By Douglas V. Gibbs
An oligarchy is a governmental system in which a powerful few rule over the many. Oligarchy is the most common form of government throughout history, and currently throughout the world. The Founding Fathers designed the American System so that becoming an oligarchy would be unlikely. The system is riddled with checks and balances, and mechanisms that operate in a unique manner so as to guard against oligarchy and pure democracy; the latter typically operating as a transitional political system that historically always becomes an oligarchy.
Progressivism as practiced by the Democratic Party operates in a manner that seeks to consolidate all governmental power within the federal government. The actions and policies of the Democratic Party wreak of the Democrats seeking to secure absolute control over the country’s legislatures, even the state legislatures beyond the control they seek in Congress, to dominate in the courts so that their ideology may be used as a weapon in the judicial system against any opposition, and in the presidency so that their power may be wielded in a manner similar to that of an authoritarian leader.
Donald J. Trump won the presidency in November of 2024, and now he is President of the United States. The Republican Party, a new party in many ways that has been shedding its establishment skin so that it may be reshaped under the guiding hand of Trump, holds a majority, though slim, in both the House of Representatives and the United States Senate. The United States Supreme Court, thanks to Trump’s first term in office from 2017 to 2021, slightly leans in the President’s ideological favor. As a result, the big-government-minded Democrats, whose activities always drip with the tyranny of oligarchy, have began screaming that the Trump movement and the GOP has brought an authoritarian oligarchy to America.
If you’ve been paying attention to politics long enough, oligarchy-minded politicians are really good at projecting their sins upon their opposition.
In California, Gavin Newsom, despite a line-up of recall attempts, remains governor of the Golden State, and hard-left Democrats remain in absolute control of the state legislature. While America has awakened enough to realize that the Democrats may not be operating in their best interest, the revolution against the Marxist progressives has not born much fruit in deep blue California.
Democrats, especially California Democrats, have accused President Trump of being in the pockets of billionaires, Wall Street, and their biggest enemy: Corporate America. Never mind that they (the hard left Democrats) are the ones typically bathing in funding from very wealthy people from around the world who have been hoping that the rise of a progressive oligarchy will continue to feed a mercantilist machine that operates in blue-money’s favor. Then, to the horror of the liberal left progressive commie Democrats a series of defections began to spill over in the direction of Trump. California’s wealthiest entrepreneurs and investors are walking away from the Democratic Party and have, at least for the moment, given their support to the MAGA movement.
Elon Musk’s defection sent a message, I suppose. The defections are so deep that even names like Zuckerberg and Bezos have joined the list. For the Democrats, the cozying up to Trump by big money from big tech was an unexpected development that has left Democrats scrambling to discredit the defectors – because that is what they do. It seems to be the special golden rule that the Democrats operate under. “Do onto others before they do onto you.” The anatomy of a smear is alive and well, and we see it often against any opposition to the Democrats, especially when it comes to Trump’s nominations for his Cabinet, and especially when it comes to defectors like Tulsi Gabbard and Robert Kennedy, Jr. But, when the big corporate money that the Democrats claim to hate began to actually take dollars out of their pockets; that was something for them to truly fume about. In fact, they are so angry about it that they have been getting truly nasty about it. In his farewell address, Joseph Biden took full advantage of the situation to throw around the oligarchy accusations and to try to paint the Democratic Party’s opposition as being a bunch of oligarchs.
Biden said, “Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.”
I am not one to necessarily bang the drum for mercantilistic big corporation players who jump at the opportunity to collude with government so that they can tilt the playing field against any free market competitors. That said, I don’t hate the wealthy. I don’t have any disdain for the mega-successful. In fact, while there might be those out there accusing big corporate giants as being akin to the robber baron titans of the nineteenth century, the reality is (then and now) it is those big monster corporations that have been major contributors to American prosperity, has put out product in a manner that has fueled supply and demand in ways that have provided opportunity for consumers and laborers alike, and it is those big business moguls who have paved a path for America’s future in trade and free market economics. Like them, or not, the reality is when American companies, even the big nasty ones who seek to play political games, do well American rights and freedoms multiply and everyone gets ahead.
We have to remember one of the premises behind the progressive lefty thinking of the Democrats: The size of the pie is finite, so if the wealthy enjoys a large part of the pie, everyone else must be losing out and suffering. That’s what they are basically telling you when they say, “The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.”
Except, that is completely wrong. In reality, wealth can be created, making it an infinite thing. When the tide rises, it lifts all boats. When big wealthy corporations do well, more product is produced, more jobs are unleashed, and the size of the pie gets bigger so that everyone can grab a piece.
Biden’s other accusations of oligarchy against Trump and his sudden boon of wealthy billionaire support, laid out what he believed to be possible consequences should the threat of an oligarchy under the “authoritarian” hand of Trump isn’t contained:
“Powerful forces want to wield their unchecked influence to eliminate the steps we’ve taken to tackle the climate crisis, to serve their own interests for power and profit.”
Putting aside the fact that any change in global temperatures (climate change) is a natural phenomenon not driven by fluctuations in levels of carbon dioxide, but due to other factors that primarily involve the sun (yes, I know it’s a shock: the sun influences warming of the planet), it’s difficult to imagine how any American cannot recognize the Democrats’ warnings about the presence and influence by business oligarchs (Biden’s version of what the word means: despotic power exercised by a small and privileged group of ultra-wealthy people for corrupt or selfish purposes) as being a severely hypocritical utterance. American politics have always been heavily influenced by big business corporate titans. I’m not saying I am particularly always appreciative of such mercantilistic influences, but the reality is that big business and government (right or wrong) has been a relationship that has shaped America’s prowess in the world throughout history. Truthfully, more often than not, while it may be frustrating that so much influence has been in the hands of what the Democrats might call “oligarchs”, it has largely been to the benefit of America and Americans.
Big business oligarchy, if one is willing to call it that, is like any tool. In the wrong hands it is a bad thing. But, if properly wielded, it could be beneficial. Again, I am not condoning collusion between government and big corporate interests, I am simply making an observation. I suppose you could say that monarchy isn’t such a bad thing if the king is benevolent. It’s the dictators who are the problem when they reach the kingly level. That’s why the Founding Fathers made this country a federal republic, and why they did what they could to stifle mercantilism and big money influence on government.
Nonetheless, big corporate money has been a part of the political game in America for a very long time. During my lifetime the reality has been that the Democratic Party that has been the primary instrument of America’s big corporate oligarchy. The Democratic Party embraced the big corporate oligarchy when President Clinton signed financial deregulation and gave a green light to offshoring American manufacturing. The big business oligarchs were coddled and colluded with during Obama’s alliance with Wall Street special interests and was again furthered during Biden’s presidency with the rise, approval, and implementation of the Green New Deal. The Democratic party has been firmly in the hands of what they consider to be big corporate oligarchs. And now, they are angry because Trump and the GOP has taken the baton as the party of working families across America, and corporate giants are lining up to serve and strengthen Trump’s agenda because they’ve realized that unleashing the free market is in their best interest, as opposed to government strangulation by the federal government’s iron fist of Democratic Party political oligarchy control.
Biden claimed on his way out that big corporate oligarchs are contributing to Trump’s MAGA movement and that somehow that is a horrible development, despite the fact that for the last several election cycles, billionaire donors have favored Democrats. Biden’s party of hard left collectivists were luxuriating in the shower of dollars raining upon them from mega-wealthy individuals like Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, Dustin Moskovitz, Reid Hoffman, Fred Eychaner, James Simons, Stephen Mandel, and more. Democrats, despite claiming otherwise, still continue to receive support from major Wall Street firms. Billions of dollars in soft money is constantly filtering to the Democratic Party through Democrat-aligned C4 advocacy groups from the above-listed direct donors, along with George Soros, Laurene Powell Jobs, and thousands of other supporters who play the game without anyone necessarily noticing. And all of this is in addition to the money-laundering schemes the Democrats enjoy through labor unions and other organizational sources.
Then, the Democrats got too dictatorial. Democrat Party policies began to suffocate innovation, and grab more control over corporate operations and free market allowances. Rather than operating in a manner that big corporations saw as favorable to their grip on the American economy, leftist policies began to choke the golden goose. And, as a result, many of the billionaires departed. A fault-line appeared, creating a schism in one of the most unlikely places: Silicon Valley. Biden’s political oligarchy ticked off the corporate oligarchy, and the billionaires picked up their ball so that they could play somewhere else.
A combination of factors led to the split. I have argued that the Democrat Party’s decision to disallow the private sector to freely develop the next big boom, artificial intelligence, may have been a part of it. The all-out support by the hard left members of the Democratic Party, which seems to be nearly all of them of late, for woke, DEI, and sexual insanity ideologies may have also played a part. Perhaps the demands of censorship and unfair gameplay also rattled some of the brains of big corporate titans. The peddling of disinformation and then labeling any dissent “misinformation” and “disinformation” may have also influenced the whole shake-up. Elon Musk’s defection which happened much earlier than the other one’s definitely got the ball rolling, sending a message that it was not only okay to defect and join Trump’s movement, but that it was the cool thing to do. Whatever it was (some of those factors, all of those factors, it is hard to say exactly what the combination was), the reality is that Democratic Party controlled institutions have been deceiving America, and the corporate giants finally had their fill of it.
California, as a result, is losing big tech. The California business oligarchs are fleeing the Golden State, and the Democratic Party. The big money alliance behind the Democratic Party has faltered, and the corporate oligarchs are no longer united under the flag of the blue lefty donkey. Whether it is because they find Trump more beneficial to their own interests for power and profit, or if they simply have come to see the light that the Democrats are not the champions for working Americans and a future of innovation, or other reasons, the reality is, we are watching an interesting political realignment that has shifted in an amazing manner when it comes to the big money part of America’s economic pie.
While Biden and the Democrats are warning against corporate oligarchs who were once serving the Democratic Party’s insatiable appetite for power and profit, calling the new realignment behind Trump the oligarch-industrial complex, the real power grab through things like climate change and government control over the free market has suddenly lost its grip.
It seems amazing that the Democrats don’t think that we can see that it is they who perfectly embodies the oligarch menace they are marching around claiming to be warning us about. Under their drive for political oligarchy the corporate oligarchies became stronger with government colluding against the American People through them. Under their drive for political oligarchy more power was given to the woke-DEI agenda. Under their drive the affordable-housing regulatory authoritarian agenda gained momentum and served the Democrats in ways that included driving their socialism-minded minions into otherwise “conservative” regions. Homelessness worsened, destruction of the American Dream intensified, and the power and wealth grab in the name of the “climate-crisis” worsened. All of these manifestations of special interest regulatory capture, politically connected industries and NGOs, and government bureaucracies sought to strengthen the Democrat Party’s drive for political oligarchy, and the silencing of all opposition in a true Marxian manner — all products of Biden’s corporate oligarchs who had been pumping their influences and billions of dollars into the rising authoritarian threat inside the hard left Democratic Party.
Then, Trump came along, grabbed the apple cart by both handles, and flipped the thing over. He scattered the Democrats, scattered their support, and then began to undermine their strength. They underestimated Trump. They underestimated the unconscionable idea that Trump might be able to lure away some of the sources of their power, like the big money in Corporate America. Trump’s movement moved the importance away from people who aimed to compromise America’s foundation of freedom and a free market to placing American interests for the sake of liberty and the lives of Americans first. The political machines sputtered, and the voters realized they had been lied to. Americans in November then, with their vote, rejected the political oligarchy being formed by the Democrats, and when the people moved to Trump, so did a handful of extremely powerful Silicon Valley titans. And when the dust settled, the resulting coalition pulled off the greatest political comeback in American History.
California, however, remains a swarming nest of the old guard, despite being exposed as a raging disgrace by things like California’s economy, and its inability to fight the destructive fires raging through Los Angeles. As a result, they are battening down the hatches. The Democratic politicians refuse to recognize the shift, and have declared war on Trump and the Americans who support him. The California political elite have declared war against Trump because their self-serving egos can’t muster any other action.
The funny thing is that they don’t realize that they are now in a vicious cycle against themselves. The more they resist, the more Americans recognize the folly of their political idiocy. The more they push their authoritarian progressive leftist slop, the more big money we will see fleeing away from them. They have dug in, ready to commit to a new kind of trench warfare, but in the end the same old Marxist leftist Democratic Party tactics simply won’t work for them anymore; or at least not as long as Americans remember what they are truly all about.
Historically, unfortunately, we have seen how short the memories of American voters truly are.
In the words of Princess Leia Organa from Star Wars: “It’s not over yet.”
The battle may have only just begun.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
