A Vote for Kamala Harris Is a Vote for Our Democratic Republic
There are a number of morbidly wealthy individuals who dream of an American oligarchy. Donald Trump wants to be one of them. Kamala Harris doesn't.
Donald Trump is one of the billionaires who would like to see America as an oligarchy. Kamala Harris, who actually worked at McDonald's instead of cosplaying for fifteen minutes of fame, actually cares about the average working American.
The Ship of State is sailing into rocky waters. We are being pulled in different directions by a maelstrom of strong currents. The situation in the the Middle East is figuratively ablaze and there is little doubt that our adversaries are throwing diplomatic gasoline on the flames, including Iran. Russia has had a long term relationship with Hamas, although there's no evidence they knew about the October 7 attack of last year. Netanyahu is in consultation with the former president and Netanyahu and Trump are cut from the same authoritarian cloth.
There are several billionaires who are spending money like it was water to get Donald Trump elected. According to a Common Dreams article which quoted Bernie Sanders, three billionaires, Elon Musk, Miriam Adelson, and Richard Uihlein contributed 220 million dollars to Trump's reelection effort in three months. Then there's Timothy Mellon, who has donated around 140 million. Since they aren't allowed to contribute directly to his campaign, the money is funneled through super PACs. What's the reason? They're confident that Trump would give them more tax cuts and fewer regulations.
These are the would be American oligarchs. The Constitution was written to exclude an aristocracy from our system of governance. Nobility has never existed in the United States. However, there is a historical tendency for wealth to foster arrogance, sometimes bordering on hubris. There are a number of good examples today where wealthy people think their wealth grants them a nobility that is absent in the middle class and the poor. There are always a few exceptions like Milton Hershey, who built a town for his employees and was a devoted philanthropist.
The problem we now face began with industrialists trying to get a handle on how to influence and control government in the late sixties. The Powell memo, the Heritage Foundation, the Federalist Society, and Supreme Court decisions like Citizens United vs. FEC and Buckley vs. Valeo represent mile markers in the push to create an American oligarchy. Beginning with Reagan, every Republican administration has followed recommendations of tax cuts and deregulation proposed by right wing think tanks and corporate lobbyists. The wealthiest have almost always gotten the largest percentage breaks from tax cuts, a 47 percentage reduction in the top tax bracket from 1977 until now versus a 29 percent reduction in the lowest tax bracket.
Trickle down economics not only transferred a massive amount of wealth from the middle class to the richest five percent, It has also, by virtue of allowing unlimited dark money in politics, transferred power. Recently, Elon Musk went head to head with Brazil over his platform's (X, formerly Twitter) refusal to ban certain accounts. Musk eventually complied, but the mere fact that he sought to change a government's policy speaks volumes. His flamboyance is not typical of corporate executives. Most prefer to fly under the radar. However, it's almost a certainty that other CEOs feel they have the right to do the same thing, just more diplomatically.
As the multi-national corporations continue to grow in size and wealth, their political influence and power will also increase. Right now it's Donald Trump's Republican party that's garnering support of the would be oligarchy. The old school Republicans are almost all endorsing Kamala Harris. The party of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower is virtually non-existent in these chaotic times. The real Republicans are, at least in the presidential race, aligned with Democrats.
At this point in time, anyone who is a wage earner, and not a salaried corporate executive should be voting the Democratic ticket. The song "Sixteen Tons" by Tennessee Ernie Ford is a good example of how a lot of wealthy people look down their noses at us working folks. We're considered a commodity, a line on a balance sheet alongside timber and steel. Donald Trump is not your friend. Nor is Ted Cruz, Rick Scott, or most other Republican candidates who are currently running. Instead they're on the side of the billionaire class.
We need to elect candidates who will pass legislation reversing Citizens United. We need to get the dark money out of political campaigns. We need elected officials who are not unduly influenced by the right wing think tanks that form almost a shadow government. We need higher marginal tax rates on the morbidly wealthy. Otherwise the corporate moguls will continue accruing wealth and along with it, political power. Ask yourself what the political landscape will look like by the time the world sees it's first trillionaire, along with the political power that accompanies that much wealth.
Electing Kamala Harris on November 5 will keep the wolves away from the door for four more years, and is the only rational choice. But we'll still have work to do in the coming months and years. Keeping our democratic republic requires constant vigilance.
Thank you for reading and as always, feel free to share. Sometimes I feel like I should be wearing a tinfoil hat for writing about this. It reads like a bad conspiracy novel. But the historical data is available for anyone who wants to research. Now let's get go vote.
Notes:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/bernie-sanders-citizens-united
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/musk-trump-plutocracy-lottery-illegal/
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/08/28/elon-musks-shadow-rule
So true. When we win, we will still have to be very vigilant!