The scarlet F is coming for Trump — and there's nothing he can do about it

2025: The year American Oligarchy officially begins? I’m an unpaid volunteer member of the board of directors of a nonprofit that’s making use of a multi-million-dollar endowment, and working with their professional investment advisors over the years has given me insight into some of the ways the morbidly rich get richer, faster, and in ways impossible for average people: there are multiple types of investments and investment advisors that are only accessible to people or organizations that can pony up millions or hundreds of millions of dollars at a time.

Thus, according to the Institute for Policy Studies, Elon Musk (for example) went from being worth $25 billion in 2020 to $428 billion a few weeks ago. During that same time, Jeff Bezos (who apparently just censored a Washington Post comic showing him bowing down and handing a bag of money to Trump) reportedly went from $113 billion to $235 billion; similarly, three heirs to the Walmart fortune reportedly went, during the same period, from $161 billion to $317 billion. We see a similar phenomenon with members of Congress using inside information to trade stocks, something that would land you or me in jail.

Thus (as I often note here at Hartmann Report), the rich are truly getting richer while average working people have been in a downward spiral ever since Ronald Reagan’s “Revolution” changed the rules (particularly the tax rules, but also around monopolies, etc.) that once kept obscene wealth in check. Now we have a convicted criminal billionaire about to be sworn in as president with the richest cabinet in American (and, perhaps, world) history, all with an agenda of making the rich even richer. (It’s worth noting — something almost always ignored by the mainstream press — that Trump’s conviction was for using his fortune for election interference leading to a stolen 2016 election; by hiding his affair with Stormy Daniels he kept information away from the public that he believed could have led to his loss that year.)

Oligarchy is generally defined as a form of governance in which the state has been captured by the morbidly rich and the powers and institutions of government are then turned to make the rich even richer while insulating oligarchs from legal strictures, at the same time impoverishing and punishing working people and the poor. As I detailed in my book The Hidden History of American Oligarchy, the biggest problem with oligarchy is that it’s an extremely unstable form of government and usually is only transitional (typically lasting fewer than two generations). Average people, realizing they’re being robbed blind, rise up and demand change, sometimes causing oligarchy to flip back to democracy (as happened here in the 1860s and the 1930s) or flipping the nation into tyranny when the oligarchs decide to use the military and police powers of government to hold onto their wealth and power (Chile, Hungary, Russia, Iraq, Egypt, Philippines, Singapore, Turkey, etc.).

The big question for Americans as we enter this new period of full-blown oligarchy is whether this generation’s oligarchs will have more success than those in the 1930s and 1850s. They seem to have learned the lessons of history and are now emulating Putin, Orbán, etc., in using lawfare and big money to intimidate or purchase outright the media; this will make a transition back to democracy — like the ones Lincoln and Roosevelt led when the media landscape (and its ownership) was far more diverse — far more difficult. And, as we just saw with the election of Mike Johnson as Speaker, nothing happens in the House without the approval of the billionaires.

The next four years — and, in particular, the next two — will probably decide the fate of America’s form of government for the next several generations. This is no time to check out; to the contrary, it’s the most important moment in our lifetimes to stand up, speak out, and build progressive political institutions while supporting the few brave progressive politicians still standing after the billionaire and AIPAC attacks in the last election.

—Is the “Scarlet F” coming to Trump? What is the legal significance of Trump being a convicted felon? Most of America’s laws punishing convicted felons long after they’ve gotten out of jail or otherwise finished their sentences date back to the use of felony convictions in the old South to disenfranchise Black people. These include losing your ability to vote, to hold certain types of jobs, and even to own a gun. (Almost all of the states where ex-felons can’t vote are former Confederate states, which have disenfranchised over 5 million people, most nonwhite, this way.)

It appears that a loophole in Florida’s law, which forbids felons with unpaid fines from voting, will let Trump continue to cast a ballot in that state because he was convicted out-of-state (NY) rather than by a Florida court. Will he have to surrender the gun he reportedly owns? Will there be any consequence at all for him? Judge Merchan will have the first final say (I say “first” because Trump will appeal) and it’ll be interesting to see if the press focuses on Trump’s response or Merchan’s opinion, which is virtually certain to point out that Trump’s conviction is for criminally manipulating the 2016 election. I’m betting they won’t use the phrase “election interference” at all, but stay tuned…

— How the media has failed on Trump coverage. Media watchdog Dan Froomkin points out that Trump, rather than being a brilliant politician or businessman, is actually one of this century’s most successful con-men — and our media’s greatest failure is to acknowledge or even tangentially reference this fact.

He ran on lowering grocery prices, for example, telling a rally in August, “From the day I take the oath of office, we will rapidly drive prices down and make America affordable again. … You just watch. They’ll come down fast.” Now, however, he says he won’t even bother because, as he told TIME magazine, “It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up. You know, it’s very hard.”

It reminds one of how in 2016 he promised to raise taxes on the rich so much that his wealthy friends would hate him, to replace Obamacare with a national healthcare system, to support unions and the environment, etc.; all turned out to be naked lies. But, like during his first term, as long as Trump and the Murdoch family (and now Musk) can keep Trump-humpers cocooned in their rightwing media bubble, odds are few of those who voted for him will ever know the extent of his perfidy.

As the brilliant investigative reporter David Cay Johnston, who referred to Trump as “the greatest con artist in the history of the world,” told the media via Froomkin: “You’ve got to stop covering him like he’s just another politician, with a different agenda. He’s a criminal and a con artist. And that has to be central to everything you cover about him.”

Most tragically for the fate and future of our nation, even the mainstream media generally refuses to note Trump’s frequent lies and actions that directly contradict his campaign promises and press availabilities. Will our media wake up this time, particularly as Trump begins going after reporters and publishers with the force of law and agencies like the FBI? One hopes so…and we can all help by pointing it out when media agencies “sanewash” or otherwise sugar-coat Trump’s lies and anti-democracy actions.

— It looks like Net Neutrality is dead. During the Trump administration, his FCC changed the rules so that internet providers — like the company delivering the internet to your home enabling you to read this email — could “listen in” on everything you do online, from the sites your visit to reading your email. They can also sell that information, and, since that change, such information brokering has become a billion-dollar industry. President Biden’s FCC recently reversed that rule, putting the internet under the same rules as telephone service (it’s called being a “common carrier”) so your private communications and actions online are actually private. A Republican group sued Biden’s FCC and three Republicans on the notoriously conservative Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals just ruled against Net Neutrality, again giving Internet Service Providers (ISPs) full access to everything you do and say online.

Should the Trump administration — or billionaires who control large ISPs (like Musk’s Starlink) — decide, they may now be able to monitor, collect, sell, or otherwise use everything you’re doing online. This could be particularly challenging for people trying to organize legal anti-oligarch political activity.

Part of the case rested on the recent gutting of the Chevron Deference, an old Supreme Court-created doctrine that allows agencies like the FCC to promulgate rules not specifically defined in the legislation that creates and/or enables them. It’s thus one of the first shots fired in the conservative war against regulatory agencies that protect the little guy, along with our air, water, food, drugs, toys, cars, banks, etc.

The case will next go to the Supreme Court, and few are thinking Trump’s appointees there will vote to protect average people from the prying eyes of billionaires and massive corporations.

— NOT AGAIN: China downplays mystery virus deaths despite pandemic fears. Just in time for Bob Kennedy and other anti-mask, anti-vaccine folks to take control of our government, a new virus is apparently killing people in China. This one appears to be a newly-virulent mutation of an older virus, the human metapneumovirus (HMPV), which typically causes symptoms ranging from common cold-like illness to something resembling pneumonia. Reports are coming in that hospitals in some parts of China are being overwhelmed and mass graves are appearing, although it’s hard to confirm their veracity because of the draconian censorship that country imposes on its press and foreign journalists. Cases are also reportedly just now starting to pop up outside China. Keep an eye on this one…

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