Alan Zendell, April 28, 2025

Oligarchy is a word that’s been thrown around a lot since there was so much attention paid to Russia and Ukraine. The dictionary definition is a government controlled by a small group of people or clique. The definition doesn’t say so, but to have that kind of influence on the governance of an entire nation, they’d have to be extremely wealthy and powerful in their own right.

In medieval times, such a clique might have been people who could read and write, like priests, when no one else could. Today, oligarchies are all about money buying influence and power. We mostly hear about Russian oligarchs, that clique of symbiont billionaires who nurse at Putin’s treasury and provide the support he needs to remain in power. Together, they control most of Russia’s economy, and if you control a country’s economy, you can buy legislators and judges who’ll pass the laws you need to stay in power. It’s corruption in its purest form, right out in the open.

It was enlightening for me to watch the Netflix series Servant of the People, in which Volodymyr Zelensky, at the time Ukraine’s most popular comedic actor, played a populist president swept into office by millions of people who were tired of being controlled by oligarchs. I had no idea, until I watched it, that oligarchs were a systemic problem throughout the former Soviet Union, not just in Russia.

The series was made between 2015 and 2017, after Russia illegally invaded and occupied Crimea, and its extreme popularity offers a candid look at how Ukrainian citizens viewed both Russia and their own oligarchs. They fiercely hated both. A repeated theme on the show is a violent brawl among legislators and oligarchs on the floor of  Parliament which only comes to a halt when Zelensky shouts, “Putin is dead!”

Russia is an example of what happens when a clique of billionaires support a dictator, and the dictator, in turn feeds their coffers. If you think that can’t happen in America, you’re wrong. It won’t be a coup – it requires only what we see all over the country today: millions of Americans caught in a paralytic ennui, shocked and awed by the MAGA assault. If they don’t wake up soon, it might be too late.

The process began fifteen years ago, and has been underway ever since. Project 2025 is its blueprint, and Trump is following it to the letter. When the Supreme Court handed down the Citizens United ruling that gave billionaire’s a way to buy elections, the die was cast. Democrats, who in the face of MAGA have shown an impressive lack of fight and imagination, have spent all this time spectating, as Russell Vought and his cohorts built the necessary infrastructure.

Vought is in his second term as Director of the Executive Office of Management and Budget. Most Americans have no idea that tiny (by government standards) EOMB is the most powerful organ of government. It handles the flow of money authorized by Congress to the Executive Branch agencies tasked to enforce laws and regulations, including the ability to interdict funds at the behest of the President.

If you’re not anxious about the direction Vought and the President are taking our country, the latest development should do the trick. Yesterday, Donald Trump’s sons, Don Junior and Eric, launched a new club, but it’s not one any of us are likely to join. It requires an initiation fee of $500,000, and only billionaire donors to Trump are allowed to buy their way in. Expectations are that the club will host more than a hundred billionaires who will be given exclusive access to White House policy staffers.

The math is simple – at the outset, if 100 billionaires each ante up a half million dollars to join, Trump and his sons immediately pocket $50 million. After that, Trump’s staff will receive regular guidance from club members on pending legislation and recommendations for cutting tax-supported programs to enable further massive tax cuts. That’s a tight feedback loop that will become the foundation of an American oligarchy unless the rest of us fight back. I’m not the one to tell anyone how to fight, but I’m certain that if we don’t, Trump will have rebuilt his fantasy of a new McKinley administration with a new crop of robber barons.

The goal, according to Politico, “is to create the highest-end private club that Washington has ever had, and cater to the business and tech moguls who are looking to nurture their relationships with the Trump administration.” The Politico article includes a photograph of five people grinning broadly, anticipating watching the billions roll in: Vivek Ramaswamy, Senator Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio), megadonor Omeed Malik, Vice President JD Vance and Donald Trump Jr.

Sounds like a budding oligarchy to me. It definitely can happen here, and it will if we all just sit back and watch.

PS: One day after I posted this, on April 28th, two major polls reported Trump’s approval rating had dropped to 39%. We ignore Jim Carville at our peril.