The volcano that erupted spewing Trumpism and destroying democracy has been building deep underground since the end of WWII. Consumers of mainstream media were aghast and bewildered by the 2016 election results while the consumers of right-wing media welcomed their messiah. Somehow an unlikely alliance had formed between the billionaire class, the working class and evangelicals.
I’ve only read the first three and half chapters of Jane Mayer’s Dark Money: The History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right and have found many answers to my questions of what’s happening to our country?
How can the most technologically advanced, most successful democracy and standard bearer of human rights in the world become an anti-intellectual/anti-expertise, anti-government, anti-democratic, anti-union autocracy?
A few billionaires (often recipients of inherited wealth) don’t want to pay taxes or abide by government regulations so they funded right-wing think tanks, foundations, politicians and media platforms to undermine confidence in the government thereby disempowering it. They’ve convinced the very people who are served and protected by the government to destroy it and vote against it. They’ve deemed any government program that helps ordinary people as socialism or communism as a scare tactic. They’ve created an alternate reality of disinformation that causes the masses to give all their power over to to the few at top. Unbelievably, these people who are giving over the very democracy that gives them power believe they are somehow patriots!
These billionaires who’ve usurped our power and restructured the government in their favor have no clue what it means to earn a living and raise a family from scratch. We need to take back our power and make America fair!
reilly m gray 