PRENOTE: Hiroshima-Nagasaki events Twin Cities Aug 5, 6, 8.  Details at end of post.

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Today’s column from Paul Krugman, “The Oligarchs are Doubling Down on Republicans” deserves a full and careful read.  In 2008 Krugman received the Nobel Prize in Economic Science.  My opinion: Krugman’s column concerns the arrogant obsession of the ultra wealthy and their escalating efforts to increase their already excessive power, at the expense of all of us less fortunate..

The only power that can take the oligarchs on is voters like myself.  The power people  know this.  So the efforts have to be to neutralize us through the many levers at their disposal, particularly misinformation (lies) portrayed in expensive and pervasive media dumps.

Within the last few days Trillionaire Elon Musk says he plans to dump up to $120,000,000 into the 2026 mid-term elections.  It is totally legal.  As a trillionaire (that’s 1,000 billions (000,000,000), a hundred million ($100,000,000) is hardly chump change to Musk.

Like Musk, I have only a single vote, and so do you.  We voters are the only buffer.

There are only two ‘sides’ in this election: Democrats or Trump (there is no functional traditional Republican Party any more – all that remains is the name), and the minor parties including the amorphous masses who call themselves “independents” will be left in the dust.  After November 3 it will be either D or T….

I have absolutely no idea who will “win” anything on Nov. 3.  If the Trump side prevails, all, but the tiniest sliver of the super wealthy, will be the losers.

Overnight from Heather Cox Richardson.

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POSTNOTE 1.  In a companion article, Carol shared the following from the New York Times about how the proposed arch in DC would interfere with other historic national sites in the city.

Again, as one of the 99%+ who are not functionally wealthy in this country, I note with concern the increasing attempt to rewrite American history, past and future.

This will all catch up on the wealthy in the end, but unfortunately, it will decimate the less wealthy first and most viciously.

There aren’t any of us who can come up with a trillion dollars ($1,000.000, 000, 000)

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POSTNOTE 2.  When Trump first ran for office I had almost zero notion of who he was or would be as a president.  I had never (and still haven’t) watched an episode of the Apprentice.  He had never run for public office, so there was no criteria to judge there.

Now, nine years after the famous escalator entrance into the fray, evidence abounds that the man is, as one of his admirers admitted in a letter on this blog in 2019, “a common criminal” (which the writer almost described as a virtue).  Still, Trump has slavish admirers who deny their very eyes.

I’m in no position to be a first person witness, but I do try to pay attention to life at ground zero – my own and the people I know personally.  We are the micro – the real world – the people who make up the mass that is everyone.  The news tends to focus on the macro.

I offer these observations as summer begins to wane, and we start the move to fall and winter and 2027 and on.

Last spring I filed my taxes as I always do, and my tax preparer surprised me by saying we would be getting a pretty substantial refund.  I was preparing to pay in for 2025, but indeed came a goodly refund.  A summer vacation gift from the government!?

Most recently a recurrent TV ad touts something called “Trump Accounts” apparently $1,000 per child to parents of young children as an investment in their future.  It all seems so nice and innocent.  Free money, compliments of the President of the United States.

Frequently come news about changes in existing medicare and other plans, cutbacks on services taken for granted at parks, for instance, etc., etc. etc.  Most of these are prospective or ‘Nickel and Dime” changes which people are less likely to notice.  But everything adds up, and of course the tax rate on the wealthy has to be paid for by something.  So the national debt continues to go through the roof.  Who’ll pay for that?

And who can deny the roaring stock market, from which many of us benefit short term, but which even I can observe is grossly overvalued and only time will tell if reality will set in.

All these examples illustrate wins that may end up as losses in the short and long term when election season is over and the long winter begins.  As the saying goes, “There is no free lunch.”   Gas prices go up a heap, and down a little, then up again, and even higher, but are conveyed as wins for consumers….

Of course, I may be wrong in all of this, but this appears to be like a con job in progress.  It is much like going to Las Vegas or the local casino or lottery to win when everyone knows that the House always wins.  Everywhere there are similar stories.  The ordinary individual does not go to the Casino to win.

At this moment in history we seem to have a con man in charge, with a glib tongue, talking people out of their deserved stake in the game of life, and taking a large cut out of their individual longer term welfare.

We seem to like being taken for a ride.  Sometime that time will end.

COMMENTS (more below)

from Larry: I just read that column ..very scary..musk is a neo Nazi and Trump turned loose with a chainsaw. The list long. But he must go through the 25th or impeachment…asap..and Doug is paying a price for his compliance. Thanks for your writings and links.