Oligarchy is defined as a form of government in which all power is vested in a few persons or in a dominant class or clique; government by the few.
The political system they operate is known as "totalitarian democracy", one in which lawfully elected representatives rule a nation state whose citizens, although granted the right to vote, have little or no participation in the decision-making process of government.
The main policy of the American oligarchy is malfeasance, the performance by a public official of an act that is legally unjustified, harmful, or contrary to law.
Or as Ambrose Bierce, a 19th century political satirist, described Washington D.C. as a strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles and the conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
How did, for example, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) manage to grow his net worth to $10 million while raising a large family, on a public official's salary, and incurring the expenses associated with maintaining two residences on opposite sides of the country?
According to Peter Schweizer ("Throw them all out: how politicians and their friends get rich off insider stock tips, land deals, and cronyism that would send the rest of us to prison"):
"For the Government Rich, insider deals, insider trading, and taxpayer money have become a pathway to wealth. They get to walk this exclusive pathway because they get to operate by a different set of rules from the rest of us. And they get to do this while they are working for us, in the name of the "public service."
"Crony capitalism unites these politicians with a certain class of businessmen who act as political entrepreneurs. They make their money from government subsidies, guaranteed loans, grants, and set-asides. They seek to steer the ship of state into profitable seas. Twenty-first-century privateers, they pursue wealth through political pull rather than by producing new products or services. In addition to these political entrepreneurs, big investors turn to lobbying and insider information from their sponsored politicians to make their investment decisions. And business is very good."
During a December 6, 2014 speech, former Republican National Chairman and George W. Bush White House aide, Ed Gillespie spoke of the dangers that came from the massive growth of Big Government, creating what he called the "influence economy" as opposed to the long American tradition of a free market economy, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.
"We can see an influence economy starting to take shape. CEOs are becoming less concerned about inventing the right products, targeting the right markets and hiring the right people in hopes of making a respectable profit for investors-and more concerned about getting the right lobbyists, retaining the right lawyers and attending the right fundraisers in hopes of getting a hefty subsidy from taxpayers. Making the right campaign contributions are becoming as important to a company as its research and development budget, and federal-compliance lawyers will soon outnumber patent lawyers."
The conduct of Congress is driven purely by political expediency and winning elections for the sole purpose of obtaining power and profit. There is, in fact, no difference between the aims of Big Government Republicans and Big Government Democrats.
Democrats attain and maintain power by practicing tribal politics, emphasizing and exploiting grievances based on race, ethnicity, gender and income.
In contrast, Republicans have no principles at all, but tactics for obtaining office as junior partners in a government ruling class from where they can perform their post-election rewarding of special interests, while ignoring the needs and desires of their constituents.
To maintain control, both parties foster a culture of dependency on the government. Democrats create dependency by expanding federal mandates and increasing entitlements. Republicans promote dependency by limiting voter choice and crushing or co-opting independent thinkers and grass roots movements like the Tea Party.
Both parties use campaign deception, practice political expediency, engage in crony capitalism and, when necessary, promote voter fraud to sustain the corrupt status quo.
The American media support the oligarchy by helping to preserve the illusion of democracy and, thereby, facilitate the very corruption the people's "watchdog" was meant to prevent. They enable tyranny by misinforming and misleading citizens as purveyors of a conventional wisdom defined along narrow political lines determined by financial self-interest.
The United States is now governed by a combination of executive over-reach, legislative complicity, judicial partisanship and journalistic decadence.
All the traditional means for ordinary Americans to safeguard representative government have now been blocked by a self-absorbed permanent political elite unrestrained by the Constitution and the rule of law.
Welcome to the elective despotism of a de facto one-party state.
Lawrence Sellin, Ph.D. is a retired colonel with 29 years of service in the US Army Reserve and a veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq. Colonel Sellin is the author of "Restoring the Republic: Arguments for a Second American Revolution ". He receives email at lawrence.sellin@gmail.com.
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