Global oligarchy. Not just America
“Democracy” has only existed in the pockets of the American oligarchy since before I was born. This is not new, it’s just more out in the open now and y’all too scared to do anything about it.
The entirety of US “democracy” has been oligarchical. Voting was originally restricted to white landowning men and naturally the only people who could “serve” as representatives were the richest people from that group. Everyone has always had to struggle to get anything at all and even then it would be incomplete or weak - like getting the right to vote for your oppressor. The largest liberatory changes required violence and direct action, with the most dramatic being the ability of slavery and the battles of the labor movement. And at no point has the root of oppression (and the oligarchy) been overturned: capitalism.
I like to think of it as consolidation. Its been an oligarchy for a long time, now it’s more concentrated in fewer hands.
Practically no one bases choices off newspaper endorsements, so we don’t have to pretend they matter. Newspaper owners and their editors want us to care, because they want to feel relevant, important, and venerated. The reason this is big news is that the media love to talk about themselves.
But this is a good reminder that corporate media don’t work for us, they work for oligarchs and advertisers.
Absolutely correct, democracy is just a cardboard cutout if it lets kings and queens live inside it who are as powerful individually as the entire public. That’s an oligarchy.
