The American Oligarchy:
Government Does Not Work For An Obvious Reason
Feel free to check the past Biden Era archives and follow the editions to come in the Trump Era on Substack, Medium, and LinkedIn, including those on the 2024 Autopsy, Bench-Building, DOGE News, Project 2025 Authoritarianism, Progressive Populism, and more (First Come, First Serve!).
It would be rather ignorant to ignore some of these headlines: Trump and Musk going after the Democratic Party fundraising website ActBlue, NARCAN grants, Meals on Wheels regional offices, AmeriCorps, disability programs, suicide hotlines, and…until recently…the women’s health study program.
And keep an eye on The Latino Vote Podcast on YouTube hosted by a friend of mine, Chuck Rocha.
People commonly ask why does government not work for them. It’s a good question, and one conservatives and progressives and everyone in between should ask.
The answer comes down to one simple word: money. Money has corrupted the political system and the party establishments.
It may seem easy to just cite again the Citizens United ruling for what has happened today. But it is a crucial element as to why our politics is so broken, alongside partisan & racial gerrymandering.
The system also speaks to something bigger, which is money has more power than votes do. That is an unfortunate reality in the United States, even if such challenges can be overcome as I still believe is possible.
For some people, they think it is easier to just buy elections and win over wealthy dark money, outside special interests than to court voters. And they would not be completely wrong. Which is part of the problem. Money matters a lot more today than votes do.
The cryptocurrency industry spent $245 million to elect candidates who satisfy their objectives to loosen rules for them (even for Democrats like Elissa Slotkin and Ruben Gallego, whose positions I generally support but for this issue). That money was also spent to unseat bitcoin critics like Jon Tester, Sherrod Brown, and Bob Casey with GOP allies. Seriously though, how would even the threat of that much money not shape how lawmakers vote on such an important issue?
Think this way too on crypto, a currency system used by terrorist groups, cyber hackers, and drug cartels. Donald Trump’s family is now personally investing in crypto, and stands to benefit from governments, corporations, and other elites who want to curry favor with his White House.
The fossil fuel industry spent about $220 million to support Donald Trump and down ballot Republicans in 2024 (and helped Democrats like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema over past years too).
Big Pharma spent $16 million to elect and influence lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in 2024 (including Democrats). Pharmaceutical industry executive PACs and Super PACs backed VP Harris by a 6-to-1 ratio.
(BREAKING NEWS: In an example of Big Pharma’s influence closer to home, check out the late breaking news from this GoLocalProv article on the close ties between Gina Raimondo ally, former CVS CEO, & possible 2026 RI gubernatorial candidate Helena Foulkes and the infamous Sackler family behind much of the opioid crisis.
As it turns out, Foulkes received major financial backing from the Sacklers for her family’s Dodd Center at UConn. A good example of putting profits and currying favors before lives).
Charter school networks and utility companies are some of the most prolific campaign spenders in the states, funding candidates in both parties.
Corporate America ponied up $239 million to Trump’s Inaugural Committee with companies ranging from Micron and Nvidia, to Ripple, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Johnson & Johnson, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips.
AIPAC spent about $100 million in 2024 to unseat and beat progressive Democrats who simply call for a fair, two-state solution for Israel and Palestine.
Elon Musk, one mere Tesla executive, spent $277 million to elect Donald Trump and assist down ballot Republicans. Add in an additional $20 million that he spent to buy a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat in vain. Now, he has garnered control over much of the government’s inner workings, including government contracts to his own companies from Tesla, X, and SpaceX, to xAI, Starlink, and Neuralink.
That is what oligarchy is. Oligarchy looks like special interests wheeling-and-dealing through campaign finances in return for legislative favors. A quid pro quo in other words.
And what do Trump’s donors want in return for instance? They want tax cuts, deregulation, privatization, working class austerity, and tariff exemptions.
Oligarchy also looks like a photo of three of the richest men on Earth having frontline seats at the 2nd Trump Inauguration: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg. Oligarchy looks like a Cabinet, as Trump currently has, of a dozen or so of the wealthiest elites in America. It is the richest Cabinet ever in American history.
That is the Second Gilded Age, where money and connections overpowers hard work, merit, and dignity. And this conundrum is exactly why government is broken.
The more Democrats (and any courageous Republicans out there, if there are any) call out this oligarchy, the more we can start addressing the many issues facing this country in the form of economic and income inequalities, instead of merely transferring wealth from the poor to the rich through corporate socialism.
For its electoral sake too, the Democratic Party needs to disassociate itself from its past of Wall Street and Silicon Valley donors.
So without further ado, let’s offer a short introduction to the Trump Oligarchy:
Donald Trump himself (who we still don’t know the tax returns of even now): owns businesses today in foreign countries, also reportedly has $7 billion
The Trump Family, which collectively owns between $6.8 and $8.8 billion in addition to property assets across the globe
DOGE mastermind Elon Musk, the richest man in the world worth $400 billion, the epitome of the “Greed, Greed, & More Greed” Religion
Charles Kushner, a convicted criminal pardoned by Trump, has $7.1 billion in the bank
Steven Witkoff, a real estate developer now in charge of diplomacy (moreso than Trump’s own “Little Marco Rubio”), is also a billionaire…and has links to Russian businessmen
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who has roughly half a billion to a billion dollars in wealth, in addition to close ties to the cryptocurrency industry and overseas properties
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who owns roughly $1.5 billion in wealth, and possesses close ties to bitcoin companies and Chinese business interests
Education Secretary Linda McMahon, who owns roughly $3 billion in wealth, mostly through revenue from World Wrestling Entertainment
Administrator for Center of Medicaid Services and quack physician Dr. Mehmet Oz, with $315 million in the bank, and who had personal stakes in Medicare Advantage insurance providers flagged by government watchdogs
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, worth $1.1 billion with deep ties to the fossil fuel industry and technology software…and also likes his cookies warmly-baked
Small Business Administration head Kelly Loeffler owns $1.1 billion in wealth, in part from managing a cryptocurrency software company
Energy Secretary Chris Wright, an oil & gas developer, is one of the poorer Cabinet members, only $171 million rich
The Trump IRS appointment, Congressman Billy Long, is not rich, but he just got his campaign debts paid off with help from Trump
Former DOGE co-head Vivek Ramaswamy is also worth $1 billion, owing in part to government contracts for his biomedical companies
Yes indeed, this is the Gilded Age on steroids with corrupt government openly on display without shame.
Great job, Mike!