***. “The term oligarchy traditionally has been seen as the rule of a selfish few over a whole community.”
[ World Book Encyclopedia ]
Technology can be “good”, or it can be “bad,” depending on how it is used, and, WHO controls it. This post presents excerpts from. “Empire Builders”. [ Tim Murphy; Mother Jones; May-June, 2026 ]:
3] “The AI boom has ushered oligarchy onto a new plane by uniting the monopolistic ambitions of the world’s richest men with the nationalist ambitions of their political champions. In the process, it has sparked a reckoning..across the political spectrum, over the demand for resources and tax dollars and over what kind of future we might build….The data centers have, in a sense, transformed opaque structures of inequality and power into literal ones. Oligarchy is now more than an idea; it is a place. Across the country, the empire builders of AI have sold themselves as the gateway to the future you’ve always dreamed of, and the solution to the problems they helped bring about.”
10] “The amount of power needed to keep the data center boom going is astounding. An analysis by Accenture projected that by 2030, energy demand for data centers would be equivalent to that of the entire country of Canada, and trhe industry’s share of global emissions could jump elevenfold. Another study projected that data center use would account for roughly 12 percent of all U.S. energy consumption in that same time frame, up threefold from the start of the boom.”
*** “If Republican leaders are willing to enable Trump’s autocratic enthusiasms in return for oligarchy, American democracy will die.” [ Heather Cox Richardson ]
7] “..the conversations that AI proponents are having in public right now tell a simpler and less idealistic story: The people who claim to be building the future traded the dream of democratic abundance for a strongman who will make them money In September, a few dozen tech luminaries gathered at the White House to promote first lady Melania Trump’s initiative to encourage children to use AI. The ulterior motive for the summit came into focus…when the president called on the AI moguls one by one to say a few words about their work.
“I just wanted to say thank you, said OpenAI President Greg Brockman, for the administration’s “optimism.” “Thank you for being such a pro-business, pro-innovation president – it’s a very refreshing change,” said Altman…..Bill Gates…..Microsoft’s Satya Nadella…..Apple’s Tim Cook…..a lesser autocrat might have kept off camera but that Trump found value in showing the world. The AI executives offered him ballroom donations, settlement checks, and legitimacy. He offered them deals, deregulation, and deference. It was important that everyone understand the arrangement.”
11] “A study by two Harvard Law School researchers found that consumers would end up paying billions to underwrite tech companies’ power infrastructure – to say nothing of billions of dollars in tax breaks. A CNBC analyst found 16 states doled out $6 billion worth of tax breaks over the last five years. In New Jersey, the AI expansion drove a 22 percent hike in electric rates year over year.”
***. “When economic power became concentrated in a few hands, then political power flowed to those possessors and away from the citizens, ultimately resulting in an oligarchy or tyranny.”
[ John Adams; Founding Father; 2nd U.S. President ]
1] “But the thing about building a data center this big you cannot simply build a data center – you must build a whole world to go with it. You need three new power plants and transmission lines to connect them to the grid. You need hundreds of millions of gallons of water and miles of pipes. You must pave roads and build new ones, clear fields and build ponds. You need a port to bring in gravel and dirt from wherever you can get it. You need stoplights and sheriff’s deputies and laundromats. You need thousands of workers and places to house them – executive lodging, cheap motels, and man camps with movie theaters and gyms.”
2]. “If the economic story of the last two decades was the consolidation of wealth and power in Silicon Valley, the story of the last few years is what tech billionaires want to do with it. Since the summer of 2024, America’s richest men have been on a building spree with few precedents in recent history. The scale of the investment…is so vast that proponents have turned to previous eras of reckless extraction and technological advancement to describe it. Energy Secretary Chris Wright called it “Manhattan Project 2.”
4]. “But at one Google site in The Dalles..an offer of $260 million in incentives and a third of the city’s 2024 water supply had resulted in just 200 full-time jobs – many of them off site. The same narratives pop up again and again. Communities are essentially given a choice: Approve it fast or watch some other town reap the rewards – and miss out on future investments..”
***. “..if the U.S. had remained as equitable as it was in 1975 for the next forty-three years therough 2018, the bottom 90 percent of Americans would have earned an extra $47 trillion. Instead that money went to people already at the top, who use that money, among other things, to influence the political system and to hoard real estate.”
[ Alec Karakatsanis ]. [NOTE – think on this. THIS is part of the THEFT the top 15 has done. ]
5] “The rise of the American oligarchy happened slowly and then all at once…you’d see a steady upward slope from Clinton-era deregulation to bush-era tax cuts to Obama-era techno-optimism and on through Trump’s first term. Then it spiked. Between 2000 and 2020, as tech monopolies consolidated power, the share of the nation’s wealth held by the top 0.00001 percent roughly doubled. By the end of 2025, it had nearly doubled again. it is no longer novel or even particularly accurate to note that the richest Americans control a greater share of resources than theydid during the Gilded Age..”
6] “The American oligarchy is an AI oligarchy. The world’s six richest men as of early March were all actively involved in AI development…There are 10 trillion-dollar companies, and nine of them are in AI.”
8]. “The implicit promise of the AI revolution is that all the things made worse by AI will eventually be fixed by AI. Some oligarchs are even pitching AI as a solution to the problems oligarchy has helped bring about.”
*** “To bring about government by oligarchy, masquerading as democracy, it is fundamentally essential that practically all authority and control be centralized in our Federal government…The individual sovereignty of our states must first be destroyed.” [ Franklin D. Roosevelt; 32nd U.S. President ]
9] “Whereas Russia’s kleptocrats started off in extractive mineral industries and then branched out into tech and finance, American’s oligarchs made their fortunes online before pivoting to natural resources.”
12] “All this dirty energy means that, as with public health, oligarchy is slowing our progress on climate…[Trump’s]..agencies are rolling back clean air regulations…the increased power use by the AI industry would produce about $20 billion in public health damages by 2028.”
13]. “The Colossus of Memphis sends a signal about what the oligarchy is that all the whirring servers of the world can’t drown out – shimmering hot air, a reckless consolidation of power, a new extractive machine built on the foundations of old ones.”
*** “Oligarchies, throughout history, have always thought more of their own advantage than that of the rest of the community. It was revolt against the selfishness of past political oligarchies that produced the liberal movement in favor of democracy, and it was the revolt against economic oligarchies that produced socialism.”
[ Bertrand Russell ]
Tag: oligarchy
Trump. and. America’s. Oligarchy
*** “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 