9] “…multiple cross-national studies using World Bank income data and Freedom House democracy scores show a strong correlation between per capita income and democratic governance; as people become wealthier they more vigorously demand a small-d democratic political system.”
10] “By 1981, the American middle class was at its peak because of a 74% top personal income tax bracket, a 50% top corporate income tax rate, a strong and healthy social safety net, cheap health care [because hospitals and insurance companies were required to be nonprofits in most states], and free or near-free college.” [ THIS – is what we mean when we say. YOU should look at 1981-2025 America. – and see what was been STOLEN FROM YOU.]
11] “Democracy was also arguably at its peak; for the previous 40 plus years Congress had passed, one after the other, bills that primarily benefitted average working people and the middle class. Voting was easy, women and minorities were empowered, and we led the world in education and innovation.” [ THIS is what has been STOLEN FROM YOU]
12]. “When Reagan came into office in 1981 about a third of American workers had good union jobs, meaning that about two-thirds of all American families lived good middle class lives on a single paycheck….. ˇhat was the year the GOP declared war on working-class people because, in the estimation of the Nixon-and Reagan-era Republicans, our democracy had gotten out of hand…….So, in 1981 the GOP set about dismantling the American middle class with their s0-called Reagan Revolution.”
13]. “Who did this to us?” Republicans and the FAR RIGHT, from Limbaugh, Fox “News”, an Trump blame immigrants, Black people, uppity women, college students, an union bosses !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! [ THE REALLY BIG LIE ]
*** “Of all the forms of tyranny the least attractive and most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, then tyranny of plutocracy.” [ Theodore Roosevelt ]
14] “The bottom line is ghat the GOP opposes democracy because it interferes with and complicates their very well-paid efforts to suck up to-and legislate on behalf of – the morbidly rich.”
*** “An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.” [ Plutarch ]
The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness – XXXXV – Radical Republicans
***** “Those who seek absolute power…are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of
heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most
hellish tyrannies.” [ Senator Barry Goldwater – accepting the 1964 Republican nomination ]
Note: This post presents excerpts from former Republican governor Arne Carlson’s “Republicans have become radical. -they’re not worried about the spiraling debt, nor about their constituents’ needs. But they do worry about satisfying one particular president.” [Arne Carlson; Minnesota Star Tribune; 7/4/25]
1] “…there was no Democrat more vilified as a “reckless big spender” than President Lyndon Johnson, who was determined to fund an expanding war in Vietnam while launching his “Great Society” featuring Medicare, Medicaid and a host of antipoverty programs. Overall, his deficits averaged $12.4 billion, or o.8% of our gross domestic product..”
2]. “This grew to 2.2% of GDP when President Ronald Reagan assumed office in 1981 and nearly doubled during his term to 4%, largely as a result of massive tax cuts for the wealthy. Now, after further tax cuts for the wealthy by Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump [during his first term], that figure has risen to 6.7%. Overall, our national debt has increased from $908 billion when Reagan took office to more than $36 trillion today, an increase of 3,864%. [NOTE: read this again – “…largely as a result of massive tax cuts for the wealthy.” These obscene tax cuts for the rich are THE source of much American fiscal crises – and – are, and will be, used as excuses for more austerity. YOU, and your children, and your grandchildren – will suffer in. a society dominated by the rich.]
*****. “The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of government, as nearly as possible
in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively
enjoy under the protection of the state.” [ Adam Smith – yes THE. Adam Smith !!!!! ]
3]. “The result is that interest payments on our burgeoning debt have become the fastest growing part of our budget. Roughly 27% of all federal spending today is from borrowed money, and the more we cut taxes on the wealthy, the more debt we accumulate and the more vital spending that is in serious jeopardy.” [Under Trump this is now a FACT. Read headlines – critical services are being cut or weakened, experienced knowledgable people are being fired.]
***** A “life-long Republican” who knew Bush and Cheney personally told John Dean personally: “Just tell your
readers that..People should not vote for ANY Republican, because they’re dangerous, dishonest, and
self-serving…Democrats really do care about people who most need help from government; Republicans
care most about those who will only get richer because of government help…..another four years, and
heaven forbid not eight years under the Republicans, and our grandchildren will have to build a new
government, because the one w have will be unrecognizable and unworkable.” [ John Dean: “Broken
Government”; 2007. the John Dean who went to jail for Richard Nixon ]
4] “This Republican obsession with lowering the taxes on the rich not only balloons the deficit but substantially weakens our economy. Simply, we have gone from being the world’s largest international creditor to its largest debtor nation.
5]. “When Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican, was president, the budget was in balance while expanding Social Security, launching our national highway system, strengthening our alliances to contain Soviet expansion and growing the middle class. but he strongly supported a progressive tax system, with a rate of 91% on the wealthy.”
***** “..one of the two major parties, the Republican Party, has become an insurgent outlier – ideologically
extreme, contemptuous of the inherited social and economic regime; scornful of compromise;
unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; dismissive of the
legitimacy of its political opponents.” [Thomas Mann, Norman Ornstein: “It’s Even Worse Than
It Looks” – 2012. If Republicans were outliers then, what are they today???]
6] ” Since [1961], the wealthy have seen their tax ratwes reduced by 145%, while the middle class absorbed an approximately 10% increase.
7] “..the Trump Republicans of today are not conservative. They are totally radical with their willingness to concentrate power in the president while generating massive deficits tat will topple our economy. they have no plan for tomorrow and always blame their failings on others.”
*****”There is nothing strange or unexpected about Donald Trump. He is the logical conclusion of what the
Republican Party became over the last fifty or so years, a natural product of the seeds of race,
self-deception, and anger that became the essence of the Republican Party. Trump isn’t an
aberration..he IS the Republican Party in purified form.” [Stuart Stevens: “It Was All A Lie.”]
8]. “As to health care, the Peterson Foundation maintains that our current system is the “most expensive” at twice the cost when compared with other industrial nations and “generally no better than those of our peers.”
9] “Now our Minnesota Republicans in Congress want to add over $3.3 trillion to our debt load while inflicting unbelievable harm on everything in our state…”
*****. “Burn it to the ground and start over. That’s the answer I find myself giving when asked what should
b done with the Trump Republican Party.” [ Stevens” “It Was Al A Lie” – Stevens was for 25 years the lead
strategist and media consultant for many Republican campaigns. He was “an insider” who saw to much]
Trump as “savior”!!! II – “America Headed in the Wrong Direction” [BUT – on closer look, since 1981 !!!]
Adolf Hitler: “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.”
Dear people: America has been “headed in the wrong direction” since 1980. The first CON MAN, Ronald Reagan, made YOU feel good while his rich friends stole the American Dream. But, Ronnie was so handsome, had such a nice smile….so you elected him twice and then his vice president too! He said. all “the right things,” “things you wanted to hear”!!! – while he TRIPLED the national debt, broke a major strike, ended balanced media broadcasts, and……….
THE basis for that 1947-1973 mass middle class prosperity was SHARED NATIONAL WEALTH. Then came the 1980s and “Greed is Good!” – and Bush II tax cuts for the rich, his immoral Iraq war, his 2008 recession – and Trump’s 2017 tax cuts for the rich that are about 25% of the national debt.
SO – CON MAN Trump sold some of YOU on lie #35,xxx: “It’s Joe Biden’s fault.”
Below is a SMALL part of the MOUNTAIN o f statistical proof: America began heading in the wrong direction. NOT. in 2021, but in 1981……
1] “Evil Geniuses” [Kurt Andersen]: “During the 20th century, America managed to make its economic and social systems both more and more fair and more and more prosperous. A huge, secure and contented middle class emerged. Incomes rose in sync. But then the New Deal gave way to the Raw Deal. Beginning in the early 1970s, by means of a long war conceived of and executed by a confederacy of big business CEOs, the superrich, and right wing zealots, the rules and norms that made the American middle class possible were undermined and dismantled. The clock was turned back on a century of economic progress, making greed good, workers powerless, and the market all powerful while weaponizing nostalgia, lifting up an oligarchy that served only its own interests..”
*** Billionaire investor Warren Buffett: “There’s class warfare, all right, but its my class, the rich class, thats making
war, and we’re winning.”
2]. “Is the economy to serve the people who make it up, or is their labor for the sake of lining the pockets of the rich and powerful? [Juliet Schor]; “..the U.S. Catholic Bishops..wrote in their 1986 pastoral letter on the economy, “the economy should serve people; people should not serve the economy.” [“Economic Apartheid In America”; C.Collins, F.Yeskel]
***. “The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy, that is the search of a
superior moral justification for selfishness.” [John Kenneth Galbraith]
3]. “Economic Apartheid In America” [2005; C. Collins & F. Yeskel]:
A] “The larger economic trends of the past three decades…falling wages…wealth inequality…widening gap between highest- and lowest-paid workers…losing ground at work…precarious and stressed middle class…the rising tide lifts only yachts.”
B] graphs on pages 41-42: 1947-1979: “We Grew Together”…the bottom 80% quintiles ALL grew 100%-116%, the top 99% [Census Bureau data]; 1979-2003 “We Grew Apart”…the bottom 20% LOST 2%; the second 205 gained 8%; the third 20% gained 15%; the fourth 20% gained 26%; the top 20% gained 51% – & – the top 5% gained 75%.
C] “The Power Shift since the 1970s..Who sets the agenda for economic policies?”…”On the rise: big campaign contributors…corporate lobbyists…corporations…big-asset owners…CEOs…Wall Street”. “In decline: popular political movements… voters…labor unions…wage-earners…employees…main street”
“Why this happened…a power shift led to rule changes”…..”Rule changes since the 1970s: anti-union climate…global treaties benefit corporations…big tax cuts for the wealthy…corporate welfare expands…minimum wage not raised…Federal Reserve “whip inflation” policy helps investors, hurts wage growth…”privatization” [dismantling government] helps investors, hurts consumers and workers”
D]. “The attack on worker’s rights [i.e. unions]..evidence is clear..unions raised the standard of living for most low- and moderate-income people, whether they joined unions are not…Most industrialized countries..would not tolerate the employer practices that occur every day in the United States.”
E]. “The race to the bottom…U.S. workers cannot and should not compete against workers in countries like China [low wages, no unions]..nor..with countries of high rates of child labor…Free trade agreements as..currently written create a climate in the United States where employers are..emboldened to threaten to move plants overseas to extract wage concessions or discourage unionization efforts..”
F]. “In the last two decades, the U.S. tax system has become a two-tier tax system, investigative journalists ..Bartlett T..Steele argue..there is one system for the wealthy, what they call “the Privileged Person’s Tax Law,” and another one for everyone else..”
*** “The point is you cant be too greedy.” [Donald J. Trump, “The Art of the Deal”]
4]. “The Betrayal of the American Dream” [Donald Bartlett & James Steele; 2012; two Pulitzer Prizes]
A] “..[this]..is the story of how a small number of people in power have deliberately put in place policies that have enriched themselves while cutting the ground out from underneath America’s greatest asset – its middle class..the wealthy and the powerful..have become this country’s ruling class.”
B] “..between 1999 and 2008,,foreign affiliates of U.S, parent corporations increased their employment abroad by 2.4 million jobs,,slashed their employment in the United States by 1.9 million.”
C]. “..the ruling class is defined by its ability to move money beyond the reach of government supervision.”
D]. “The U.S. health care system is based on the misguided notion..the private market is the best way to provide care and coverage to Americans.” [see their 2004 “Critical Condition: How Health Care in America Became Big Business – and Bad Medicine’}
E] ‘..for tens of millions of middle-class Americans, as well as for the working poor who hope to achieve that status, then American dream is over.”
F]. “Running a country like a business means everyone is expendable.”
G]. “Congress writes the rules..and Wall Street..decides what rules it will permit.”
*** “..one certainty..there is no way to access infinite wealth without rigging the system. No one becomes a billionaire honestly.” [Sarah Chayes: “On Corruption in America”]
5] “When did we go astray?..There’s no easy answer to such a question, but clearly the election of President Ronald Reagan represented a turning point..” [“The Price of Inequality”; Joseph Stiglitz; 2012; Nobel Prize winner}
A]. “The underlying thesis..we are paying a high price for our inequality – an economic system that is less stable and less efficient, with less growth, and a democracy..put in peril..”
B]. “For years there was a deal between the top and the rest of our society…we will provide you with jobs and prosperity, and you will let us walk away with the bonuses. You all get a share..we get a bigger share..now that tacit agreement..always fragile, has come apart.”
C] “American inequality didn’t just happen. It was created..Much of the inequality that exists today is a result of government policy, both what the government does and..does not do.”
***. “What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” [Matthew 16:26]
6] “Who Stole the American Dream?” [Hedrick Smith; 2012; Pulitzer Prize winner]
A] “Over the past 3 decades, we have become Two Americas..no longer one large family with shared prosperity and shared political and economic power..’
B]. “Today, the greatest challenge and most corrosive fault line in our society is the gross inequality of income and wealth…What separates the Two Americas..is a wealth chasm..from 2002 to 2007, America’s sup-rich, the top 1% [3 million people], reaped two-thirds of the nation’s entire economic gains..In 2010, the top 1% captured 93% of the nation’s gains.”
C] “..in America since the late 1970s..soaring wealth of the super-rich has brought the unraveling of the American Dream for the middle class..”
D] “From 1998 through 2010, business interests and trade groups spent $28.6 billion lobbying compared with $492 million for labor..no countervailing power matches the political clout of business. Our democracy has become starkly unequal.”
E] “since the 1970s, business leaders have largely abandoned..share-the-wealth ethic…the pay of a typical male worker was lower in 2010 than in 1978, adjusted for inflation.”
*** “What most people don’t seem to realize is that there is just as much money to be made out of the wreckage of a civilization as from the upbuilding on one.” [Margaret Mitchell – “Gone With the Wind”]
Dear People – the above is merely the BEGINNING of a mountain of STATISTICAL PROOF that the great 1947-1973 American middle class mass prosperity was. STOLEN. from. YOU by the rich – we have been “headed in the wrong direction” since 1980. – NOT since 2021 !!!!!! o
With Justice For All 