Well, here we are, the darkest day in United States history, January 20, 2025. With apologies to FDR, another date that will “live in infamy,” the day our Republic failed. By the time you read this, it’s possible the end has come already, the inauguration is over. It’s possible the vicious Executive Orders are ALREADY flying around, harming human beings everywhere. It’s more likely he’s going to bask in the glow of the moment and start his destruction tomorrow, though.

The Great Experiment has come to an end. Benjamin Franklin said we had a Republic – IF we could keep it. We couldn’t. We allowed large concentrations of wealth to bring us down. To be sure, you’ll still be able to look at a map and find a stretch of land identified as ‘The United States of America.’ But the land of our founders is over. The opportunity and equality they (kind of) sought is no more. The oligarchs have won and it looks like they intend to press their advantage to the fullest. That’s going to suck for the work-a-day Joe.

You’ll see what used to be the flag representing the United States flying at full height in defiance of history, respect, and decorum. The new paradigm. The Felon’s ego couldn’t handle the idea that the nation was showing respect to someone else on his “special day.” A classy guy would have left the flags in their proper place and mentioned why in his speech. Trump threw a tantrum.

I’m sure MAGA is happy, for the moment. They think they’ve finally gotten what they want. I think they’re in for a surprise. I think they’ve been useful tools of the oligarchs and the tools are no longer needed. The oligarchs have what they want. The One Percent gets to stand near him, meet with him, shake his hand. MAGA is left out in the cold.

I go back and forth on whether MAGA will ever figure out they’ve been duped. I can tell you that the resistance is going to be easier if MAGA does figure it out and we, the people (I mean, the masses) work together to stop this nightmare.

Perhaps it’s a good idea to take a look back and see how this all started. Be advised, this is generalized and simplified. This column isn’t long enough to go into detail on each element, and you don’t want to take that much time reading it. So… a synopsis…

It was the brainchild of Charles Koch but it took the acting chops of Ronald Reagan to introduce the idea of “Voodoo Economics” in 1980 with a straight face. It’s actually called ‘Supply-side economics,’ but since there’s no such thing, it really IS just Voodoo. Bush 41 coined the term when he was running against Reagan. When he became VP, he suddenly didn’t worry about Voodoo economics. But he was right the first time.

The next step was perpetrated by two guys. Newt Gingrich hired a guy named Frank Luntz to distort language in a way that made it easier to attack America with words. So, for example, the Inheritance Tax became the DEATH tax, see? Gingrich directed the GOP to use the NEW, inaccurate terms and NEVER the proper terms. New language gave them a weapon. It didn’t matter that the words were inaccurate. It mattered that they were scary. I don’t know if Luntz is rich or not, but when the guillotines come out, he deserves a place near the top of the list.

Now they had their fake idea in place – ‘trickle down’ – and they had a glossary of terms scary enough to manipulate uninformed minds. The next part was a weapon delivery system. So, they started buying up media outlets, mostly AM radio stations. They found Rush Limbaugh. Listen, Rush was an evil son-of-a-bitch. He deserves his place in hell. His lies did incalculable damage to the United States. But he was funny. People tuned him in because he made them laugh. They didn’t even realize he was poisoning their minds. But he was…

It got so bad for a while, one couldn’t turn on an AM radio station without hearing some talking head puke out some scary sounding nonsense intended to frighten or enrage. The problem was, they were really only using scary words to describe day-to-day events. They needed more. They needed to be able to frighten their listeners every day.

So, they started funding seats in colleges and setting up “Stink Tanks.” THEY called them “Think Tanks,” like the legitimate Brookings Institute, but they were designed and built to create plausible sounding mis- and dis-information. Now the stink tank could issue a made up talking point and AM radio would magnify it and put it on a loop. Brainwashing via repetition. But there was STILL a problem. There were rules limiting the penetration the vile messages could reach. They couldn’t, for example, own two radio stations in the same market or a radio station and a newspaper.

We had those rules for exactly the reason the oligarchs needed to get rid of them; they prevented a single message from permeating the body politic. It was a competition of ideas. The reason the oligarchs had to change it is, their ideas sucked. Most people still knew they were false. One side could easily and effectively push back against the other side.

Bill Clinton helped them out with that one when he signed the legislation eliminating the rules of ownership in 1996. Have you noticed the dates? This was sixteen years on and the One Percent just kept their eyes on the prize. Clinton also helped them launch ‘Fox Not-News.’ He had to give them a special waiver. (Bill Clinton is VERY rich now.) Thanks to Clinton, the oligarchs GOT their consolidation. It was mind-boggling. A big company would buy a group of stations, reducing competition, all while droning on about how competition is better. Well, yeah. It was. So they got rid of it…

Finally, they had the language to scare the crap out of people, the Stink Tanks to create false stories, and the delivery system to broadcast those fraudulent (and oh-so-scary) stories into the world. Now all they had to do was stick to their scary glossary and fine-tune the messages. They added new scares and outrages when something proved effective, quietly dropped others as they proved less effective.

Libertarians started infiltrating the Republican Party. They presented as Republicans but brought and highlighted the Libertarian message. They had to do it that way. People had become familiar with the Libertarian message and dismissed it as too extreme. Too many people didn’t recognize it as it slipped from Republican tongues, though.

The messages that made it through? Give the rich people all the money and they’ll do good things with it. (Still waiting.) Government is ALWAYS bad and ALWAYS fails. (False.) Private corporations, on the other hand, are ALWAYS good and ALWAYS the most efficient. (Extra false.) Poor people are the reason poor people have problems. (Nope.) Dark-skinned people are scary. (Not so much…) Taxes on rich people harm society and restrict innovation. (Exactly backwards.)

Later, they added the false patriotism and sprinkled in a bunch of nationalism. They refer to conservatives as “Americans” and non-conservatives as anything else, the scarier the better, implying that non-conservatives are not Americans. As predicted, they carried a cross and wrapped themselves in the flag. But the cross and the flag were props, nothing more. They were manipulations intended to deceive – and deceive they did.

MAGA doesn’t know ANY of this, of course. THEY think they’re a “grass roots” movement that sprang up organically – because that’s what MAGA media told them. People on the left were caught out by the extent to which the One Percent went to regain mastery of the American system. I continue to believe MAGA is going to be caught by surprise when they realize they no longer wield any power. They were useful idiots – and they’re no longer useful.

So here we are, January 20, 2025. Forty-four years since Reagan fired the first shot. But the oligarchs were patient, and their patience has paid off for them. At least, for now.

I find myself wondering if Americans still have that revolutionary spirit, or if we’re just going to acquiesce. Are we too worried about Tik-Tok to pay attention to the loss of our country, our freedoms? WILL we hit the streets in protest? I hope so. I can’t tell you how sorry I am it has come to this. It turns out, John F Kennedy was right all along. “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”