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HOW DID WE GET HERE?
How did we end up with a regime composed of an angry, crude, neo-nazi president with an out of control billionaire slashing critical government programs?
Bottom line: the very wealthy have become almost infinitely wealthy and powerful and are using their wealth and power to control the government wherever they can.
There are many factors at work, but be sure to check out our LAST item: Voter Suppression.
Ronald Reagan’s trickle-down policy of huge tax cuts for the richest and corporations started a pattern where the rich keep getting richer and the rest stagnate.
Today the rich and corporations are SO wealthy that they are able to elect politicians that pass whatever laws they want passed.
The far-right Australian billionaire Rupert Murdoch created a TV channel and a pretend News department and then hired a series of extreme right-wing host to spew his party line. Fox News is not news: it is the propaganda than Murdoch wants.
President Reagan repealed the Fairness Doctrine, allowing Fox and other stations to call their broadcast news.
Fox has successfully maneuvered to get their channel included in basic cable nationwide, so it can be watched widely without extra fees.
Bill Clinton’s NAFTA agreement, while uplifting the US economy in general, encouraged many manufacturing jobs to move to Mexico.
Although many more jobs were lost by corporate shifting to Chinese manufacturing, NAFTA left the strong impression that the Democratic party did not care about working people.
The decisions by Walmart and scores of other US companies to shift manufacturing to China led to huge losses in factory jobs.
Loss of jobs and collapse of small cities and town led to widespread feelings of anger and betrayal.
Far right wing billionaires, in particular the Koch brothers, spent vast sums to fund far-right think tanks and projects like the Tea Party, which was designed to create anger against liberal policies and blame them for problems.
The 2010 Supreme Court Citizens United case allowed rich and corporations to spend UNLIMITED amounts of money to elect whatever politicians they chose.
Since then, political races, local, state, and federal, have been “bought” by the wealthiest powers.
From the beginning of his political life, Trump has been extremely successful at recruiting supporters who are angry, sometimes violent, sometimes racist, including the far-right religious sector.
Trump uses a constant stream of lies and hatred to get his followers to villainize various groups, from Hispanics to LGBTQ.
Although he produces electric cars, which Trump has derided, Musk spent a quarter of a billion dollars to get Trump elected, including hiring people to knock on doors in the swing states.
Musk’s reputation as an industry wizard lent a great deal of legitimacy to Trump, who was struggling with felon conviction and January 6th hangover.
(Only after the election did Musk reveal how bizarre and arrogant his approach to governing would be.)
