"The two most important words in this excerpt from Biden’s remarks are the words 'not normal.' But isolating the not normal events to the growth in the MAGA movement severely circumscribes the public debate that needs to be happening around why American democracy is under such a serious threat. The MAGA movement is merely a symptom of the real disease: billionaire money funneled as dark money to front groups that are fueling authoritarianism to further their own agenda.
Since 2001, long before MAGA emerged, life in the United States has been like living through an endless streaming of a badly-scripted sci-fi series. The failure of the U.S. government to come clean with the American people about unprecedented events has created a petri dish lab of paranoia that has been molded and shaped to their advantage by dark money front groups.
The threat to our democracy is real and growing. But it didn’t start with the MAGA crowd. It started with the dark money crowd — which won’t be satisfied until it owns every member of Congress, every lifetime-appointed federal judge, and every key politician in every swing state. Until there is a groundswell in America demanding serious campaign finance reform, this is the best democracy that money can buy."
Pam and Russ Martens, American Democracy Is Under Grave Threat, 7 September 2022
“The main problem in any democracy is that crowd-pleasers are generally brainless swine who can go out on a stage and whip their supporters into an orgiastic frenzy— then go back to the office and sell every one of the poor bastards down the tube for a nickel apiece.”
Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72
"Still another danger is represented by those who, paying lip service to democracy and the common welfare, in their insatiable greed for money and the power which money gives, do not hesitate surreptitiously to evade the laws designed to safeguard the public from monopolistic extortion. .
The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.
They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection."
Henry Wallace, 9 April 1944
"We've become, now, an oligarchy instead of a democracy. I think that's been the worst damage to the basic moral and ethical standards to the American political system that I've ever seen in my life."
Jimmy Carter, Sept. 27, 2015
"The party defined what was legal and what was not. Just as in Hitler's Germany where the heinous 1936 Nuremberg Laws were a legal fiction dictated by racial obsessions, from the outset, Bolshevism subordinated justice to party interests. For Lenin, dictatorship of the proletariat was rule by force and unrestricted by any law. The presumption of innocence was replaced by a universalized presumption of guilt. Utopian ideals were used to legitimize abuses against political enemies defined only in connection with the interests of a self-appointed revolutionary vanguard.
Extreme radical systems had unique features, including rationalization of power, definition of the enemy, and designated goals. They represented efforts to establish total control over society through systematic aggressions against any form of autonomous associations and initiatives, as well as the persecution and eventual extermination of ideologically defined adversaries. The ideology behind the tragedy of Communism and Nazism is aptly summarized in this apocalyptic statement as the vision of a superior elite whose utopian goals sanctify the most barbaric methods - the denial of the right to life to those who are defined as 'degenerate parasites and predators,' the deliberate de-humanization of the victims."
Vladimir Tismaneanu, Understanding Radical Evil
"A clique of U.S. industrialists is hell-bent to bring a fascist state to supplant our democratic government and is working closely with the fascist regime in Germany and Italy. I have had plenty of opportunity in my post in Berlin to witness how close some of our American ruling families are to the Nazi regime. Certain American industrialists had a great deal to do with bringing fascist regimes into being in both Germany and Italy. They extend aid to help Fascism occupy the seat of power, and they are helping to keep it there. Propagandists for fascist groups try to dismiss the fascist scare. We should be aware of the symptoms."
William E. Dodd, US Ambassador to Germany, Letter to President Roosevelt, 1936
"But there is a sort of 'Ok guys, you're mad, but how are you going to stop me' mentality at the top."
Robert Johnson, Audacious Oligarchy
