New Speaker Mike Johnson offered prayer Thursday as response to a mass shooter who killed 18 and injured 13 others in Maine, while any legislation to address gun violence faces an uphill climb under his tenure.
The Louisiana Republican, in his first full day as speaker, made a statement to reporters at the Capitol that the shooting late Wednesday was a “horrific tragedy” but did not take questions.
“This is a dark time in America. We have a lot of problems, and we are hopeful and prayerful,” Johnson said. “Prayer is appropriate at a time like this, that this senseless violence can stop.”
As one of the most conservative Republicans to hold the speakership in modern times, Johnson’s opposition to gun control laws could keep any bills on the issue from reaching the House floor.
That won’t be a change. Earlier this year, under then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., Democrats launched an effort through discharge petitions to force floor votes on a series of gun control bills.
None of them have received the signatures of enough members of the chamber to move forward.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters later Thursday that it’s great to hear calls for thoughts and prayers for the families and victims of the tragedy in Maine, but that Johnson and Republicans can put forth legislation and “help save lives.”
“Obviously, we want them to make sure they know they’re in our thoughts and prayers,” Jean-Pierre said of the families and victims. “But that’s not enough.”
Johnson has opposed gun control measures for years, including a measure passed into law last year that beefed up criminal background checks for those under age 21 for the next decade, created grants for state crisis intervention laws and provided several billion dollars in mental health and school security funding.
During floor debate on that measure, Johnson criticized the legislation as unconstitutional and reiterated many statements he made on a podcast with his wife that blamed America’s violent crime problem on a lack of faith.
“America’s problem is not guns. America’s problem is a heart problem,” Johnson said during the floor debate.
During that podcast with his wife, Kelly Johnson, he interviewed Pastor Y. J. Jimenez, who had a congregation near an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, where a shooter killed 19 students and two teachers in May 2022.
During the podcast, Johnson emphasized the importance of turning to faith in response to the violence.
“I’m a public official and when I say, ‘We are praying for someone,’ you know, those who don’t believe criticize us for that as though it is not important, but it is important,” Johnson said.
Johnson said that young men frequently feel isolated in modern society, made worse by the years of the pandemic where “we sort of put them away for a couple of years and they sort of sat around and played violent video games and the bitterness inside of them turned to rage.”
“We’re dealing now with the inevitable results of decades of secular humanist ideology and the rise of moral relativism and the marginalization of people of faith and the erosion of the rule of law,” Johnson said.
Johnson said that has “come together in the sort of toxic soup we have in the culture” and that “these things are so tragic, but they are really not that surprising when you consider what we have been doing for the last 60 or 70 years in this country.”
During the podcast he called discussions of gun control “inevitable” following the Uvalde shooting and said his “gun-grabbing colleagues” in the Democratic Party had overstepped by proposing a wide variety of gun control measures following the shooting.
During that Democrat-led legislative push for a renewed assault weapon ban, Johnson offered an amendment that would have created an exemption for employees of crisis pregnancy centers, which he argued had been targeted following the Supreme Court ruling that overturned the constitutional right to abortion. Democrats voted down that amendment.
However, Johnson’s stint as speaker does little to shift the long-standing partisan gridlock on gun control legislation.
Numerous members on both sides of the aisle said Thursday they would try to restart bipartisan talks, but quickly acknowledged that political reality.
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., one of the Republicans who backed the 2022 law and has sponsored several bipartisan gun control measures, said the filibuster in the closely divided Senate presents a greater challenge to passing legislation.
“The House is not the problem. It’s the Senate. We have the votes in the House. They don’t have the votes in the Senate,” Fitzpatrick said, pointing to measures he has backed, such as so-called red flag laws and universal background checks, that the other chamber has not taken up.
“So I think I think realistically, this stuff is gonna have to start in the Senate and be taken up in the House because everything we’ve said to them has never been voted on,” Fitzpatrick said.
One of the Republican backers of the 2022 law, Texas Sen. John Cornyn, said Thursday that it may be too soon to look at changing the law in response to the shooting Wednesday in Lewiston, Maine. He pointed out that law has not yet been fully implemented and pointed to news reports that the alleged shooter in Lewiston had been committed to a mental institution before embarking on the shooting.
“I’m not sure what law we could pass that would address this because it looks like he was illegally in possession of a firearm in the first place. Sometimes people just don’t care what the laws are,” Cornyn said.
Sen. Christopher S. Murphy, D-Conn., one of the lead negotiators on the bipartisan package that passed last Congress told reporters that he was open to bipartisan negotiations but didn’t expect there would be much in the offing.
“I’m going to talk to [Maine Sen. Susan] Collins, you know, after she comes back from the weekend, see if there’s any potential common ground, but we’re probably gonna just have to win some more elections,” Murphy said.
Voters who believe in democracy, a free press & a public education committed to honest inquiry & intellectual integrity must also step up and let their reps how important these things are to them…
For far too many years, Americans have made the mistake of assuming that our republican democracy will be safe as long as we elect competent and well-intentioned politicians as leaders.
Sadly, that’s like thinking your surgeon, who is very good at what she does, will do a wonderful job even though the hospital can no longer provide her with sterile instruments or running water.
The reality is that democracies depend on a particular type of infrastructure to function properly. Without that infrastructure, they rapidly slide first into oligarchy and then into fascism. The two most recent examples are Russia and Hungary, although America is well down the road herself.
Recognizing the need for these core infrastructure elements to sustain democracy, neofascists within the GOP and the Supreme Court have been busily deconstructing them for the past 40 years, leading us directly to today’s crisis.
The three core pillars that hold up democratic republics are a vibrant and free press, trustworthy electoral systems, and academic independence. Which is why Republicans have been trying to destroy all three.
In Russia, for example, the word is “dzherimendering.” In the months before elections are held in that country, the government re-draws the maps for political districts to make sure Putin and his party maintain majority control of the parliament (Duma). It’s a trick they brag they learned from Americans.
“After Fidesz won its first supermajority in 2010, it changed the electoral law unilaterally to boost its own future results (through gerrymandering and new rules awarding extra seats for big wins in individual districts). With these changes in place, Fidesz retained its supermajority in 2014, even though it received 8% less of the vote than it had in 2010.
“Changing the rules has since become the party’s modus operandi. Its amendments to the electoral law now number in the hundreds; the latest were adopted just months ago. Owing to the electoral system’s skewed rules, Fidesz has secured 68% of parliamentary seats with 53% of the vote.”
And Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party was only able to get 53% of the vote by similarly rigging the media. His government has taken over their public broadcasting equivalents of NPR and PBS, so they sing Orbán’s praises 24/7.
And, like in Russia, the commercial media has been almost entirely taken over by Hungarian oligarchs made rich by sweetheart government deals: almost every radio and TV station in Hungary today is broadcasting the Hungarian equivalent of Fox “News,” all deifying Orbán and his billionaire buddies who run the country.
Education is similarly under the control of the Russian and Hungarian governments. Any professor in Russia who dares discuss politics, race, or queer issues will find himself shipped off to a prison camp. In Budapest, the progressive Christian Central European University fled Hungary in the face of growing threats of violence against progressive religious organizations, a ban on classes, and the tight embrace of rightwing churches by the government. Its rector, Michael Ignatieff, said:
“There’s just no doubt but that this is organized as a way of saying that ‘Christianity’ means ‘white conservative Europe’. It’s a trope. Say the world ‘Christian’ and it says everything else that you want to say.”
Thus, it surprised nobody when wannabee fascist strongman Ron DeSantis seized control of Florida’s flagship liberal arts school, the New College, and replaced a third of its staff, rewrote its classes to eliminate references to African-American history or white race-based crimes, and packed the incoming student body with people on athletic scholarships.
These are also examples of ways Republicans are trying to destroy the infrastructure of democracy here.
Which is why just keeping an insurrection-supporting traitor like Jim Jordan out of the House speakership isn’t going to save American democracy.
While it’s important to keep toxic politicians out of office or positions of power, without elections that are not gerrymandered and thus truly reflect the will of the voters; politically independent media; and a vibrant university system to educate the next generation of American leaders, we’re inexorably heading down the path that Russia and Hungary have trod.
And it’s not like Republicans and their wealthy colleagues are trying to hide it.
When Orbán hosted the CPAC Republican fascist-fest this May in Budapest, the Hungarian “soft fascism” strongman president told the audience, to a standing ovation:
“Hungary is actually an incubator where experiments are done on the future of conservative policies. Hungary is the place where we didn’t just talk about defeating the progressives and liberals and causing a conservative Christian political turn, but we actually did it.”
The key, Orbán told his American fascist fanboys, was for the government and the party’s billionaires to take control of the media using the same strategy he and Putin used to hand most industrial and media operations to their favored oligarchs.
Orbán has handed government contracts to his favored few, elevating an entire group of pro-Orbán businessmen (it appears all are men) who have now seized almost complete control of that nation’s economy. Those who opposed him have lost their businesses, been forced to sell their companies, and often fled the country.
This is why virtually all of Hungary’s press is now in the hands of oligarchs and corporations loyal to Orbán, with hard-right talk radio and television across the country singing his praises daily. Progressive media is functionally banned. Billboards and social media proclaim Orbán’s patriotism everywhere.
He told the American CPAC conference in Budapest last year they should do the same in America when Republicans next seize control of the US government:
“Have your own media,” he said. “It’s the only way to point out the insanity of the progressive left. The problem is that the western media is adjusted to the leftist viewpoint. Those who taught reporters in universities already had progressive leftist principles.”
He added:
“Of course, the GOP has its media allies but they can’t compete with the mainstream liberal media. My friend Tucker Carlson is the only one who puts himself out there. His show is the most popular. What does it mean? It means programs like his should be broadcasted day and night. Or, as you say, 24/7.”
After his 2022 speech was publicized in the US, many American media outlets were banned from attending CPAC 2023 in Budapest. As Vice News reported:
“Besides VICE News, journalists from Rolling Stone, Vox Media, and the New Yorker were turned away from the conference on Thursday, despite repeated assurances from the American Conservative Union that access would be provided. Journalists from other non-Hungarian media outlets, including the Guardian and Associated Press, tweeted that they had also been denied accreditation, despite months of requests.”
His media allies are now reaching out to purchase media across the rest of Europe and inviting American rightwing groups to Hungary to help spread his racist, “soft fascist” message. Tucker Carlson took him up on his invitation last year, broadcasting his poison directly into American homes from his presidential palace.
In his opening comments before Orbán took the stage, CPAC chairman (and accused sexual harasser) Matt Schlapp echoed Orbán’s strategy, as the Associated Press noted:
“In opening comments, CPAC chairman Matt Schlapp said that CPAC in the U.S. had decided to ‘go Hungarian’ in their approach to the media, deciding for themselves ‘who is a journalist and who is not a journalist’ when determining which outlets to allow into their events.”
But journalism isn’t the only institution fascists want to tear down.
Here in the US, rightwingers started building their political empires with American oligarchs and their giant corporations that wanted to become even more massive. They were willing to pay politicians nearly anything to get the job done, and, since five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court had legalized political bribery in 1978, that meant billions.
Following massive campaign contributions from wannabe monopolies, in 1983 President Reagan ordered the DOJ, SEC, and FTC to essentially stop enforcing America’s anti-trust laws. At that time, every mall and downtown in America was filled with locally-owned businesses and there were over 10,000 independent media operations in America. Most radio and television stations had a single, local owner, as did most newspapers.
In 1987 he ended enforcement of the FCC’s Fairness Doctrine and in 1996 Bill Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that both gave immunity to social media from the content they carry (making Mark Zuckerberg a billionaire) and largely ended restrictions on the number of radio stations, TV stations, and newspapers a single company could own.
Rush Limbaugh started the year after Reagan killed the fairness doctrine; Air America died when the giant radio monopoly Clear Channel, recently acquired by Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital, began flipping their stations to sports. Pretty much the only independent voices today are found on a handful of commercial progressive radio stations, Pacifica, and Free Speech TV.
As a result, America’s media landscape is looking more and more like Orbán’s: unwilling or unable to call our rightwing leadership out for their real agenda of American fascism.
Ninety percent of our media is now owned by six corporations; two rightwing billionaires own our largest social media operations; and Republicans are treated as if a party that’s all-in on sedition is still legitimate.
This past weekend on the Sunday news/politics shows, for example, it was two Republicans for every Democrat as SocialDemocrat61 pointed out on Democratic Underground:
“ABC This Week: Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, GOP Rep. Michael McCaul, GOP Senator Tim Scott (2 republicans and 1 democrat, although cabinet Secretaries are non-partisan we’ll count him as a Dem)
“CBS Face the Nation: Secretary of State Antony Blinken, GOP Senator Mitch McConnell, Liz Cheney (again 2 Republicans and 1 Democrat)
“FOX News Sunday: GOP Senator Mitch McConnell, Dem Rep. Adam Smith, Newt Gingrich (once again 2 republicans and 1 democrat)
“NBC Meet the Press: Secretary of State Antony Blinken, GOP Rep. Kevin McCarthy, Mike Pence. (Yet again 2 republicans and 1 democrat)”
This is nothing new. During the Bush administration the networks told us they needed more Republicans than Democrats on the Sunday shows because Republicans were in power and so we needed to hear from those who could actually make and change legislation.
During the Obama administration the pattern of more Republicans than Democrats continued, but through those 8 years we were told they needed more Republicans because the GOP was the party out of power and so we needed to hear from “the opposition.”
In the middle of the Trump administration, 2018, Media Matters for America again looked at three months worth of Sunday shows and noted that the media had maintained their same ratio:
“Over the past three months, right-leaning guest panels on the five major Sunday political news shows have outnumbered left-leaning panels 33 to six. Nearly half of all guest panels titled right, meaning they had more right-leaning than left-leaning guests; by comparison, less than 10 percent of the panels tilted left.”
This is not how you keep a democracy intact. In the third year of George Washington’s presidency, 1791, our Constitution was amended with the Bill of Rights, including the First Amendment that prevents the government from legislating or dictating the news.
Four years later, according to 19th century historian Thomas Carlyle, British conservative Edmund Burke defined the press as “the fourth estate of the realm.” He meant it as a slur; Burke was no egalitarian and in his opinion the press of his day, enthralled by the American revolutionaries’ example, too often tended in that direction.
In the roughly three centuries since the rise of American democracy and the British royal family’s largely surrendering sovereignty to Parliament and the people who elect them at a local level, a free and independent press has played a vital role in maintaining and preserving the robust and adversarial political system necessary for a functioning republic.
The author of the Declaration of Independence and the first draft of that Bill of Rights (in correspondence with James Madison), Thomas Jefferson wrote:
“The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide, whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
Make no mistake: the MAGA faction of the GOP, which has largely taken over that party nationwide, is irreversibly committed to gerrymanders that defy the will of voters, supporting oligarch-owned for-profit media that caters to them, and ending the independence of public schools, colleges, and universities.
Consider how gerrymanders fly in the face of democracy itself. In multiple states, more citizens voted for Democrats than Republicans, which is why each of those states now have a Democratic governor (a statewide election).
But Wisconsin, for example, gives us a quick view of how the GOP has gone around democracy to hang onto power against the will of the state’s people. Fully 53% of the state voted Democratic, but their delegation to the US House is made up of 6 Republicans and 2 Democrats. In the State House, Republicans hold 64 out of 99 seats; it’s the same story in the State Senate with Republicans keeping 22 out of 33 seats.
Increasingly, Democratic politicians are starting to emphasize these structural impediments to functional democracy in America. It’s becoming all too clear how they’re being rigged by the GOP in Red state after Red state to hold onto power, even in the face of rising opposition from voters.
Voters who believe in democracy, a free press, and a public education system committed to honest inquiry and intellectual integrity must now step up and let their representatives know how important these things are to them. I’ll continue to point this out here on HartmannReport.com.
Because, as Russia and Hungary show us, once a country has lost the institutions that maintain its democracy, it’s damn hard to get them back.
None of us knows what will happen election night, 2024. But if I were in Las Vegas and could make a bet on the outcome, I would bet Donald Trump would not be on the ballot.
Many observers look at his lead in the polls and are certain he will be the Republican nominee for president. I am not one of those people.
Auto workers union to announce plans on Friday to expand strike in contract dispute with companies
As 2023 progresses and 2024 right behind it, Donald Trump will spend a lot of time in the courtroom. He will be in front of judges and grand juries multiple times in the coming months. He has 91 felony charges against him and we can expect many more.
The evidence against him is overwhelming. Trump has lied and cheated in every business or political venture he has ever undertaken. His lawyers are unable to mount a credible defense. He could mount a defense of his own in court, but doesn’t have the ability to do so. If he spoke during his trial, his lawyers would have a fit. They know he would dig himself a deeper hole.
As popular as he is with his base, as the election draws nearer, Republicans would have to wonder about the value of a potential or real criminal representing their party. I suspect the ex-president’s polls will gradually decline, especially if one of his GOP opponents looks electable.
Besides that, he has begun saying more bizarre and crazy things as the pressure mounts on him. He has already begun to repeat more
absurb, unhinged complaints and irrational attacks on his prosecutors. Potential voters will start noticing his rapid mental breakdown.
But we know Trump does not give up easily or at all. However, as it appears all his legal troubles are mounting and the possibility of going to jail becomes more likely, he has displayed obvious signs of fear.
Under those circumstances, the Justice Department might welcome a way out of their own difficult position. Most likely, Attorney General Merrick Garland recoils at the idea of sending a former President of the United States to prison. As much as Trump deserves that fate, there is no knowing how his millions of his MAGA cult-like followers might react. The potential for violence from his angriest supporters would have to be considered.
That is when Merrick Garland could play his trump card, so to speak. He might be willing to present the ex-president an opportunity to avoid prison time. Being behind bars is no doubt terrifying to Trump. But if he accepts a plea deal from the government that would guarantee that he avoids prison time, that would be the best realistic outcome for Trump, his lawyers, his family, and his supporters.
Of course, there will be a cost that will be hard for Trump to stomach.
To avoid spending time in prison, he would have to agree to no longer run for public office, including for president.
The Justice Department would have to get Trump’s prosecutors in other jurisdictions to back that plea deal and not sentence Trump for his many other crimes. For the good of the country–and assuming the legalities would be worked out–it is likely they will agree, knowing the dangerous consequences of Trump potentially becoming president again. They would see that accepting the plea bargain would be the smart and patriotic thing to do and spare the country from certain upheaval if the former president were sent to prison.
I expect Trump would agree to the plea bargain. Spending time in prison would be frightening to him and would be further proof of his crimes. It would be the last thing he would want for himself. Trump will see the benefits of agreeing to the plea deal. Remember, this is the guy who claims to have written “The Art of the Deal.”
The country would benefit from precluding the possibility of him becoming the leader of the country. He would still be allowed to spout out the garbage he posts on his social media site and would still have access to the media.
Naturally I can’t guarantee such a plea deal will come about, but that would be where my money would go in Las Vegas. I think the plea deal should and will happen. It would save the United States the prolonged nightmare of a vicious and divisive election, and the possibility of re-electing this anti-democratic, authoritarian, ego-driven man. Both pro- and anti-Trump camps will be disappointed they won’t get what they want, but it would be best for the future of our divided and insecure nation.
By Thom Hartmann/ TheHartmannReport.com/ September 24, 2023
This is the Introduction to Hartmann’s newest book Cancer and Monopoly. Available only to subscribers.
Cell phone service that costs $15 a month in France or $12 a month in Australia bills out at an average of $61.85 per month in the United States. High-speed broadband that’s a bit over $31 a month in France or $36 in Germany (for higher speeds and bett er reliability than almost anywhere in the United States) averages nearly $70 per month in the US. Similar met rics are found with pharmaceuticals, airfares, and medical costs, among dozens of other product and service categories.1 Why is this? Monopoly.
The average American family pays an annual “monopoly tax”—in additional costs for pretty much everything—of around $5,000, according to economist Thomas Philippon. And things are steadily getting worse as monopolistic concentrations continue to tighten their grip on every American industry from banking to telecom to food.2
Monopoly isn’t the arcane, legalistic thing that most Americans think of (if they’re not mistaking it for the board game, which was invented by Elizabeth Magie in 1904 as a cautionary tale3). In multiple very real ways, monopoly touches the lives of all of us.
A monopoly is broadly defined as a single part of a larger sys tem that takes over or dominates, controls, and consumes all the energy and functions of the entire system. In the process, the system is warped and twisted away from its normal func tion and, like a body reacting to a cancer, begins to redirect all its resources to feed the single monopolistic entity.
Cancer in the body works pretty much the same way that monopoly works across an entire spectrum of things, from monopolies in business to monopolies in religion, language, agriculture, power systems, and, ultimately, the biological systems of the planet over which we humans have seized monopoly control.
This book is about what happens when the cancer of monopoly infects the economic, political, religious, atmospheric, biospheric, or cultural body. In virtually every regard, the explosion of humanity across our planet, along with our monopolization of the food, water, soil, and cultural resources of the planet, is cancer-like. Big business has done the same in our economic and political realms. Th e result—if we don’t get this under control soon—will be disaster.
Which raises a fundamental question, asked from the days of Plato to Adam Smith to Bernie Sanders: Is the economy here to serve the majority of the people, or are the majority of the people here to serve the economy and those few who own the largest parts of it?
Until the 1980s, the consensus answer was the former, and the primary regulator of the economy, the government, largely worked to protect working people. Since the “Reagan Revolution,” however, the issue has rarely been raised, as media, the courts, and the majority of politicians of both parties have chosen the latter answer.
And the principal vehicle used by those who control most of the economy to regulate it to their favor and against average working people has been monopoly.
Monopoly (using the term in its broadest sense, to include everything from a single company controlling a market to a half dozen companies working in a cartel-like fashion) is why working people’s pay hasn’t gone up since 1982, when President Ronald Reagan’s Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice stopped enforcing the anti-monopoly laws.4 The rich have gotten fabulously richer since then. Consum ers, when harmed or ripped off, have largely been stripped of their legal powers to hold businesses accountable. America now lags behind other countries in innovation, which is why (as one small example) we have the highest pharmaceutical and health care costs in the world.
Our streets are filled with guns, our schools have been stripped of books and school supplies, and our food is so deficient in nutrients (vegetables today have about half the nutrients they did in 19505) that we are experiencing a malnutrition induced obesity epidemic.
Monopoly is why it’s so hard to start a new business (particularly a small, local business) and so difficult for existing local and regional companies to survive. It’s why pension funds have been “legally” stolen, and the vast majority of workers have lost or been denied the right to representation in the workplace.
Monopoly is why so many of our politicians seem to work in lockstep against the interests of average people and in favor of big business and the very rich. More and more democra cies around the world are sliding into autocracy and oligarchy. Our courts have repealed laws passed in the fi rst decade of the 1900s—both federally and in the states—that made it a crime for corporations to contribute “any thing of value” to political campaigns, even though voters overwhelmingly support limits on campaign contributions.
Because of monopolies, billionaires pay lower tax rates than you do, and the nation’s largest companies not only usually pay no taxes at all but also get billions every year in subsidies funded with your tax dollars. So many families have fallen out of the middle class that this country is experiencing epidem ics of suicide, opioid addiction, and divorce. Our defense budget is bloated, while our returning soldiers find it harder and harder to get jobs or services.
Although it’s almost never discussed in our highly monop olized media, monopoly is why right-wing radio and TV are found in every nook and cranny, every town small and large across America, while progressive media is marginalized. It’s why our politics are broken and foreign governments have been able to manipulate our elections and seize control of so many of our politicians.
The simple fact is that everything—literally everything— exists in some sort of a balanced relationship with every thing else and does so because everything obeys simple rules to maintain that balance. Break the rules—as both business monopolies and cancer do—and the balance collapses.
Most of these rules are the rules of nature; our bodies, for example, have a complex and delicately balanced immune system that detects when a cell has mutated in a way that it’s breaking the rules, and the immune system takes that cell apart, recycling its internal materials. But lacking the proper nutrients to maintain its normal functions, our immune systems—the rule-keepers—become less and less able to do their jobs. Th e result is disease and, in the worst cases, cancer.
Similarly, when the rule-keepers in political and economic systems are compromised, monopolies emerge just like cancer does in bodies. Those monopolies suck all the resources out of the system and eventually either change it so much that it’s no longer functional or push it so far that it collapses.
During the first few months of a tumor’s growth, if it were self-aware, it’d be quite proud of its ability to reroute blood and nutrients away from other cells and into itself. Similarly, rule-breakers oft en are quite successful, at least for a while. Consider the organized-crime “mob” and its dominance of the construction and real estate industries in New York up until the past few decades.
For some time, mob- and oligarch-connected real estate developers like Donald Trump were able to build themselves empires based on unfairly winning against competitors who played by the rules and didn’t lie about their properties or hook up with overseas criminal billionaires looking to stash ill-gotten gains or hire illegal undocumented laborers from Poland.
In the United States, in large part because of massive changes in the rules of business starting during the Reagan Revolution, we’re now in the cancer stage of capitalism. Similarly, our environment is badly out of balance and could be
described as cancerous. So far, most of the victims have been those who can’t fight back: workers who’ve seen their pay and rights crash, and people whose homes and lives have been rav aged by out-of-control weather systems they can’t control or defend against.
But, like an immune system desperately trying to fight back against a fast-growing tumor, workers are wising up and starting to demand that the rules return to the kind of balance that kept wages high and inequality low before Reagan; similarly, nations around the world are reacting to the climate crisis by cutting their carbon outputs and moving rapidly to renewable energy sources. Th e question now is whether the cancer of monopoly has gone so far that it’s like an end-stage metastasis; will Western democracy survive its assault?
Monopoly doesn’t threaten just the business world. It spreads its cancerous tentacles into politics as well, destroying the ability of government to make policy that allows free people to make their own decisions about their own lives.
As President Teddy Roosevelt, the great trust buster, said, “Th ere can be no eff ective control of corporations while their political activity remains. To put an end to it will be neither a short nor an easy task.”6
Adam Smith wrote, in Wealth of Nations, “[T]he monopoly which our manufacturers have obtained against us. . . . [L]ike an overgrown standing army, they have become formidable to the government, and upon many occasions intimidate the legislature.”7
If the economic engine of the United States is to be turned back to benefi ting the majority of the people rather than today’s small minority, breaking up monopolies will be one of the most powerful tools to bring about that change.
Next week: Chapter 1 — Monopoly Kills: Competition, Creativity, and Americans
thebigpicturereport ™ 