I'm sure this isn't an original thought, but it's the thought I woke up with.

[Susan Calvin]

Trump is a problem, but he isn't THE problem, he's a symptom.

THE problem is that corporations and billionaires been allowed to run wild for decades. They've been allowed to run the world, and this is where it's got us.

[mgardener]

1. I disagree.

Trump is a problem because he has the ability to make things happen.
He may not be the only problem, but he IS a problem.
It is questionable if he has the authority, but it appears no one will stop him.

[Susan Calvin]

4. I did say Trump was a problem.

[k_buddy762]

2. You are correct

Even the right said "trump is a symptom" back in 2016.

[Ponietz]

3. The same story for a thousand years

Wealth inequality leads to serfdom.

Wat Tyler was killed in the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381 for demanding economic and social reforms.

We fought a Civil War, busted the robber barons, recovered from a Great Depression, and championed the civil rights movement to confront wealth inequality. And, yet, here we are again.

Abrogating the notion that corporations are people and money is speech is the single most important thing we can do to save ourselves.

[defacto7]

16. True. The cycle theoretically goes back to Plato.

Through trial and error the historical question becomes plainly clear. How do we prevent democracy from deteriorating into authoritarianism thus preserving freedom and human rights? I think it's possible. Our constitution took a pretty good stab at it, but the weakest link is the human factor: complacency, apathy and greed. We can overcome it, control it or continue the cycle until humanity can no longer sustain itself. Civilization in a nutshell.

[questionseverything]

23. But we should trust the monied corporations to count our votes?

[Ponietz]

25. RULE #1: VOTE!

90 million ignorant, apathetic, and entitled people sat on their asses and couldn’t be bothered to fulfill their civic duty.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

29. Finding a way to cure

Or control narcissism and psychopathy would help tremendously.

[highplainsdem]

5. Yep. Allison Gill - Mueller, She Wrote - wrote a long piece about that last week:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100220353153

https://www.muellershewrote.com/p/its-the-oligarchy-stupid

[Susan Calvin]

7. I hadn't read it, but I'm sure I've read lots like it over the years

Enough that that was the first thing on my mind when I woke up today.

[multigraincracker]

6. We have the best government money can buy.

Money does not equal brains on morals. It equals power and power corrupts.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

8. Wealth & income disparity is at historically unsustainable levels. . . . . nt

[Javaman]

9. I think of it as a ball of shit rolling down hill.

it started somewhere, unnoticed, but now it's picking up speed and getting bigger and bigger.

[PatSeg]

10. Great analogy

I'm inclined to believe if it hadn't been Trump, eventually it would have been someone else.

[Javaman]

12. personally, I think it goes back the Business plot in the early 1930's.

that was the original seed. but that's just my feeling

[PatSeg]

15. That could be

I certainly think we've been headed in this direction for a long time.

[Grumpy Old Guy]

11. Reagan, Murdoch & Ailes were a big part of the problem.

Add to that Gingrich, McConnell, Rove and several others.

[Mr.Bee]

19. Tax Cuts are Tax Shifts

Shift $50 trillion wealth from the Middle-Class to millionaires, making them billionaires.
Thanks Mr. Reagan, couldn't have done it without you.

[Grumpy Old Guy]

27. I agree 100%!

[3Hotdogs]

13. It is to the point that one person, Musk, can elect Gongress.

He can donate a billion or two and sway elections

AND

He can tresthen reps with funding primaries.

[Rebl2]

14. Sounds about right

[Mr.Bee]

17. If anything, Project 2025 exposed

a cross-section of entitled selfish billionaires who do not want to contribute anything to this country.
They are not necessarily the same ones Reagan bestowed tax-cuts upon, but their offspring.
The nepo babies who have never worked a day in their lives and want to rule over the majority of us!
The don't want to pay taxes for it, so why should the country have it?

[Beringia]

18. As Humans, we need to be able to do reverse engineering where needed

so technology and the attendant rise of billionaires does not guide the course of civilization. The little green blue globe is completely in our hands

[ananda]

20. Always bears repeating. In one word: classism.

And those rich and powerful people really have mastered
the divide and conquer methods to make oppressed people
want to either be oppressors, side with oppressors, or
both.

It sure worked on my whole Texas family. I would say it
worked for many years on everyone in the confederate
states and still does, and now it's even spread to the
working classes who used to be reliably blue.

And then they got ahold of the media and figured out
how to steal the vote.

And ever since we caved in 2000, it's led us to this sorry mess.

[Susan Calvin]

21. And what did I just find in my inbox this morning?

Maybe it projected itself to my sleeping brain.

https://www.levernews.com/why-the-trump-protests-will-fail/?utm_source=newsletter-email&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=newsletter-article

"Why The Trump Protests Will Fail

The resistance won’t succeed until it stops being a performance and starts challenging the system that got us here."

[Martin Eden]

22. Yes, he's a symptom. The orange bloviating buffon had lots of help.

The power of concentrated wealth and ignorant gullible voters is not a healthy mix for democracy.

[drmeow]

24. Reagan was the first

major success of the anti-FDR, anti-labor, pro-oligarch fascists whose desire to keep us from fighting the fascist in WWII was derailed by Pearl Harbor. Trump is just the Louis XVI culmination of that cabals rise to power. I'd be happy if he and that entire cabal ends the way Louis XVI ended!

[markie]

26. I have had this

poster on my wall for 40 years!!

[I_UndergroundPanther]

28. One solution

Is to forbid people to get rich. 1 million a year and you are done.
Any profits after that goes to the general welfare.