Oligarchy and apathy are stealing America
Nations unify around an identity
TAT readers,
Today’s essay is a bit different. In many ways this collection of thoughts about the subjugation of the American people, some imposed and some self-imposed, is a stream of consciousness writing exercise. Just me ruminating over thoughts I have about the deep mess our nation is in. It’s the story of our nation’s descent into a hollow shell of its former self, or rather the hostile takeover of our republic by some of the world’s wealthiest men. The America I grew up in, could hardly be more different than what we witness today. It’s as if most Americans are dressed up in patriotic costumes for Halloween, but are either too apathetic or too addicted to the brainwashing babble of politicians, marketers and major corporations, to actually defend American Democracy.
Most Americans have never read the constitution and even fewer understand it. It’s really not that difficult as that our founders wanted a document that nearly every citizen could understand. In fact, both Jefferson and Madison clearly believed that the law should be clear enough so that everyone could understand it. Today’s SCOTUS, clearly doesn’t agree as that the right wing justices are perfectly willing to turn a basic document into a pretzel, in order to justify the court’s contortionist-like opinions that support Trump, Republicans and their oligarchs. Today’s conspiracy theory-laden right, dines exclusively on their fairly tales, while concurrently humiliating themselves in front of family, friends and communities, by repeating this most absurd nonsense. Some on the left are just as avoidant of reality, especially when it comes to Gaza and the Palestinian issue.
In the meantime, the reality of what America is and should be, has been largely lost or at least mothballed. Commercialism, the worship of celebrity and the willingness to believe in absurdities, has replaced the very basic civics and history classes we all experienced in elementary school through high school. There have been accomplices to this tragedy, almost exclusively from what at one time in US history, would have been called the “robber barons.” Today’s robber barons, exist in numbers increasing faster than the precipitous pace that our middle class is diminishing. Jobs once thought secure, are now often replaced by offshoring, automation and AI. Old-school tactics for saving money, planning for a future, educating our children and the all-important American dream of home ownership, are no longer relevant and in most cases, counterproductive.
"But the middle class has fallen behind on two key counts. The growth in income for the middle class since 1970 has not kept pace with the growth in income for the upper-income tier. And the share of total U.S. household income held by the middle class has plunged." - The State of the American Middle Class - Pew Research Center - May 31st, 2024
None of this was the America I was born into. As a “baby boomer” I grew up in an America still swelling with pride in our democracy. Our successes in being a primary player in ridding the world of the fascism of the late 1930s and 1940s were a particular point of pride. We were united at home and with our allies, especially NATO throughout the Cold War, and reveled at the opportunity for real world peace after winning the Cold War against the Soviet Union. At the end of WW II, the GI bill, global primacy and burgeoning manufacturing held nearly unbridled optimism for most of America. Jobs were plentiful and nationally we represented the future due to our advances in science and technology. The world saw us as we preferred to see ourselves, ambitious, energetic and a global leader for democracy. America was a robust beacon to a world desperately seeking opportunity, democracy and safety.
"In that land the great experiment was to be made, by civilized man, of the attempt to construct society upon a new basis; and it was there, for the first time, that theories hitherto unknown, or deemed impracticable, were to exhibit a spectacle for which the world had not been prepared by the history of the past. – Alexis de Tocqueville - Democracy in America - 1835 (Reeves translation)
We have forgotten who we were, not only in my lifetime but dating back to the earliest days of our “great experiment.” Behind those decades of pride and energetic forays into a brighter future, our Achilles Heel of apathy, materialism and tolerance of robber barrons, began to rear its ugly head again. We’ve been through the eras of oligarchs before, eventually reining them in before they could do as much damage as we currently see, with only one exception. The Confederacy, built on the planks of White Christian Nationalism, slavery, poor white labor and oligarchy, went to war with the union to save their un-American way of life. Today, we must again fight this war against a movement with their roots in the same ideology as the Confederacy, that I call, The four horsemen of the MAGA Apocalypse: Autocracy, Oligarchy, Christian Nationalism and Political Violence.
In roughly 1978 or 1979, along came Newt Gingrich and his “scorched earth” political style, headlined by the Moral Majority and later the Tea Party movement. Gingrich and the evolution from Moral Majority to Tea Party and now the MAGA movements, live by the mantra that says simply, “if the left wanted anything, it had to be rejected, no matter how much bipartisan support there was.” In 1980 Ronald Reagan came to office and thus began the GOP’s decades-long assault on the working classes, primarily via tax cuts to the wealthy. His “trickle down economics” were more of a slogan than a real economic strategy and which ultimately increased the deficit while expanding income inequality between the wealthy and everyone else. Legislation benefitting the elite wealth class then became all that the GOP was interested in, regardless of who got hurt. This hasn’t changed since.
"However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion." - Farewell Address - President George Washington - Saturday, September 17, 1796
Like our only independent president, George Washington, I despise the concept of political parties. Still, we are now saddled with them and so have only a couple of choices on our ballots. After SCOTUS’ Citizens United’s decision, dark money began to outright buy our elections. Now, that same dark money has also purchased and locked away in some deep dark prison cell, what it means to be an American. All they care about is winning so that they can continue to profit wildly from the influence they have purchased on the floor of Congress. Without the understanding of what it means to be an American based on our founding values, we are ceasing to represent the identity of the world’s most successful constitutional republic.
Nations like people, endure based on their identity and their ability to retain it. Ukraine’s success against Russia is a good example. Throughout our history, our identity could best be described as, hard-working, innovative and fiercely independent. We respect the “up by your bootstraps” success, underdogs, those who embody our founding principles, defiance against outside aggressors and even domestic ones, such as the Civil War Confederacy. With the exception of the GOP siding with Russia during and since the 2016 election, America has always rallied and unified to defend our nation and our values. Pre-WW II, our nation was like today, severely under strain by the Great Depression and similarly divided along racial, religious and class divides etc.
Still, after December 7th, 1941 and the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan, nearly all of this divisiveness evaporated, almost overnight. Men committed suicide if they were deemed “4-F” or ineligible for military service. Americans of all backgrounds contributed to the war effort from “liberty gardens” to “Rosie the Riveter” women working in manufacturing. Women, minorities and all ethnicities clamored to support the war effort against the fascist Axis powers aligned against the free world. The US military desegregated and women served openly in the military. Our strength came from that specific American identity that thumbed our noses at bullies and aggressors in defense of liberty. That resilient unity, was America. What has changed in the Trump era? This is the question of the day and has a wide variety of answers. Let’s take a look at a couple of the most significant.
First of all, post WW II with GI Bill money for college home mortgages etc., far more Americans began to participate in the opportunity that most working Americans had little access to pre-war. Homes became more comfortable and with an avalanche of modern conveniences like central heating, washing machines and more. Sears and J.C. Penny stores dominated urban and rural America, enticing consumers with an ever-expanding bevy of new comfort items, styles and entertainment. Along with the entertainment, especially with the advent of television in more and more homes, access to news, entertainment and sports came along with advertising via mass media where before, only radio and newspapers thrived. Marketing in particular became far more cunning and often dishonest.
Who can forget the commercials bragging about the benefits of smoking? It didn’t just stop with cigarettes either. Marketers have always looked for any advantage to acquire market shares via any method or tactic, ethical or not. Today, just like in journalism, marketing ethics are more lip-service than not. In marketing, just like in my profession, influence operations, there are systems, tactics and strategies that are in no way ethical unless wielded against an avowed enemy. Americans are not enemies of marketers or journalists, but in our current nation we are treated as such. We are there only to be used for political or financial gain.
Politicians and political parties, wield all manner of modern tactics and resources to “sell” Americans on their ideology. Algorithms, trolls, bots, overtly dishonest campaign ads, silencing dissent etc. are just a handful of modern tactics. Even Google Search has taken a significant downturn that denies us the quality search results we could use to validate information. By using these unethical mass-media tactics and resources, they can make people believe in absurdities and in fact, brainwash their audiences, as we can see from the bizarre conspiracy theories that define today’s Republican party. The danger of those believing in absurdities was best expressed by a brilliant and prolific 18th century French Enlightenment writer and philosopher, named Voltaire.
“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” ― Voltaire
Secondly, someone must pay for all of this dishonest marketing of politicians and products. Oligarchs or the 1% pay the bills of those who deceive us, and at our expense. A staggering amount of this elite wealth class are the ones with the strategies to acquire not only more wealth, but power. As we now see in every part of our lives, we are paying more for less and this includes politics. For example, today’s Republicans consistently vote against their own self interests. They vote to lose their healthcare, pay more for groceries, pay higher taxes and all the while we are concurrently losing more of our constitutional rights. Bought and paid for politicians do the dirty work of these oligarchs by writing laws favorable to the wealthy over the essential needs of the rest of us.
Finally, there are only six or seven multi-national media conglomerates that control most of what we see, read, watch and hear. They ensure that we are distracted by reality shows, Tik-Tok and other influencers offering little or nothing of value to the human fabric of our nation. The pundits that tell us what to think, are a dime-a-dozen and are merely parroting the scripts they’ve been handed by CEOs, politicians, political parties and so on. They create the narratives that have replaced facts, for a very large portion of American audiences.
Many of the narratives of the right have to do with false patriotism. Historical revisionism is alive and well in today’s GOP, where they’ve basically replaced American history and our values, with a version best described as God, Guns and Trump. I cringe when I read or hear a Republican politician that makes some outrageous claims about our constitution or history, just to make their followers believe they are the true patriots. And yet, where is the vigorous rebuttal from constituents? We all watched the January 6th armed insurrection on our TV screens, phones and laptops, yet tens of millions of Republican voters will tell you with a straight face that there was no armed insurrection. This is the type of “absurdity” that should frighten every one of us.
Patriotism is a team sport and in today’s America, also a contact sport. We must be willing to stand toe-to-toe with the thuggery under contract to the MAGA GOP. In order to do this, we must reacquaint ourselves with who we are as Americans. As earlier noted, our identity as Americans hasn’t disappeared, but is lying dormant. Reacquainting ourselves with our historical and traditional identity, will once again rekindle the flame of liberty demonstrated on battlefields around the world, in the halls of congress and in our communities.
In order to find ourselves, we must see, read and hear news through a filter of truth and wisdom. We have known for nearly 250 years who we are and until the Trump era, it didn’t take much for us to remember and act on our patriotic identity. Those instincts are our most powerful weapons against tyranny, but first we must all get off of our couches and participate on a level not seen since WW II.
"I need not repeat the figures. The facts speak for themselves.... These men could not have been armed and equipped as they are had it not been for the miracle of production here at home. The production which has flowed from the country to all the battlefronts of the world has been due to the efforts of American business, American labor, and American farmers, working together as a patriotic team." - President Franklin D. Roosevelt - Navy Day speech - October 27, 1944
Americans at home and abroad pitched in to support the war effort, all the way from children to all adults. Rationing, salvaging metals to be recycled into military products, the liberty gardens and countless other government sponsored programs were worked by those at home, who could contribute their own unique skills and talents to the war effort. It wasn’t uncommon to hear the phrase, “don’t you know there’s a war on” in the streets, kitchens or businesses all across the country. This is the type of universal commitment that beckons to us now, as we persist in fighting our war against our own fascist regime. We’ve done this before and we know how. Waking up our historical American identity, is the surest way to manifest the same spirit of liberty that saw us through years of war, and on the heels of the Great Depression.
"The war effort on the "Home Front" required sacrifices and cooperation. "Don't you know there's a war on?" was a common expression. Rationing became part of everyday life. Americans learned to conserve vital resources. They lived with price controls, dealt with shortages of everything from nylons to housing, and volunteered for jobs ranging from air raid warden to Red Cross worker." - Take A Closer Look: America Goes to War - The National WW II Museum
I won’t belabor the concept that we must all work together to recover our liberty. We all know, but have somehow let these memories to lapse. We must be our own leaders because it is apparent that we are the cavalry. We still have little to nothing from the DNC. We have millions of Americans looking for leadership but must accept that at the moment, none is on the horizon. If our preferred choices cannot or will not lead, we must pick up the baton and lead as well. We can do this together or individually. The blueprint for success is written across the pages of our history books and lives in the memories of those who survived WW II. They are our advisors.
The goals of our movement are simple, and that is the narrative of our fight. We simply wish to restore our republic to a functioning state, where we are all equal before the law, don’t sell our souls to oligarchs and demand fair laws from our elected representatives. We must know our national values and act on them. Extend your hands to those still too timid to leave their sofas. We need them. Take at least one or two actions a day in support of the resistance, even if it is only to call an elected representative, write a comment on some administration official’s social media post or block-walk for candidates and causes. Like in our past, we must sacrifice a little time ,in order to restore and protect our republic. We’ve got this if we all just do a little. If WW II or our War of Independence is any guide, most will do far more than a little bit. It’s just who we are as Americans.
I’ll leave you now with one thought; I’m proud to stand next to every one of you dedicated to this cause. America is our home and we intend to keep it as our founders intended… free.
Onward
Paul