Oligarchy is un-American, right?

This fascist coup has been in process for some time. Mitch McConnell was saying as early as Obama's administration that the GOP’s goal was One Party Government

But really, it’s been much longer than that. The majority of the men ( and very few women) who actually run this country now are in one clubby group - they went to the same exclusive high schools and universities, got jobs in the same firms, clerked for the same judges, belong to the same clubs. That includes Epstein’s little operation. This works across generations, as Legacies - the children of alumni -  in exclusive schools crowd out the less well-connected. 

This was the case when my younger boomer self got into “The Harvard of the South”.  It was the best school I got into, but I was on a waiting list. I spent my first semester living in a utility basement room they made up for us, but I guarantee the legacies all got a dorm spot. 

If I had decided to be a doctor, lawyer, economist or other high-status profession, my career would have been ensured. As it was, those connections didn’t pay off for me, but the legacies are now running governments, banks and law firms in the South. It’s a pipeline. And, as a result, these folks never worked in a restaurant to make a living, or had to look in the classifieds for a job like I did. 

Three very real consequences are in play now. 

1. They never work along working class folks
2. They get their first and following jobs from connections, meaning they interact only with folks from the same class. 
3. Their only interactions with the 80-90% of Americans is as masters to servants, employees or service people. Never as equals. 

Because this is absolutely a class war as well as a race war. 

And here is what makes their involvement in government so dangerous - they never are allowed to fail. Nepo babies in particular never make formative mistakes. Their money cushions every crisis, and they never have to worry about paying their bills. They often fail upwards - promoted to remove evidence of incompetence. So the offspring of wealth never learn from mistakes, never experience consequences. They just throw money at a problem and it goes away. 

This is why the wealthy are so incompetent in their MAGA takeover - they think their wealth infers super intelligence and expertise.  They believe their problem-free lives are due to their own abilities. Every thought they have sounds profound and important to themselves. To the rest of us, they just sound like clowns. But that wealth bubble includes nearly all our government officials, industry leaders and political figures on both sides. Yes, and that’s why DC  Dem leadership is so reluctant to become part of the resistance. They now are indebted to, and even part of, that out-of-touch bubble. 

Generational wealth is what this country was born to fight. The fact is that the GOP has worked for decades, if not longer, to cleanse wealth of its bad reputation, to reverse laws that hold wealth in check and to promote conspicuous consumption in the media.  

We have forgotten our beginnings - nearly all of Americans began as impoverished refugees fleeing the heavy hand of generational wealth and power in Europe. The whole reason we believe in welcoming refugees is because we started that way too. That is part of what made the US unique among its First World peers.  That openness has produced a wider acceptance of diversity than most blood and soil nations. 

But now the aristocracy wants America back. Forget that our 250th birthday is this year, MAGA wants to turn back the clock. 

Sock'em good

We are now living in a grievance culture, with no guardrails. Meaning? Anyone with a grievance can exact revenge on anyone else, at any level, with little cost, monetary or legal. In fact, grievances can make you rich - look at Riley Gaines. Trump is the prime practitioner of this, and he operates on a global scale - a whole country has offended him and now they must pay his price. To reflect his MO, now anyone, MAGA acolytes or just momentarily aggravated humans, can ruin someone’s life, and even take it. 

Law used to constrain stalkers and harassers to some degree, but now, when everyone can be a stalker with that dopamine kick of causing real damage, law is yawning and turning to social media to get a case pre-judged by the public. When the law is the biggest troll, how can it be wrong to be an asshole?

Witness some local protest organizer in Grand Rapids, MI being arrested for the crime of protesting the Venezuela incursion. Trump didn’t target her, it was a local MAGA cop. Look at how the stochastic slurs made by Trump forced a good governor out of his re-election campaign. Look at the dozens of university professors who were fired by the work of their students, look at Charlie Kirk, the dead martyr himself, who made millions out of his grievances, who created those same campus activists. 

It is personal now. It’s not just your friend being deported or your spouse losing their job, it’s your neighbor who hates your cat, your brother-in-law who owes you money, a cop who’s having a bad day. 

Everyday is a bad day in Trump’s life, his mental illnesses spiraling into childish tantrums that end in a country being invaded this week, next week, who knows. And there are all kinds of grievances being assuaged in Venezuela. The irritation that the Epstein files is causing him needs to be scratched til bloody. The need to justify his empire and Hegseth’s military cosplay. The loss of his donor’s property when the Venezuelan oil fields were nationalized. 

The mythic war against Socialism, drug cartels and dictators, has been honed down to a grievance against one man he can arrest, several he can kill and lots and lots of news coverage not about Epstein. He gets great results -  he gets richer and looks more powerful. None of this is legal, but Trump’s needs must be met. And that conquest will be the launching ground for the next incursion. 

This is a warning - he needs a body count. He wants to be pettier than Putin in his eliminations. He doesn’t care if you’re an oligarch or a hospital orderly. Venezuela is a testing ground for his need to imprison, torture and kill any of us who he imagines are enemies. With the 80+ boat killings, it is clear that they were brown cyphers whose lives were nothing to him, except as offerings to his demented ego and useful to his plans.

Just think how many camps can he build in his new lawless “network state?” How many Venezuelans will be sacrificed? How many Americans will be disappeared? What level of brown person death will be enough to sate his appetite? And just remember how well the GOP ran another country last time. 

Maybe you or someone you know will end up in Trumpezuela, but more likely, your landlord will double your rent, your boss will fire you without cause, your neighbor will shoot your cat and your brother-in-law will have your house swatted by the grumpy cop. It’s all grievance, all the time now. 

Why not report your kid’s teacher who didn’t return your phone calls - she looks brown. Nothing to lose. Enjoy the new normal, bitches.