by Tom Corbett
Karen rolled her eyes. “Oh, no, Atle, you know not what you do. The rest of us have heard the Crawford screed on what is wrong with America once too often.”
“Then once more won’t hurt, will it? I am delighted to have a new audience.” Chris gave his broadest smile. “But first, let us have an intelligence report directly from the States. Ricky, what is going on in the backwater of the free world? And you cannot bullshit me since Kat called this morning though we didn’t have much time to chat. She had to get back to her boyfriend.”
“Hah, hah, in fact Kat pushed me to stop here to see you guys, this is my opening to pile on.” Ricky looked directly at Chris, there was no ambiguity regarding his target. “Well, on the surface, things looked okay when Obama was reelected. Underneath, though, it now looks bad. The Republicans have a stranglehold on Congress and hold most of the gubernatorial seats. The Supreme Court teeters between the two competing ideologies but leans to the right. All the hard-right needs is one more seat. Lose the White House in the next election and the country, if not the world, faces a holocaust.”
Karen scoffed and said, “That will never happen, Americans are not that stupid.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Ricky responded. “Underneath the surface, a festering ugliness simmers. The number of active hate groups has skyrocketed since Obama gained the White House. Not only is a black man at the pinnacle of power but he is competent, eloquent, and scandal-free. This grates the racists to no end. And believe me, probably 30 to 40 percent of Americans are avowed racists. You team them up with the oligarchy that operates out of self-interest and you have a recipe for a right-wing takeover. The economic elite that benefits most from the Republican agenda is like two or three percent of the pyramid, but you add in the gun nuts and abortion wackos and you might just have a core majority given that so many don’t give a damn. It all depends on how many people vote.”
“What do you hear below the surface?” Chris asked. This was a conversation he wanted to have with Ricky after his conversation with Kat in any case. He now wondered if all this was a well-rehearsed plot to reel him in. No matter, he was interested.
“Both Kat and I will be very happy if you visit this summer. We are worried. Your Father, now that he has been pushed aside in the family business, is focusing even more on his right-wing political agenda. I guess you can say this was an unintended consequence of your coup.”
“Not mine,” Chris protested, “it was your dear wife’s coup, but I will admit to the role of a more than willing co-conspirator. I never thought it through, I guess. We never thought it through. Kat is more than worried. Father is, as I mentioned, still as wealthy as Croesus. Unfortunately, now I am being told that now he has time for his favorite hobby, destroying what remains of the American democracy and installing an economic oligarchy in its place, a kleptocracy if you will. He was always a firm believer that a select few are ordained to rule over the masses, a distorted dystopia based on Plato’s theme of philosopher kings. The problem is that their philosophy sucks and they tend to be brutal czars and not benevolent overlords.”
Ricky picked up the theme. “Your father is working tirelessly behind the scenes. His cabal of wealthy co-conspirators are relentlessly nipping at the underbelly of democratic institutions. Rebekah Mercer is a frequent visitor, the daughter of Bob Mercer, the hedge fund guru. Talk about looney tunes. They are very confident that they will take the White House this time around. Hillary is likely to be the Democratic nominee and they have been using their well-funded propaganda machine to turn her into Satan’s daughter. They have been at it for a quarter century but watch what they do over the next year plus. They will hit her with so much mud, all spurious, that even Democratic women will reject her. She probably could not be elected dog catcher.”
“But surely Americans will see through all this?” The protest came from Atle.
“No,” said Ricky emphatically, “you cannot imagine how naïve and simple minded the typical American is. And then there are some disturbing rumors, not even sure if I should mention them.”
Chris pushed him. “Go ahead, you are among friends. I heard some of this earlier, but this is something we all need to know about.”
“We are getting information that the Russians are getting involved, that they want to help the Republicans…one economic oligarchy supporting another. Something called the Russian Federation Internet Research Association is being formed, or perhaps has been formed and is being expanded. By the 2016 election they hope to have thousands of operatives spreading misinformation to millions of Americans. And it may go beyond that.”
Atle looked unconvinced. “America is an old democracy. It will never permit its democratic institutions to be compromised.”
Ricky laughed derisively. “You would think so. I suspect that this is my cue to let Chris take over. People, time for the lecture. Take good notes, this material will be on the exam.”
“In fact, my younger sister, and Ricky’s long-suffering wife, called me this very morning. I cannot say much more than all of our paranoia is justified.” Chris seemed reluctant to go further, looking at Ricky whose countenance remained impassive. “Back to my lecture, I will try not to become too pedantic.”
“That will be the day.” Karen smiled.
“Okay, then, the long version. America, despite the rhetoric, has never been a democracy. One of my favorite quotes is from John Adams: ‘Property is surely a right of mankind as real as Liberty.’ Few realize that our iconic phrase of pursuing: ‘life, liberty, and happiness’ was almost ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of property,’ which he stole from John Lock who originally penned ‘life liberty, and estate’ as the core verities of the good society. Think about what they provided for in the original constitution. Women could not vote, nor slaves, nor even most men without property. They instituted an electoral college under the assumption that only propertied men would be electors and that they would overturn any foolish vote by the rabble. As another protection against the will of the people, senators were not elected but appointed by state legislators. America was to be a country of the propertied class, by the propertied class, and for the propertied class. Sure, they wanted democracy but only if it was controlled by people just like themselves. What pushed the colonists toward breaking free from England? It was taxes, even though the mother country spent untold treasure defending them from France and the original inhabitants in the French and Indian War. Let’s face it, the colonists were a bunch of selfish ingrates. The Boston Tea Party had less to do with political protest than to sustain the lucrative smuggling operations of John Hancock and others of his ilk. More to the point, they did not trust the electorate. Not much has changed.”
“But as democracy matured, things changed, no?” Atle protested, but rather meekly.
“Nominally, yes. In the early 1900s, the constitutional amendments that were introduced extended suffrage to women and ended appointed senators. Most Native Americans were not franchised until World War II, and it was the 1965 Voting Rights Act that nominally extended access to the voting booth to most African-Americans in the South. Never forget that the long history of America has been a battle between competing ideologies, first a rural agrarian feudal system against the industrial revolution and then capital versus labor.”
“Here we go,” Karen intoned while Kay issued a small chuckle.
Chris ignored them. “The civil war was a conflict of cultures - big agricultural estates versus big industrial corporations. But what is most fascinating is that the poor on both sides bore the brunt of the conflict. Less than five percent of southerners owned slaves to any extent, at least enough to have a commercial impact, yet thousands of poor whites suffered and died for a social and economic system that oppressed their own economic hopes. Think about that. The North was just about to enter the industrial revolution in a big way, and crushing the agrarian South pushed that along and helped them gain regional hegemony. While some of the wealthy put it on the line, affluent north
erners could buy their way out of the war for $300 dollars, a small fortune then for an average worker.”
“Remember, the robber barons needed a cheap labor supply. They focused on ensuring a steady stream of immigrants and crushing any signs of labor organization. The state came to their aid whenever their prerogatives and advantages were threatened. With no taxes and few regulations, it was Katy, bar the door. The gilded age saw enormous accumulations of wealth. Of course, even academia came to support the existing inequalities. Herbert Spencer twisted Darwin’s biological Theory of Evolution into a social context. Those who won the titanic battles of that age were the fittest, the smartest, and the strongest. Success was a sign of worth. It was the natural order of things. And religion played its role. Calvinistic thought developed the notion of predestination. God knew everything including who would be in heaven with him. Success in life was a sign that you were among the select. Thus, biology and theology supported the belief system underlining the new economic order. My father is the perfect expression of this new economic man, destined to win and to rule.”
“A little cynical, aren’t we?” This was a weak protest from Carlotta.
“I think not. The basic alignment of capital versus labor began as the 1900s arrived. I think the economic elite saw dangers on the horizon. There were obvious inequalities where great suffering existed alongside conspicuous wealth. Monopolies controlled many economic factors such as rail prices, thus systemically hurting desperate farmers who needed to get their goods to market. The capitalists and bankers wanted a gold system to keep the worth of their wealth strong while the populists wanted a money supply backed by silver. History recalls the words of the first national populist, William Jennings Bryan who railed against being: ‘crucified on a cross of gold.’ He desperately sought cheap credit to free up over-extended farmers and smaller business people.”
Chris sighed and continued. “Probably for the first time, corporate leaders tried to buy a national election. J.P. Morgan stuffed cash in a duffle bag and delivered it to McKinley’s campaign. Except for Teddy Roosevelt and maybe Ike, the GOP would become the water carriers for the elite after this. Oddly enough, workers in the North tended to side with the industrialists. Their bargain seemed to be they would take a job no matter how low paying rather than depend upon utopian dreams spun by revolutionaries. In any case, the Republicans went from the liberal, anti-slavery and pro-infrastructure, party to the conservative party while the Democrats struggled to sew together northern urban immigrants with southern racists. The Republicans might have remained unchallenged except for the Great Depression. It turns out that conservative economic orthodoxy doesn’t work, except for those at the top.”
“I’m getting lost.” It was Deena. “What does all this ancient history have to do with today?”
“The short story is this: The Great Depression of the 1930s shattered conventional thought and brought us great ruin that was international in scope. The Weimar Republic was getting the economic ship righted in the late 1920s with American help. Remember that Hitler was considered a marginal buffoon by many until Germany’s recovery was aborted after America called in the loans it had provided them. The U.S. did this right after the market collapse of 1929. America sneezed, and Europe got a bad case of the flu, and a huge price was to be paid. Still, economic collapse prompted a change in the old ways of thinking. Perhaps a government could be a force for good? Let us not forget that the original catastrophe might have been deep but short-term except that there was only one tool in the government’s bag early on: you protected national interests with tariffs and a balanced budget. This was the economic orthodoxy embraced by virtually all, even Roosevelt in his weaker moments. That made things worse. Eventually, the thinking of that famous Brit, John Maynard Keynes, percolated into the national consciousness. The government had to step in to stimulate demand when normal markets failed. That was anathema to the traditionalists, but World War II intervened to prove his point. This was the pump-priming strategy of all pump-priming strategies and even the conservatives loved it. If there is one thing that they love more than money, it is killing people and making tons of money off the weapons that do the killing.”
“That is a little harsh,” someone interjected.
“Not at all. It is all too true. But my point is that the economic elite saw things slipping away from them. With the drubbing of the hard-right candidate Goldwater in 1964, it looked as if we had a new economic orthodoxy firmly in place. Even Republican Richard Nixon said that we are all Keynesians now. That could not be allowed to stand. The elite saw their stranglehold on wealth steadily fall since the end of the 1920s, when it stood at almost 24 percent of the total. By the 70s, it would drop just below 10 percent. They wanted their advantages, their dominance, their preeminent social status back. There were always advocates for right-wing orthodoxy: Hayek, Kirk, Buckley, Rand, and others. But they had been fringe-players after the depression and the war. As early as the 1950s, a new school of economic thought was being pushed by James Buchanan, the so-called Virginia School. Simply put, economic outcomes of the market, unfettered by government intervention, were the just allocation of resources. Anything else impeded the market and, more to their point, was morally indefensible. It was social Darwinism and Calvinism on steroids. Slowly, particularly after the Goldwater debacle, the hard right finally got serious. For some time, they were viewed as fringe-type nuts seeing communists everywhere. Now, they banded together, fueled by great wealth, to systemically turn things around. They needed to purge moderates from their ranks and hijack the party. A way to do just that was right in front of them. De jure segregation may have died but racism was alive and well and those deep hatreds could be exploited for their own purposes. In the 1930s, the first black scholar to get a Ph.D. from Harvard, W.E.B. Dubois, wrote about a psychological wage that poor whites accepted in preference to substantive compensation. If the elite permitted them to feel superior to others who did not look like them, were of a darker color, white laborers would gladly forego collective action to maintain an imagined superiority. It was a classic Faustian bargain and a hollow pyrrhic victory. We give you the right to hate, you give us your obedience and cheap labor.”
“Okay,” Karen offered. “Now you are descending into bitterness.”
Chris did not seem to hear her. “They first needed to realign the parties. Obviously, the Democrats had become the party of labor and minorities. Truman integrated the military in the late 1940s and liberal stalwarts like Hubert Humphrey were pushing the party leftward. The realignment would have taken place in the 1950s, but Eisenhower enforced the Brown versus Board of Education decision, bringing in federal troops to help end segregation in some schools. But that just delayed things. After the civil rights legislation of the 1960s, realignment was a guaranteed outcome. The South became solid red while liberal Republicans slowly disappeared. With the parties polarized, confrontation became the norm. Now, the elite had a party they could control and that would willingly carry a hard-right agenda. This country would finally get the redistribution of wealth that liberals always wanted. Unfortunately for them, it would go in the wrong direction, from the bottom 90 percent to the top one percent. But how to get their people elected? Therein lay their challenge. Their natural economic base, by definition, is a minority of voters. You need to be creative to get the multitude to vote against their self-interests.”
“I may regret this,” Atle said, “but what did they do?” Suddenly, he let out a howl as everyone realized that Karen kicked him under the table. “Now I know what Chris suffers,” he whimpered.
Even Chris laughed at this. “Well, if you want the whole story, perhaps take my course in American political institutions. Sign up early though, it is a popular course. You must remember that, just prior to Goldwater getting clobbered, Americans basically liked and trusted the government. This, of course, was before Vietnam, Watergate, and school bussing. Some 80 percent said they trusted the government to do the right thing m
ost of the time. Now, it might be in the range of 20 percent. That was their challenge. They had to chip away at the foundations of political thought in the country, transform the underlying precepts that shaped the average guy’s perceptions.
Through a massive educational campaign, they convinced many that the government made things worse, not better. Free markets were sacrosanct. Personal liberty trumped economic security. They launched a multi-dimensional strategy for transforming how Americans thought about things. Fox news is just the tip of the iceberg. I could go on about the think tanks, the Leadership Council, the Club for Growth, the Federalists Society, and so many other tentacles formed to strangle the life out of progressive thought, but I fear we would be here all night. They also knew that demographic trends worked against them, the share of native whites would decline as a proportion of the population pie while immigrants and minorities see their share grow. Time was running out, they felt. They had to work hard to destroy the protocols of democracy, and soon. Through gerrymandering, voter suppression, massive misinformation and other tinkering, they could slowly extend their control.”
“Sounds apocalyptic,” Atle said and then instinctively moved away from Karen.
“They are almost there. Consider this: in 2007, the elite now held the same share of the nation’s wealth that they did just before the great economic collapse of 1929. Starting with Reagan, they have gathered all, almost all at least, of the newly generated goodies for themselves. But they wanted more. They lost some ground with the 2008 crash, but their greed is insatiable. They want it all. Worse, they have virtually unlimited resources to pour into the political process. Wealth, coupled with a total lack of scruples, is a deadly mix. Of course, they see themselves as engaged in a holy war. They see this as a battle of good versus evil. They have developed a philosophy that rationalizes the practice of unbridled greed. My father has enthusiastically embraced such a belief system.” Then Chris stopped. He seemed to be considering something.