Will American Democracy Survive the Age of Oligarchs?

[ancianita]

Oligarchy is always a transitional system, typically a mere waystation in the shift from democracy to fascism or some other form of authoritarianism…

https://open.substack.com/pub/thomhartmann/p/will-american-democracy-survive-the-17e?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

Many of America’s oligarchs — the people whose great wealth and/or ownership of media properties gives them tremendous influence over our politics — believe they’re arguing for policies that will produce a “better” America. Or at least an America that’s better and safer for oligarchs and their families and businesses.

Tragically, they’re wrong. Their support for GOP-aligned racist, “free market deregulation,” and climate denial policies are tearing America apart and will threaten their grandchildren every bit as much as they do yours and mine.

Nonetheless, in America and increasingly around the world, oligarchs taking over the political dialogues of nations are all the rage. From America to Turkey to Russia to the Philippines, oligarchs have either risen to near-absolute power or bought off so many politicians that they have effective control of entire political parties and thus entire nations.

Increasingly, America’s oligarch problem has become the world’s oligarchy problem, as country after country follows the GOP’s example and sidelines labor rights, women’s rights, voting rights, and democracy itself.

[dem4decades]

1. Short answer - no. Sorry

[ancianita]

2. You must not have read his essay. He's got a lot of info there.

Sure you're free to agree with him, but... Do you have any info to back your 'no - sorry' up?

[gab13by13]

4. Citizens United.

[ancianita]

5. All because of that, huh. Noted.

But lots is happening at the state level, and movement building to overturn Citizens United and its unprincipled predecessors is well underway.

[Shipwack]

3. We've done it before...

We survived the robber barons of the Gilded Age, and I think the wealth disparity was even greater.

We shall see.

(On lunch break so didn’t RTFA; will do so later)

[Fiendish Thingy]

6. Only if the following happen:

1. Biden wins in 2024, and Dems control both house and senate
2. The filibuster is killed permanently
3. SCOTUS is expanded and packed with liberals.

Only then can the tools and mechanisms of oligarchy and fascism be definitively defeated and destroyed, and the guardrails of democracy permanently installed.

Otherwise, the struggle will continue, and the fascists could prevail.

[ancianita]

9. I CAN'T WAIT for Hakeem to get his shot. With a solid majority he'll go beyond Pelosi on CU & judiciary reform.

[Fiendish Thingy]

12. Does he support Court expansion?

Not many Dems have voiced clear support.

[ancianita]

13. They follow Biden's lead. Once they have a clear majority, a lot more change will be on the table, don't you think?

[Fiendish Thingy]

14. I'd like to think so

Biden has surprised with some more progressive than expected positions, but typically, he tends to support traditions.

[ancianita]

15. I believe him, and he'll decide to back whatever solid Democratic majorities of both Houses decide to legislate.

A second term will be his mandate -- and our party's -- for doing what polls have shown the vast majority of Americans want. They've waited this long for more freedoms that he'll deliver, and when Republicans howl across the country, we'll all know he's doing the right thing.

It's hard to wait and keep putting up with the corporate hype.

But we have to stop allowing media to present us as too diverse and divided a party to trust, and G.O.T.F.V.

When we've won a national trifecta we've worked circles around the other party to get major stuff done for Americans.

[appalachiablue]

7. Citizens United, Hartmann's Recent Article, Oct. 27, 2023:

Citizens United Is Destroying America, Why Nobody Is Talking about It, By Thom Hartmann, Daily Kos, Oct. 27, 2023. Ed.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016367218

[ancianita]

8. Article from The Atlantic before Hartmann's, and why rescinding it won't change all that much, except, perhaps,

foreign dark money.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/does-citizen-united-matter/483860/

[appalachiablue]

10. I wonder if TH saw this Atlantic piece from 2016. He

knows campaign finance law very well.

(I can't read the full article, no subscipt).

[ancianita]

11. Hard to say. Maybe not, since he just wrote this, and his book on it is only two years old.

Here's the full version. https://archive.ph/ySoCK

I just think it presents other considerations that diminish the rescinding of CU as a cure all for money in politics. Definitely improving older campaign finance laws would go a long way toward whole purchase of state legislatures and political parties.

If and when we win solid majorities of both houses, another good thing would be to compose new amendments to the Constitution about a) corporations not being people, and
b) money not being speech, and
c) the fundamental constitutional right for all Americans to vote in all elections; right now the Constitution does not say that.