Paul Buckingham - Blog Philosophy and life in general

As from 20 January this year, Mr Trump will be in charge, again, as the 47th president of the United States of America. Mr Biden will finally have left the stage to return no more. It will be the 60th U.S. presidential inauguration and the second inauguration of Trump as U.S. president.

Due to expected freezing temperatures and high winds, it will be too cold to have the ceremony outside on Capitol Hill itself. Instead, It will – for the first time in 40 years - be held indoors in the Capitol Rotunda. I’m sure that such extreme cold will be cited as evidence that global warming is a fiction.

Various acolytes will of course be present at the ceremony. Tickets to be in the main group around Trump have been selling for millions of dollars – they’ve made a total of $200 million out of it. The tech bros will be there, of course, along with the boss of the now banned TikTok in America. This is all very confusing as, in his last incarnation as president, he wanted it banned. Now, however, he is a great supporter, despite the likelihood of information being taken from users and passed to the Chinese government.

Perhaps he wants to develop his image as an influencer. There are, after all, influencers on the app who are making millions of dollars each year. Maybe he wants to promote his special range of orange make-up products.

That his will be a transactional government, trying to squeeze as much for himself and his family out of the system, is a given. That he has surrounded himself with others willing to pay him to try to rig things so that they too can have a share in the cake is all too obvious.

They have four years in which to do whatever they can in order to reap as much benefit as possible. He will need to keep the Republican party on side in the next year or two in order to get his legislation through, but he is likely to front-load the elements of his legislative agenda which will give him the most benefit, relying on his existing popularity. As that fades away, he will try to keep things on track with ‘executive orders’, whether lawful or not. He, or rather, his lawyers have shown themselves to be masters of the use of delaying tactics in the courts.

After that, Trump will be out of office permanently and the Republicans will be in much the same position as the Conservatives are in this country after their run of disastrous leaders. The analysis of the situation in the USA is not, therefore, politically, very difficult. Sheltering behind the Supreme court decision giving him broad immunity for criminal acts carried out in the course of government, apart from his narcissism he has little motive to make himself popular with the electorate over the coming years.

And obviously he has no loyalty to the Republican party. There will be no political or moral principles which will be in play – only an increasingly dismissive attitude to the people equivalent to Marie Antoinette’s “Let them eat cake”.

We may well see in a while, however, a replay of the past. And not that of his first term of office.

In his farewell address on Wednesday evening, without mentioning any of the Trump-supporting billionaires by name, Joe Biden had a stark message for his fellow Americans, warning of a “dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a few ultra-wealthy people”. “Today,” he said, “an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that really threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedom.”

But in the years before the civil war, abolitionists often warned that the southern states were controlled by a “slavocracy” of rich plantation owners, even crueller and more corrupt than the despots of old Europe. During the 1860 presidential campaign, one of Abraham Lincoln’s chief allies, Senator Charles Sumner, invoked the dreaded “slave oligarchy” more than 20 times in a single speech. “The oligarchy hesitates at nothing to serve its selfish ends,” he told a rally in New York, warning that it had “possessed the national government like an evil spirit”. Such was the rhetoric which helped to overthrow the slave-owning South.

It was though in the age, stretching from the end of the civil war to the dawn of the 20th century, that the issue of oligarchy, based on industrialisation, first began to dominate American politics. This was the era of railroads, telegraphs, booming cities and bustling factories. American capitalism accelerated as never before.

Yet it was also an age when a handful of extremely rich men, benefiting from the technological advances of the day, seemed to have concentrated all economic and political power in their own hands. To many ordinary Americans, it was a time of spectacular excess, fraud and bribery, all of which sounds uncannily familiar today.

Perhaps the most celebrated, or notorious, were the triumvirate of Andrew Carnegie, John D Rockefeller and John Pierpont Morgan, to whom Republican politicians paid obeisance in the 1880s and 1890s. Carnegie built a steel empire worth about $400 billion in today’s money. Rockefeller controlled virtually the entire US petroleum industry through his gigantic trust Standard Oil, and is often described as the richest man in American history: “As rich as Rockefeller”. Morgan dominated Wall Street, holding controlling interests in numerous huge companies.

All of them gave away huge fortunes to various charitable causes, but in the end it was not enough. The oligarchs’ financial and political muscle represented a continuing affront to the republic’s founding ideals. And as the years passed, and as their fortunes ballooned, so did the backlash.

The Democratic standard-bearer William Jennings Bryan told his party convention in 1896, that ‘American politics had become a battleground between “the producing masses of this nation” and “the idle holders of idle capital … the few financial magnates who, in a backroom, corner the money of the world”. His peroration became one of the most famous in his country’s history: “You shall not press down upon the brow of labour this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold!”

As it turned out, Bryan lost to his Republican rival, William McKinley, to whom each of the triumvirate had given a cool $250,000, the equivalent of almost $10 million today. Shades of Elon Musk?

But the tide was turning. When McKinley was assassinated in 1901, his successor, Theodore Roosevelt, seized on the changing mood and vowed to smash the oligarchs’ monopolies using antitrust legislation. In the next few years his administration launched 44 suits against big businesses, breaking up the railroad monopolies and paving the way for the enforced disintegration of Standard Oil in 1911, a landmark in the history of American capitalism.

So could history repeat itself? Perhaps. Monopolies such as Google and Meta have seemed untouchable until recently, but so once did Standard Oil.

Both Google and Apple are currently the subject of antitrust proceedings for their monopolistic practices and so are making sure that they are seen to be supporting the Trump. It is hard to imagine Donald Trump echoing Roosevelt’s denunciation of the “lawless capitalists” and “malefactors of great wealth” who had perverted American democracy. And so unless any of the billionaires of Silicon Valley fail to to continue to lick his boots, I do not expect any serious attempt on their positions. Trump’s new appointee to head the Department of Justice will be able to pursue or not pursue the current proceedings.

But in two year’s time there will be legislative elections when the Republicans could well lose their house majorities. And in four year’s time there will be another presidential election. Although none of the 19th century magnates were reduced to penury through anti-trust actions, I suspect that the next president will feel the need to adopt a position similar to that of Roosevelt to bring their present-day billionaires to heal.

I suspect too that the average American will not feel significantly better off and so will have in sharp focus the iniquity of the present incredible financial imbalance.

It can’t come soon enough.

17 January 2025

Paul Buckingham

	The future for America – according to Nostradamus, Paul Nostradamus

	As from 20 January this year, Mr Trump will be in charge, again, as the 47th president of the United States of America. Mr Biden will finally have left the stage to return no more. It will be the 60th U.S. presidential inauguration and the second inauguration of Trump as U.S. president. Due to expected freezing temperatures and high winds, it will be too cold to have the ceremony outside on Capitol Hill itself. Instead, It will – for the first time in 40 years - be held indoors in the Capitol Rotunda. I’m sure that such extreme cold will be cited as evidence that global warming is a fiction. Various acolytes will of course be present at the ceremony. Tickets to be in the main group around Trump have been selling for millions of dollars – they’ve made a total of $200 million out of it. The tech bros will be there, of course, along with the boss of the now banned TikTok in America. This is all very confusing as, in his last incarnation as president, he wanted it banned. Now, however, he is a great supporter, despite the likelihood of information being taken from users and passed to the Chinese government. Perhaps he wants to develop his image as an influencer. There are, after all, influencers on the app who are making millions of dollars each year. Maybe he wants to promote his special range of orange make-up products. That his will be a transactional government, trying to squeeze as much for himself and his family out of the system, is a given. That he has surrounded himself with others willing to pay him to try to rig things so that they too can have a share in the cake is all too obvious. They have four years in which to do whatever they can in order to reap as much benefit as possible. He will need to keep the Republican party on side in the next year or two in order to get his legislation through, but he is likely to front-load the elements of his legislative agenda which will give him the most benefit, relying on his existing popularity. As that fades away, he will try to keep things on track with ‘executive orders’, whether lawful or not. He, or rather, his lawyers have shown themselves to be masters of the use of delaying tactics in the courts. After that, Trump will be out of office permanently and the Republicans will be in much the same position as the Conservatives are in this country after their run of disastrous leaders. The analysis of the situation in the USA is not, therefore, politically, very difficult. Sheltering behind the Supreme court decision giving him broad immunity for criminal acts carried out in the course of government, apart from his narcissism he has little motive to make himself popular with the electorate over the coming years. And obviously he has no loyalty to the Republican party. There will be no political or moral principles which will be in play – only an increasingly dismissive attitude to the people equivalent to Marie Antoinette’s “Let them eat cake”. We may well see in a while, however, a replay of the past. And not that of his first term of office. In his farewell address on Wednesday evening, without mentioning any of the Trump-supporting billionaires by name, Joe Biden had a stark message for his fellow Americans, warning of a “dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a few ultra-wealthy people”. “Today,” he said, “an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that really threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedom.” But in the years before the civil war, abolitionists often warned that the southern states were controlled by a “slavocracy” of rich plantation owners, even crueller and more corrupt than the despots of old Europe. During the 1860 presidential campaign, one of Abraham Lincoln’s chief allies, Senator Charles Sumner, invoked the dreaded “slave oligarchy” more than 20 times in a single speech. “The oligarchy hesitates at nothing to serve its selfish ends,” he told a rally in New York, warning that it had “possessed the national government like an evil spirit”. Such was the rhetoric which helped to overthrow the slave-owning South. It was though in the age, stretching from the end of the civil war to the dawn of the 20th century, that the issue of oligarchy, based on industrialisation, first began to dominate American politics. This was the era of railroads, telegraphs, booming cities and bustling factories. American capitalism accelerated as never before. Yet it was also an age when a handful of extremely rich men, benefiting from the technological advances of the day, seemed to have concentrated all economic and political power in their own hands. To many ordinary Americans, it was a time of spectacular excess, fraud and bribery, all of which sounds uncannily familiar today. Perhaps the most celebrated, or notorious, were the triumvirate of Andrew Carnegie, John D Rockefeller and John Pierpont Morgan, to whom Republican politicians paid obeisance in the 1880s and 1890s. Carnegie built a steel empire worth about $400 billion in today’s money. Rockefeller controlled virtually the entire US petroleum industry through his gigantic trust Standard Oil, and is often described as the richest man in American history: “As rich as Rockefeller”. Morgan dominated Wall Street, holding controlling interests in numerous huge companies. All of them gave away huge fortunes to various charitable causes, but in the end it was not enough. The oligarchs’ financial and political muscle represented a continuing affront to the republic’s founding ideals. And as the years passed, and as their fortunes ballooned, so did the backlash. The Democratic standard-bearer William Jennings Bryan told his party convention in 1896, that ‘American politics had become a battleground between “the producing masses of this nation” and “the idle holders of idle capital … the few financial magnates who, in a backroom, corner the money of the world”. His peroration became one of the most famous in his country’s history: “You shall not press down upon the brow of labour this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold!” As it turned out, Bryan lost to his Republican rival, William McKinley, to whom each of the triumvirate had given a cool $250,000, the equivalent of almost $10 million today. Shades of Elon Musk? But the tide was turning. When McKinley was assassinated in 1901, his successor, Theodore Roosevelt, seized on the changing mood and vowed to smash the oligarchs’ monopolies using antitrust legislation. In the next few years his administration launched 44 suits against big businesses, breaking up the railroad monopolies and paving the way for the enforced disintegration of Standard Oil in 1911, a landmark in the history of American capitalism. So could history repeat itself? Perhaps. Monopolies such as Google and Meta have seemed untouchable until recently, but so once did Standard Oil. Both Google and Apple are currently the subject of antitrust proceedings for their monopolistic practices and so are making sure that they are seen to be supporting the Trump. It is hard to imagine Donald Trump echoing Roosevelt’s denunciation of the “lawless capitalists” and “malefactors of great wealth” who had perverted American democracy. And so unless any of the billionaires of Silicon Valley fail to to continue to lick his boots, I do not expect any serious attempt on their positions. Trump’s new appointee to head the Department of Justice will be able to pursue or not pursue the current proceedings. But in two year’s time there will be legislative elections when the Republicans could well lose their house majorities. And in four year’s time there will be another presidential election. Although none of the 19th century magnates were reduced to penury through anti-trust actions, I suspect that the next president will feel the need to adopt a position similar to that of Roosevelt to bring their present-day billionaires to heal. I suspect too that the average American will not feel significantly better off and so will have in sharp focus the iniquity of the present incredible financial imbalance. It can’t come soon enough. 17 January 2025 Paul Buckingham
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