Welcome to the oligarchy

(It's been here the entire time.)

Photo by Melvyn Grolla

It’s official now. Government-approved. Sanctioned and presented in a way even the always-reasonable center can understand:

The Oligarchy is here, and it is here to stay—until we all die in climate disasters, imperialist wars, excruciating poverty, or, somewhat more excitingly, at the hands of our emerging AI overlords.

And if you think I’m being dramatic, you probably haven’t taken a close look at the grand spectacle: Donald Trump’s inauguration, flanked by a posse of billionaire buddies—Elon Musk, Marc Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and that entire rotating cast of Silicon Valley “visionaries,” as well as old-guard oil barons, bankers, and real estate moguls. One big, happy, incestuous family.

So welcome to the Oligarchy. Do you still not understand?

No, you don’t, dear “reasonable” centrists. Because this is nothing new at all. Republicans and Democrats are the same fucking thing. Sociopathic puppets, all of them, dancing to their masters’ strings. And you do not give a shit. You do not give a shit about anything.

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The US has always been an Oligarchy, from its very slave-holdery beginnings—it’s arguably the perfect environment for it. Land of the free market, home of the propagandized wage-slave that forever dreams of joining the posse. The only difference is that now the puppet strings are gleaming in plain sight under the midday sun. They’re not even pretending to hide it anymore.

I mean, why hide when no one cares?

The suits, the ties, the silverware, all the gold-plated shit, and the quasi-religious worshipping of useless symbols such as flags and hollow institutions—the theatrics are so brazen, so over-the-top, it’s almost comical. Except it’s not, because it’s real, and we’re all stuck in the carnival funhouse, paying the entry fee with our labor, our social security, our sanity. (Even here in Europe; we are, after all, just an American outpost.)

You can trace the American oligarchic tradition back centuries if you care to do so. The so-called Founding Fathers wrote lofty documents about liberty and human rights—while also owning slaves and upholding property requirements that locked poor people out of the political process. Fast-forward to Citizens United (2010), and you see it’s basically a modern spin on the same story: money = speech, and billionaire speech is protected, so the more money you have, the louder your bullhorn gets:

From Wikipedia:

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010), is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States regarding campaign finance laws and free speech under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The court held 5–4 that the freedom of speech clause of the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting independent expenditures for political campaigns by corporations including for-profits, nonprofit organizations, labor unions, and other kinds of associations.

[…] The ruling barred restrictions on corporations, unions, and nonprofit organizations from independent expenditures, allowing groups to independently support political candidates with financial resources. In a dissenting opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens argued that the court's ruling represented "a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self government".

Conveniently, this happened right after the 2008 financial crisis, which was caused by greedy corporations, exacerbated by greedy corporations, but paid for in blood and toil by the working people. My own family, back here in Austria, lost almost everything because of those fucks. My parents—refugees, who built a life after coming to the West from war-torn Yugoslavia—back at zero. We’ll never own anything; and no, we’re not happy about it.

It’s all legalized corruption—lobbying on motherfucking steroids. Corporate interests funnel staggering sums into campaigns, think tanks, foundations, and “grassroots” movements that are about as grassroots as a plastic lawn. And they can do it all with minimal regulation.

People still call the US a democracy. Well, there’s a vast difference between “democracy” and “capitalist democracy.” In a real democracy—at least in the ideal sense—everyone’s voice has weight and legitimacy, and resources are structured so that basic needs are met, so that each person can actually participate meaningfully in the process. But in a capitalist democracy, capital is the gatekeeper. You can vote for whichever puppet you like, but the puppet masters remain the same. When most of the real decisions are made by a few dozen lobbyists who schmooze in backrooms with legislators, your vote becomes a sentimental token, an empty gesture to keep you docile, to make you believe you’re an architect of the future when really you’re just checking boxes on someone else’s blueprint.

I’ve met people who argue: “But I vote every couple of years; that means I have a say!” The idiocy almost breaks my heart. Because voting, the superficial act of ticking a name on a ballot, has become the entire definition of civic engagement for so many. They do their “duty,” maybe watch a debate or two, then the cycle resets, resets, resets—it’s like a fucking sports game. Meanwhile, corporations and billionaires keep the lines buzzing all year round, writing legislation, shaping policy, funding super PACs, financing armies of lobbyists. It’s an arms race where the currency is influence, and we, the masses, show up with squeaky wooden swords while the billionaires roll in with ballistic fucking missiles.

Look at the old and the new administrations: All those oligarchs—their agendas might differ on the surface, but at the end of the day, they’re all about consolidating power and wealth. Musk might talk about colonizing Mars or championing “innovation for humanity” while quietly busting attempts at unionizing his factories. Zuckerberg might smile and say he wants to “bring the world together” as his algorithms rake in profits by stoking outrage. And Trump... well, that’s a never-ending onslaught of moral sewage. Biden doesn’t even know where he is. But listen: the same holds true of every fucking administration in the dark history of the United States. They’re united by one principle: maximizing returns for themselves and their cronies. This is the 21st-century Oligarchy in real-time.

Yes, some of them will claim philanthropic pursuits. But philanthropic capitalism is still capitalism. They’re basically paying off the moral debt that accumulates from hoarding obscene amounts of wealth—just enough to keep the façade up. At the end of the day, they own the system. They call the shots. And we’re scavenging for the scraps, their meager handouts, just enough to keep the guillotines at bay.

If you think anything’s going to change with the next election cycle (there’s always the next election, right?—and it’s always the most important one ever), or the next wave of semi-charismatic psychopaths—surprise: it won’t. Because they’re all feeding from the same trough. They might mouth off about “draining the swamp,” but the moment they’re elected, they realize they need that swamp to maintain power. They are the swamp, they are Shrek, and they’ll keep fucking you. It’s a self-perpetuating machine that devours idealism and spits out cold, calculated deals in back alleys. And if you dare to question it expect to be labeled a radical or a threat.

Meanwhile, the climate crisis is accelerating. We see it in floods and wildfires and goddamn scorching heat waves. Yet the oligarchs keep pumping money into oil expansions, pipelines, and new data centers that devour electricity like a black hole. They’ll probably buy out the water supply next and leave us to drink from plastic bottles we can’t afford. People drown in medical debt or wages that never keep up with inflation, while these guys plan personalized space odysseys. That’s not an exaggeration—that’s the world we’re in. How long until the cracks tear society apart?

We already see unrest simmering. On one side, you have folks who realize something’s deeply wrong—hopefully you’re one of them. On the other, you have people caught up in culture wars, manipulated by disinformation campaigns financed by guess who? Dividing us is good business. Keep the plebs at each other’s throats and they’ll never unite to challenge the real power structure. So people bicker over trivialities while the 1% tear the world apart.

I wish there was a neat solution. A single protest, a single candidate that could fix all this shit overnight. But there isn’t and there never will be. This system cannot be reformed. A malicious cancer cannot be convinced and won over. You might imagine an idealistic cell floating toward the tumor, trying to argue with it, change it. It’s got good intentions. Yet before anyone notices, the cell becomes part of the tumor—or is killed. By definition, there can be no good politician.

Above all, what we need is a collective awakening to the fact that we are not living in a democracy. We all live in a capitalist democracy, which is no democracy at all but just another word for Oligarchy.

“Power concedes nothing without a demand,” said Frederick Douglass. That remains true. Unless enough people demand it, from the bottom up, the Oligarchy will keep rolling along, unstoppable, unstoppable, unstoppable—like a runaway nuclear reactor heading straight for the meltdown. They’ll move into their golden bunkers once shit hits the fan, while we stare with melting faces.

Trump’s inauguration might feel like a new dawn of blatant Oligarchy, but it’s just the next chapter in a centuries-long story. The masks are off.

Welcome to the Oligarchy.

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Ursula K. Le Guin, one of my favorite authors, wrote:

“Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.”

So if you crave imagination, I can refer you to my novel “The Factory”. In my fictional account of a workers’ revolution, set in a surreal and endless factory, the collective violently throws off their shackles. You might enjoy it. Here you go.

It’s free for paid subscribers:

You can also support me on Patreon or PayPal if you like. And you can buy my other books if you love dark, melancholic, extra-weird, and existential stories. Just gotta survive, sorry.