Trump Win Fulfills Oligarchy's 50-Year Plan for Right-Wing Takeover
- Trump Win Fulfills Oligarchy's 50-Year Plan for Right-Wing Takeover, by Thom Hartmann, Common Dreams, Nov. 6, 2024. Ed.
The billionaires have won. They have successfully killed the American Dream. And now we have to fight back.
"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.” - Frédéric Bastiat, Economic sophisms, 2nd series (1848)
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We just watched the final fulfillment of a 50 year plan. Louis Powell laid it out in 1971, and every step along the way Republicans have followed it. It was a plan to turn America over to the richest men and the largest corporations. It was a plan to replace democracy with oligarchy. A large handful of America’s richest people invested billions in this plan, and its tax breaks and fossil fuel subsidies have made them trillions. More will soon come to them.
As any advertising executive can tell you, with enough money and enough advertising - particularly if you are willing to lie - you can sell anybody pretty much anything. This is not the end... hitting bottom often begins the process of renewal. Even a convicted felon, rapist, and friend and agent of America’s enemies. America was overwhelmed this fall by billions of dollars in often dishonest advertising, made possible by 5 corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court, and it worked.
Democrats were massively outspent, not to mention the power of the billionaire Murdoch family’s Fox “News” and 1,500 hate talk radio stations. Open the lens a bit larger, and we find that it goes way beyond just this election; virtually every crisis America is facing right now is either caused or exacerbated by the corruption of big money authorized by 5 corrupt Republicans on our Supreme Court. They are responsible for our crises of gun violence, the drug epidemic, homelessness, political gridlock, our slow response to the climate emergency, a looming crisis for Social Security and Medicare, the situation on our southern border, even the lack of affordable drugs, insurance, and healthcare.
All track back to a handful of Supreme Court justices who’ve sold their votes to billionaires in exchange for extravagant vacations, luxury yachts and motorhomes, private jet travel, speaking fees, homes, tuition, and participation in exclusive clubs and billionaire networks that bar the rest of us from entry. For over 2 decades, Clarence Thomas and his wife have been accepting millions in free luxury vacations, tuition for their adopted son, a home for his mother, private jet and megayacht travel, and entrance to rarified clubs. Sam Alito is also on the gravy train, and there are questions about how Brett Kavanaugh managed to pay off his credit cards and gambling debts...
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/trump-oligarchy-wins