The regime change is almost complete – have you noticed yet?

Tyrant class

Segments of corporate America and the billionaire class have moved well beyond their desire for mere tax breaks and deregulation. Their instinct to take more and more for themselves has evolved into an unquenchable lust for power. They have no allegiance to America and they want to weaken us and destroy our Democracy. They have become America’s tyrants and they want dominion over us,

These tyrants have been executing their regime change through a decades-long effort, built on a series of discrete plans that, intentionally or not, built upon each other. Each failure or success provided them with the lessons learned and the confidence to reach for more. Through these plans, they not only drastically tilted the playing field in their favor, but they also took control of our government and convinced many of us to follow them. 

They have created an ecosystem that attracts, awards, and even cultivates sociopaths, and their indifference to humanity makes us and our planet expendable. Their ranks have grown to include not only the wealthy but also authoritarians, religious extremists, and foreign actors. Ominously, this very dangerous group has the confidence to say much of it out loud and plan for it in plain sight. 

America’s tyrants are now sitting atop the food chain and we are their prey. They are directly responsible for most of what is making everything unravel around us today. Americans live harder and sometimes shorter lives because of the tyrant class.

We are Losing an Invisible War

Nothing pisses off tyrants more than the idea of a government that acts in the interests of the people over those of the wealthy.   In the late 1960s and early 1970s, America got too close to that point when our government began reigning in corporate exploitation of our health, our wallets, and the environment.  As the power of the common man continued to increase through a more responsive government, the tyrants began to feel squeezed – so they declared war on us.

They understood that we never allow their version of America to be forced upon us so they had to lull us into indifference and create our “permission”. They knew that they’d have to use the tried and true warfare strategies of winning hearts and minds, weakening institutions, and creating division and anxiety.

They’ve done this by attacking us in small units that they camouflage as well-meaning political organizations, think tanks, social welfare groups, legal associations, etc. But these units are anything but well-meaning, they are the lair of our tyrants, where they use their unlimited funds and power lust to twist our government and our minds in their favor. 

They use the terrain of our society to their advantage – exaggerating and aggravating our economic disparity, cultural tensions, crime, and discontent with government. In many cases they created many of these issues in the first place, thereby shaping a battlefield that gives them a distinct advantage.

Their attack has been slow, methodical, and disguised – making it impossible to notice. We were ripe for this type of attack. We were heads-down and working hard, and our focus was on the future of our children. We couldn’t have imagined that there were so many among us who were going to such lengths to destroy everything good about America. We had no idea that all along we were their prey.

[put this somewhere]Our Tyrants have been using their nearly unlimited resources to not only quench their lust for power but to also covertly subjugate us to their ideologies.

Like wolves, the predator class instinctively prey on anything below them in the food chain – and that means just about all of us.

The Casualties

When looking at the cumulative damage of their attack so far, it looks more like the results of scorched-earth tactics than it does a hidden war.  

Our Government

The tyrants and their foot soldiers can be found at all levels of our government. They have infiltrated the three branches of our federal government to attack from the top down. They’ve taken over government agencies to attack from the inside out. They’ve hijacked state and local governments in states all around the country to attack from the bottom up.

Stacking SCOTUS was a long and quiet play. Following a plan conceived by Lewis Powell in the 1970s, the billionaire-backed Federalist Society spearheaded an effort where SCOTUS justices were watched, identified, gifted, and groomed. Conservative justices were selected, not based on their judicial experience and constitutional knowledge, but on their embracing of the concentration of wealth, social control, and religious ideologies – in other words, their loyalty to the saboteurs of democracy.

These openly {link to corruption} “owned’ justices have moved beyond merely creating a pro-plutocracy environment by gradually increasing the unlimited and untraceable influence of money over our government while decreasing our ability to vote{link}. Thanks to Mitch McConnell brazenly subverting the rules and norms of the Senate, the Federalist Society finally got their extreme-right SCOTUS majority and they are doing whatever the hell they want. They are ignoring past precedence, fabricating [something – legal concept], and cynically embracing 1500s European law to justify their decisions[abortion, guns, hints toward contraception] 

A stacked court only works when it hears cases that matter to you. Carefully staffed and heavily funded legal organizations maintain a pipeline of the right cases brought to SCOTUS by the right lawyers and heard by the right lower court judges. These cases are tailored to slowly tilt the Constitution in their favor. [Ex. Alliance Defending Freedom, xxx]

https://www.propublica.org/article/we-dont-talk-about-leonard-leo-supreme-court-supermajority?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=TwitterThread

– – – – –

SCOTUS allowed the predator class to buy control of Congress from the outside, but that wasn’t enough, they wanted to control it from the inside.  Not unlike SCOTUS, they began selecting, grooming, and positioning their own candidates, controlling the makeup of Congress, and infiltrating congressional staffs. They pour dark money into or against campaigns, even against conservatives who aren’t extreme enough (RINOs).

[quick piece on getting primaried]

These owned politicians have been installed to do much more than monetize public service, increase tax breaks for billionaires, and deregulate industry while privatizing government – all things they are extraordinarily good at. They are there to weaken us, to tilt the playing field a little more every day, to render our government impotent, and to weaken election laws in order to prevent us from fixing it. They are there to destroy our Democracy.

[maybe skip] Not only do they go out of their way to vote for the tyrants, but they work just as hard to vote against laws and policies that support the working class. Then they run home and tell their working-class constituents that they voted in support of them – revealing that they know that they should have.

[congress] Corruption, staff members, lobbyists, clobbering the OTA. Even the threat of money. [link to groups behind the 20223 shutdown –  https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2023/09/21/whos-bankrolling-the-shutdown-showdown/ ]

[white house] Think Tank members in the white house and in Cabinets White House

– – – – –

[local] ALEC, SPIN, Project REDMAP, Moms for Liberty.

[move to a government section]They gradually and purposefully made our government more corruptible and therefore more compliant with their agenda. [Their “think tanks” and political organizations …] [something about the need for money forces politicians to comply – made much worse than the *fear of money that would be spent on someone else who would be more compliant.

Our government is sitting on top of a corporate regime – it is difficult to distinguish government from industry.

[something about lower-level courts being populated with loyal and obedient judges {some ref?}] [Leo] built a machine to shape state courts, AGs & judge races.  https://www.propublica.org/article/we-dont-talk-about-leonard-leo-supreme-court-supermajority?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=TwitterThread

Our Sanity

 The predator elite knew they had to hide some of their actions and that they had to get our consent for the rest. Luckily for them, while money may not buy happiness, it can certainly buy mind control of their prey.

The pro-wealth policies of the predator class continue to squeeze many of us into a weakened financial state, making us feel betrayed and unsure of our future. This lowers self-esteem and increases anxiety, making us ripe for their manipulation and more willing to follow their charismatic figures. The predator class is more believable when they can point to our very real pain points – pain points they created to shape the battlefield to their advantage.

Along with their crippling policies, they supplied us with a steady supply of people and ideas to blame as we began sliding down their tilting playing field. The more the playing field was tilted against us the more they pitted us against each other.

The predator class attacked states and local communities where their operatives and targeted social media misinformed us and divided us on healthcare, segregation, school curriculums, school privatization, CRT, mask-wearing, etc. They used these same localized tactics to create the appearance that large numbers of folks in our communities support their policies. This is known as astroturfing (vs. actual grassroots efforts).

Their own conservative media and an inattentive mainstream media provided platforms for them to cover their tracks. [this is out of nowhere – ease into it.

Hate and distrust: Our government, the Left, minorities, science, education.

capture actual populist energy on behalf of the powerful.

Religion – in the 70’s, Christian Fundamentalists were organizing and “preying on the economic vulnerabilities and spiritual anxieties” of those who were being left behind by the economy. These organizations began associating with the political groups of the PC and together started a right-wing pro-wealth populism, co-mingling grassroots with corporate mobilization  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=es-KsNc1GL8&t=29s

Education

MSM fails – https://twitter.com/AhmedBaba_/status/1706743460990984505

Breaking things, reducing services, corrupting our government

They have been doing this for years with their crowning achievement being the creation, organization, and weaponizing of the Tea Party.

Economic harm, fear-mongering, scapegoating, divisive rhetoric. Used as more than a distraction, it has been used to make us complacent and compliant.

The PC are cultivating their own brand of populism [that will rise up in support of the interests of the PC]

Billionaires are scooping up and consolidating cable, newsprint, and radio – allowing them to control what we understand about the world. They quite literally control the discussions we have at the kitchen table and in the break room.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/12/bernie-sanders-america-is-controlled-by-a-few-multi-billionaires.html

Mom’s for liberty https://www.salon.com/2023/10/10/moms-for-liberty-meets-its-match-parents-in-this-swing-suburban-district-are-fighting-back/

Their minions tell us about the “deep state” when in fact, it is they who have established their own regime in our country, and it [is the foundation on which our government and media operate]

add something religion being part of this – not just to exploit Americans – we have far-right people in government trying to end the “separation of church and state”

Probably worse of all, they have perfected their manipulation and control of us. They are purposefully confusing and dividing us with the intent of destroying our democracy. [fix]They have become so powerful that not only are they openly marching us toward authoritarianism, but they have convinced millions of us to join them.

[Fink’s plan]

And so on…

As they have gained control of our government and our minds, they have been able to cause more and more damage.

A short summary of some of their “causes” includes…

• Christofascist state [or something]
• Climate denial
• Pushing “The Big Lie” and curtailing voting rights/protection legislation at the national and state levels
• Engaging in political funding with their untraceable money
• Pushing for tax breaks for the wealthy and trickle-down economics
• Pushing for industry deregulation (fossil fuel, finance, pharma, Big Ag, etc.)
• Picking and influencing corporate-friendly Supreme Court Justices.
• Picking corporate-friendly White House cabinet members and agency heads.
• Squeezing out non-compliant politicians 
• Denying climate change science
• Keeping minimum wage down
• Limiting healthcare access
• Defunding and attacking public education
• Inserting their minions in colleges throughout the country
• Using their media reach to spread highly divisive and dangerous rhetoric
• Using their media reach to spin their pro-corporate and pro-wealth agenda
• Social engineering and astroturfing the public
• Funding and directing government shutdown efforts
• Embedding their corporate agenda and ideologies into all levels of education

The Generals

Politically, the predator class is typically Republicans, conservatives, corporatists, Libertarians, free marketers,  etc.  In reality, the predator class doesn’t care about any of these political parties or ideologies – these are just labels to hide behind as they take everything for themselves. It is important to point out here that the everyday citizens (the Tea Party, MAGA, the Republican base) that associate with these political factions are hardly among the predator class, in fact, they are the easiest prey and the most often sacrificed. 

This is not blaming the traditional (your father’s) Republican party.  The Republican party was a logical place for the predator class to attack simply because the Republicans have always been more aligned with corporate America than the Democrats.  The Republicans were attacked first because they were an easy kill – readers may recall Tea Party Republicans vs. RINOs. The Democrats are next as we see in Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.

The predator class (living and dead) continues to grow, but there are some standouts.  Most notable are brothers Charles and David Koch (David recently died) and their Koch Network of think tanks, political organizations, and legal groups.  The damage caused by these two and their minions is significant and includes funding the spread of authoritarianism, spreading doubt about climate change, stacking the Supreme Court with pro-corruption justices, enabling government corruption, and taking away our voting rights. 

There are plenty more . Going back fifty years we have the aforementioned Lewis Powell who masterminded the hell we are living in now.  Over the past ten or more years, Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society have been involved with stacking the Supreme Court and a good chunk of our judiciary all across the country. They also fund anti-election efforts and install their own professors at Universities. Billionaire couple Liz and Dick Uihlein spend millions on judicial appointments and many Right-wing social engineering efforts.  Fossil fuel billionaires Farris and Wilks wants to replace public education with public Christian education and spends millions on climate denial.

Then there are the master manipulators such as Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch, Sinclair Broadcasting owner Julian Sinclair Smith and his family, and conservative financiers Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah.  We might as well throw in the top management at the hundreds of corporate, conservative, libertarian think tanks, etc.  Of course, there is the long-running inflow of dark money from the super-wealthy Bradley, Olin, and Scaife families (and many others) that funds much of the above.

All of this is just a tiny sample. In other words, the predator class and their minions are spread out all over the place. If we lose our Democracy or our planet, it will largely be their fault (seriously). 

Yes, the term for someone who is so sociopathic that they are okay with causing harm to society or others is a malignant sociopath.

[maybe drop, reduce, or combine these two]The objective of the predator class is to grab as much power and money as they can – not by following the rules and constraints of our properly functioning Democracy and society, but by exploiting and destroying both. We, and everything we value and cherish, are collateral damage. Like wolves, the predator class instinctively prey on anything below them in the food chain – and that means just about all of us.

Red Ceasar  https://www.salon.com/2023/10/09/the-rights-red-caesar-plan-a-new-order-keeps-marching-forward/

The $50 trillion theft – https://www.businessinsider.com/wealthiest-1-percent-stole-50-trillion-working-americans-what-means-2020-9

Plutocrats will drift towards authoritarianism to protect their acquired wealth and power.

sliding scale of permission – https://twitter.com/JuliusGoat/status/1705966895592042965

Austerity – https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/13/the-guardian-view-on-the-austerity-delusion-economies-cannot-cut-their-way-to-growth