Courtesy of wikipedia.com
It’s old news that a New York jury found former president Donald Trump guilty of 34 felony counts for falsifying business records before the 2016 presidential election. He protested that the trial was rigged, naturally. What else can a guilty man running for the White House a second time say?
His followers need none of his excuses. They are pledged to believe his version of events. A few will admit Trump is a flawed vessel. They give him their blessing because they are White Christian Nationalists who believe he is doing God’s work.
The country isn’t leaning in their direction, however. The alliance between would-be saints and an uber-sinner might be laughable if they weren’t abetted by powerful allies.
The names of some of these allies appear in the April/May edition of Forbes magazine. Not White Christian Nationalists, they are members of the billionaire club that controls how money flows around the globe. Liquidity allows them to cast long shadows in both local and international affairs and maintain …heavily directorial systems [that] are fundamentally rigged to the benefit of those at the very top. What they share with White Christian Nationalists is an antipathy to democracy and the notion of one man one vote.
Driven by blind ambitions, these money changers fail to see how much their wealth derives from the governmental structures they seek to undermine. Where would Elan Musk be without federal subsidies? And thanks to the holes they have poked in our tax laws many of them, like Trump, can boast that they’ve never paid their fair share. Not one of them has given 94% of their income to the public good since dinosaurs roamed the steamy forests of the Sarah.
Freed of their social obligations, these entrepreneurs invest their money in schemes to influence international monetary agencies designed to regulate them. The Investor-State Dispute Settlement System (ISDS) is an example. One reporter alleges the organization is so degraded that multinational corporations run off with billions of taxpayer dollars. (Victories in the Global Movement Against Corporate Globalization,” by Melanie Foley, Public Citizen, May/June, pg. 10)
Look what happened in Togo. This small nation introduced legislation to regulate cigarette content in the hope of protecting the health of its citizens. The dream died when the ISDS allowed manufacturers to sue. Knowing these multinationals had coffers many times larger than its national budget, Togo backed down.
A Boston University report on the ISDS also documents the agency’s leniency toward the fossil fuel industry. One of its regulations allows that enterprise to sue based on a claim that cutting carbon emissions harms its financial interests. How rigged is that?
Rather than fight these multinationals directly, the Union of Concerned Scientists has proposed reforms to strengthen the ballot box. (“Strengthening Our Elections—And Our Democracy,” by Seth Schulman, Catalyst, Spring 2024, pgs. 16-17) They point out that even the modest reform of well-designed ballots can affect the outcome of elections. In addition, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md) wants to protect our democracy by starting at the top. He proposes to force Supreme Court judges to recuse themselves if they have apparent conflicts of interest.
His suggestion may have come too late. The High Court dealt democracy a crippling blow in Citizen’s United. By a 5-4 decision, it extended First Amendment rights from individuals to institutions. Since then, money has poured into our political campaigns, providing large corporations with megaphones to silence the voices of the people.
You bet, Mr. Trump! The system IS rigged. The wonder is that twelve ordinary citizens who were approved by your attorneys could arrive at a verdict and find you guilty of 34 felony counts. That unanimity makes your rage and the cries of your lackeys who call you a martyr unconvincing. What a majority of us hear is “Send in the Clowns”
I do have one regret about the verdict, though, Mr. President. Neither of you nor I will live long enough to see what history will make of your legacy.
