Left Vs. Right Is The Past - It's Now Oligarchy Vs. Democracy

The media loves to picture the 2020 election as being left vs. right, and tries to paint some candidates as being "centrists". That may have been true in the past, but not now. This election is about oligarchy vs. democracy -- and right now the oligarchs are winning.

But there is a candidate that is scaring the hell out of the oligarchs -- Elizabeth Warren. That's because Warren understands that our economic system is being controlled by the rich, and has been slanted to benefit them to the detriment of everyone else -- and she has plans that will change that. She is the one candidate with a chance to win that will change the system, and make it fairer for all Americans.

Here is some of what former Labor Secretary Robert Reich has to say about this new reality. He writes:

The frustrations today are larger than they were in 2016. Corporate profits are higher, as is CEO pay. Markets are more monopolized. Wealth is more concentrated at the top. Although the official unemployment rate is lower, most peoples’ incomes have gone nowhere and they have even less job security.

Meanwhile, Washington has become even swampier. Big corporations, Wall Street and billionaires have flooded it with money and lobbyists. Trump has given out all the tax cuts, regulatory rollbacks and subsidies they have ever wanted. The oligarchy is in charge.

Why hasn’t America risen up in protest? Because American democracy was dysfunctional even before Trump ran for president. The moneyed interests had already taken over much of it.

It’s hard for people to get very excited about returning to the widening inequalities and growing corruption of the decades before Trump. Which partly explains why Biden is foundering. 

At the same time, Trump and his propagandists at Fox News have channeled working-class rage against the establishment into fears of imaginary threats such as immigrants, socialists and a “deep state.”

But a large majority of Americans – right and left, Republican as well as Democrat – could get excited about moving toward a real democracy and economy that worked for the many.

This is why the oligarchy is so worried about Warren’s rise to frontrunner status in some polls.

Politico reports that Democratic-leaning executives on Wall Street, in Silicon Valley and across the corporate world are watching her with an increasing panic.

“Ninety-seven per cent of the people I know in my world are really, really fearful of her,” billionaire Michael Novogratz told Bloomberg.

These Democratic oligarchs hope Biden, or perhaps Peter Buttigieg or Amy Klobuchar, can still take Warren out.

In just the third quarter, Buttigieg raised about $25,000 from executives at Wall Street firms including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan and hedge fund giants like Bridgewater, Renaissance Technologies and Elliott Management. And another $150,000 from donors who described their occupation as “investor”.

If Biden implodes and neither Buttigieg nor Klobuchar takes the lead from Warren, Wall Street and corporate Democrats hope former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg will ride into the primary at the last minute. 

It won’t work. The stark reality is that Democrats cannot defeat Trump’s authoritarian populism with an establishment candidate who fronts for the oligarchy.

The only way Democrats win is with an agenda of fundamental democratic and economic reform, such as provided by Warren and also by Sanders.

Unless Democrats stand squarely on the side of democracy against oligarchy, the risk on election day is that too many Americans will either stand with Trump or stay home.