#Trump plutocracy free

Citing a global report by Transparency International, Foreign Policy journal, in its 28 January 2021 edition wrote that corruption in the US is at its worst level in a decade. On all three fronts, they push climate change denial. And it includes giving money to candidates. The Koch network includes think tanks, which produce papers and advocacy groups that advocate for policies. The Cato Institute first moved to foment doubt about climate change science with a 1991 seminar titled “Global Environmental Crises: Science or Politics?” The seminar featured scientists who questioned the prevailing view that humankind’s carbon emissions caused the Earth to warm. The Koch network funds organizations such as the State Policy Network and the American Legislative Exchange Council, which promote conservative legislation such as tax cuts, deregulation and “stand your ground” firearms laws at the state level. The University of Utah accepted a $10 million donation from the Charles Koch Foundation to establish a free-market economics programme to counter the ostensibly Marxian bent of the university’s economics department. Koch donations to academic institutions typically come with ideological blinders attached. They have spread their views via funding for university programmes such as the libertarian Mercatus Center at George Mason University, a source of ideological attacks on social security and anti-poverty programmes, including Medicaid, school lunches and breakfasts, and food stamps.

The Koch network includes the libertarian Cato Institute, which the brothers co-founded, and non-profits such as Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Partners. They have gathered around them about 400 other extraordinarily wealthy Conservatives, a kind of a billionaire caucus. They also distribute cash through a vast web of tax-exempt entities. The world of rogue billionaires is a world without regulation, and they cast doubt on science in climate change and healthcare, among other topics. The money was not only the brothers’, but came from like-minded millionaires and billionaires. They spent some $900 million on political activities during the 2016 elections. The two have had a noxious influence on the American political system. The Koch brothers have spent more than $1.5 billion over four decades to push the Republican party to the libertarian Right.

The billionaire Koch brothers have pumped vast sums into anonymous groups and political campaigns that encourage Americans to doubt everything. For decades, plutocrats have spent a fortune trying to convince ordinary Americans that black is white.

#Trump plutocracy free

The US is ruled not by Democrats or Republicans, but by free market plutocrats.Īs Harvard political scientist Theda Skocpol and others have been telling us, the dirty money from billionaires like the Koch brothers has turned “extreme laissez-faire ideology into orthodox Republican dogma.” There are visible signs that the US and many other countries may be moving towards perfect plutocracy. Today a global economy of dirty money is undermining democracy across the world. The phenomenon is not confined to the US only. No less important is the role played by dirty money. The country’s economic, racial, and social gaps have helped cause toxic polarization between the political right and left. What has brought the US to such a pass “is a multiplication effect between its underlying flaws and recent shifts in the society’s “material” characteristics.” This is the price the US is paying for ignoring systemic malaise. The 21st century is fast becoming a world where, says Homer-Dixon, “the absurd regularly becomes real and the horrible commonplace.” These warning signals are from someone who has studied and published on the causes of war, social breakdown, revolution, ethnic violence, and genocide for more than four decades. But many democracies today face such a nightmarish state of affairs. Canadian political scientist Thomas Homer-Dixon visualises such a dire scenario. By 2030, if not sooner, the country could be governed by a right-wing dictatorship.” This is not the rant of a frustrated cynic nor the prognosis of an anarchist. By 2025, “American democracy could collapse, causing extreme domestic political instability, including widespread civil violence.