most strikingly being revealed in Nixon's presidency, but growing in strength and building on itself over the decades. Maybe read John Dean's "Worse than Watergate" about W's presidency, the authoritarianism, undermining of democracy, imbedding of corruption. It's not all that long, a fascinating read, and some of the same people are still in government and/or influencing policy from outside today.
As always, Trump is a symptom of the disease, not the disease itself. The world's wealth has more than quadrupled over the past 40 years, and much went into creating new ultra-wealthy classes whose very existence is inimical to democratic republics.
This anti-democracy, authoritarian cancer was always with us in weak form but now is spreading around the planet, funded by the enormous new wealth and powered by the great new anxieties and angers of billions, many of whom turn to destructive populist movements that feed off it to gain power.
The Tea Party was a populist "anti-elite" movement that was actually secretly organized, funded and directed by the Kochs and their allies, and they used it to defeat Democrats and gain great power. Trump is a populist "anti-elite" leader also meant to be a rebellion against those who control the Republican Party but whose presidency is also mostly directed to the benefit of the very wealthy and their allies in seeking power, the religious right and white nationalists.
I'd hoped that two terms of Hillary following Obama, with Democrats holding the senate and much of the house, would reestablish enough sense of stability and wellbeing to calm a lot of the anxiety here and continue the cutting of the wannabe kleptocrats and oligarchs down to size that Obama had started.
Nancy Pelosi at her swearing-in:
Let us declare that we will call upon the bold thinking needed to address the disparity of income in America – which is at the root of the crisis of confidence felt by so many Americans.
As Justice Brandeis said, “We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.”
We must end that injustice and restore the public’s faith in a better future for themselves and their children.
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