I’ve lost faith in my fellow Americans. I had never realized how completely, abjectly stupid we are, as a people. Through the years, and over the course of three different blogs, I’ve been trying to warn about the threats I’ve seen rising. Mostly, people have laughed me off. Oh, I’m paranoid, a conspiracy theorist. Fast forward from the start to today, I’ll split the difference with you. I was never paranoid, but there’s very definitely a conspiracy. (Read ‘Dark Money’ by Jane Mayer. It lays the whole thing out…)

To the former, my concerns have not all played out exactly in keeping with some predictions or details, but the general trend has been mostly correct – and our once-great nation has suffered for it. To the latter, the conspiracy comes from the One Percent, not the cons, not MAGA. MAGA is just the natural result of the efforts of the One Percent. The cons were – and are – just useful idiots.

When Reagan introduced ‘Supply Side Economics,’ I couldn’t believe when people started parroting it’s tenets, as though there was any legitimacy to the story whatsoever. I mean, WTF? The basic position of Supply Side – give all the money to the rich people and watch all the good they do with it (43 years and still waiting…) – was just outright stupid. Always has been, always will be. (Outside of entertainers, rich people GET rich by being incomprehensibly selfish.) But a huge swath of Americans thought, “Wow, that sounds like a great idea!” and Supply Side Economics became a major, over-arching struggle for most Americans every day since. The reality is, and always has been, that high taxes on the wealthy cause them to actually do that which they keep saying low taxes might someday encourage them to do.

I’ve argued against the “government bad, business good” malarkey since it’s inception. Yes, government makes mistakes. Surprise! So do businesses. Any sufficiently large organization is going to experience some errors. It’s inevitable. But how many Americans do YOU know who actually believe that business “can’t afford” to make mistakes, so they don’t? It’s also important to understand that there are three “partners” in a national economy, not two. We should have producers, consumers, and referees. One of the government’s proper roles is as the referee. It’s a proper job of government to ensure level playing fields for the best outcomes. Governments are supposed to block or control the worst impulses of business. They used to. Then we got deregulation.

Deregulation has not been a boon to the population. Instead, it has helped a very small number of very selfish people and directly harmed thousands, millions of others. Regulations mostly exist because of previous misbehavior by private companies. Deregulation only served to put that bad behavior on steroids. But again, millions of people started repeating the mantra that deregulation would be good for business. Removing laws against armed robbery would be “good for business” for armed robbers, as well. That does NOT mean it would be better for everyone.

When Clinton destroyed independent media, I pointed it out, over and over, every time some large corporation bought up smaller news outlets, reducing competition, all the while exhorting the benefits of “more competition.” Now we’re stuck, mostly, with ‘infotainment’ on the left and ‘angertainment’ on the right. In truth, it isn’t that difficult to discern the truth from the non-truths, these days, but millions of Americans can’t seem to understand things like verifiable facts, logic, or critical thinking. They actually believe “some say…” is a legitimate source! This level of comprehension does not bode well for humanity, let alone a nation.

The Patriot Act was the least patriotic thing Americans have done since interring Japanese Americans at the start of WWII, maybe since the Alien and Sedition Acts under John Adams. It was the result of one of the dumbest thing Americans have ever done (and we’ve had some doozies), Bush 43’s Middle East wars. That’s when America switched from “innocent until proven guilty” to “torturer to get the answers you prefer.” (We’re STILL holding human beings in prison who have never been charged with a crime…) Nearly my entire second blog, ‘Doc Harmony.com’ was dedicated to arguing against the moronic reasoning behind America’s invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq II. But 9/11 had shaken too many people’s reason and America went to war against a noun.

Allowing private companies to buy single family homes was an act so destructive, it should be considered criminal. A small number of people get rich. Everyone else suffers. Society collapses. This is not a guess. It’s history. It’s happened before, it’s happening again. 

These are just examples I could think of in the moment. There are more. The thing they have in common? They all benefit the wealthy and they were all supported by cons under the umbrella of deregulation.

It has been a smoke and mirror operation that has gone on, relentlessly, for something like 40+ years – and it has been stunningly successful. (Emphasis on “stunned.”) I can’t believe We, the people, became so complacent, we just allowed the One Percent to run roughshod over us, our constitution and our nation, while we argued about whether or not to drink Bud fucking Lite.

It was never a “culture war.” It was – and is – a class war. From the looks of things, the One Percent are in mop-up operations. They have enough loyalists in Congress to keep anything helpful to the masses from happening and, instead, focusing only on how to comfort the comfortable. They have enough loyalists in the courts – all over the courts, in fact – people can no longer depend on the rule of law to guide us. They own the news. It’s very difficult to know the truth when the “news” is so focused on obfuscation.

Today? We’re actually arguing over whether or not a criminal, sexual predator, charity-thief, con-man, bank-fraud and tax-cheat traitor currently facing something like 98 serious criminal indictments in multiple different jurisdictions should be, could be, the next President of the United States. And something like 110 MILLION Americans think, “Ooh, I hope so…”

I’ll tell you this: I’d bet this is NOT what the founders had hoped for when they were setting this whole thing up. Ben Franklin’s words, “…if you can keep it,” turned out to be prophetic. And it ain’t looking good…