Differentiation of Oligarchs

Referring to the infamous Nicaraguan dictator Franklin Delano Roosevelt famously said, "Somoza may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch." It appears that lame duck President Biden applies the same type of differentiation to oligarchs circling around the presidency.

In his somewhat rambling, disjointed farewell address, President Biden warned us about a danger that confronts our democracy, “the concentration of power and wealth. It erodes a sense of unity and common purpose. It causes distrust and division.” He further warned, “an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.”

Of course, the oligarchs Mr. Biden is talking about are the billionaires trekking to Mar-a-Lago seeking an audience with President-elect Donald Trump as compared to the oligarch that was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom by the lame-duck president a few weeks earlier. Mainstream media takes Mr. Biden’s warning seriously but fails to note the irony of the medal to the billionaire, George Soros. Oligarchies come in many forms. Some are based on a small group of wealthy families. Some are based on an inner circle of religious clerics such as Iran. China could have been considered an oligarchy under the sway of the communist ideologues in the CCP until Xi Jinping transformed it into a dictatorship. The Democratic Party in the United States has been transformed from a party of working people and poor minorities into a group of elites from academia and Hollywood.

It is true that some of America’s would-be oligarchs have wealth and power and use that power and wealth to try and influence government policies. The companies owned by Elon Musk receive much of their revenue from government, subsidies for his electric vehicles and payments for satellite launches by SpaceX. But he has also spent a lot of money promoting free speech and appears to sincerely want to make government more efficient. Bills Gates uses his wealth for charitable projects and recently chatted with President-elect Trump for three hours about global health issues.

George Soros made billions shorting the English pound and uses his wealth to promote left-wing causes through his Open Society Foundations. The only difference between George Soros and Elon Musk (other than one made his billions from financial manipulation and the other from making electric vehicles and building rockets) is that Soros supports causes that Mr. Biden supports and Mr. Musk doesn’t. Soros is Biden’s son-of-a-bitch.

The progressive elites surrounding Mr. Biden in the last days of his presidency have urged him to enact numerous of the progressive policies he was unable to implement during his term of office. He has declared that the Equal Rights Amendment is “the law of the land” although it is clear that he lacks the authority to do so. He has issued last minute executive orders placing price caps on many important drugs and blocking leases for offshore oil exploration (although he claims he does not remember signing that order). The elites surrounding Mr. Biden and the oligarchs that control them are desperate in their efforts to block the coming changes announced by the incoming Trump administration. The winners of the largesse wantonly dispersed by the Biden administration will soon become losers. Many billionaires are trekking to Mar-a-Lago to dine and hobnob with Mr. Trump. But those billionaires, although they have great wealth and power, are unlikely oligarchs. They are self-made men who compete against each other more than work together. Not an organized group with a secret agenda.

Oligarchs are attracted to political power like hyenas are attracted to rotted flesh. The Founders understood this principle which is why they tried to limit the power of government. The Biden administration attempted to increase the power of the executive, undoing the checks and balances installed by the Founders. He reiterated those policies in his farewell address. And while Mr. Trump wants to reduce the role of the administrative state and to disperse bureaucrats across the country, he also wants to increase the power of the White House.

Mr. Biden ultimately failed in his attempt to undo constitutional  checks and balances. And while we hope Mr. Trump has a successful term in the White House we also hope that four years from now we still have the decentralized, limited and somewhat inefficient democratic republic that the Founders bequeathed to us.