The Political Cycle
For as long as there’s been governed societies, there’s been elites who control or aim to control the rest of the population, the commoners. This idea is called class warfare, and it is still alive and well today. The origin is simple: everyone wants what’s best for them and has an innate drive to excel. For many (but not all), that means moving up in a social hierarchy. Once someone’s at the top of that hierarchy, they can only continue to excel by distancing themselves from those below, and by ensuring they and their family/friends stay at the top in the future. Both of these objectives require oppressing the commoners in some way.
Before I go further, I should make it clear that there are definitely people who excel for altruistic reasons, and can do a lot of good for others once they become elites. However, it’s naive to think all, or even most, of the elites are this way. It’s extremely difficult to make it to the top of any hierarchy - political, economic, fame-based, etc. - and the people that measure their success purely based on standing in a hierarchy are more likely to make the sacrifices necessary to make it there than people with more altruistic priorities.
The next post gives more specific examples of how class warfare is fought, but for the sake of this post, we can boil it down to this: elites have the advantage of wealth, ownership, and power, while the commoners have the advantage of numbers, since almost everyone is a commoner.
Creating a democracy, which a republic is a type of, is a key achievement for commoners, as it gives power to the people, as opposed to authoritarian governments, which are controlled by the elites. In Athens, an uprising overthrew their ruling class and created what’s often considered the first democracy. In Rome, an uprising overthrew their final king to create the Roman Republic. In France, a revolution overthrew an oppressive feudal system and replaced it with a republic. In the USA, a revolution (which was really more of a secession) freed the colonies from a monarchy to establish a democratic republic. In each of these cases, the commoners used their main advantage, numbers, to overthrow the elites.
Once the commoners took control, they established governments with rules that gave power to commoners, to prevent the elites from taking back control. This is why the US Constitution protected freedom of assembly - protests are a way for commoners to use their numbers to enact change. Similarly, the right to bear arms was protected so that commoners could fight back against oppressive regimes, should they regain power. The Founding Fathers did this because they saw from history that after populist uprisings that give power to the people, there are still people aiming to become elites, and over time they will eventually gain control if not stopped.
During the Roman Republic, there were increasingly many people in the government who bypassed the republican process to make changes on their own and grab more power, until the once-great Republic eventually collapsed and eventually fell into feudalism. That was the same feudal period that the French Revolution escaped. Similarly, in Germany, after a republic was established, power grabs were made by elites in the government, until Hitler brought them back into authoritarianism.
To people who fought for freedom from oppressors, it’s easy to stay vigilant about not letting the elites gain too much control. Over the course of generations, though, that same drive can be lost, as people are born into democracies or republics without personal perspective of the alternative. As this happens, it gets easier for the elites to take control, which they are always trying to do. What arises is a cycle of populist uprising, which typically happens quickly, followed by a slower degradation of power among commoners, until elites regain control. If the elites are oppressive enough, this leads to the next round of upheaval from the commoners to repeat the cycle. These upheavals are violent and destructive and should be avoided if possible. The way to do so is to not allow elites to take control of a country in the first place.
Path Forward
It’s important to learn from this cycle and recognize where we are in it today. Since Nixon, the tax rates on the wealthy have continued to drop, corporate money has become more able to influence policy, protesting laws have become stricter, and income inequality has continued to rise in the US. These are all ways for elites to gain and retain control of the country. Now, with the precedents set during Trump’s 3.5 years in office, the US is in the hands to the elites more than ever. Things may not be so bad right now, but history has shown time and again that allowing the elites to control a country leads to bad results for the commoners and the country as a whole.
This is why Citizens United v. FEC was one of the most significant turning points in recent US history. This is the case that allowed unlimited corporate money in politics because “corporations are people”. Now, corporations can basically pick the politicians they want, who will give them more power, so the elites, who own those companies, can take control of the country.
What’s important is to look for politicians who are fighting for “the people” rather than the businesses. Unfortunately, in the US, there are very few politicians at the federal level who aren’t burdened to corporations. All Republicans that I know of and most Democrats take donations from corporations. This is a sign of how much control the elites already have. Not taking corporate donations should be taken as a significant positive when looking at a politician. Obviously they need more than just that to earn support, but every corporation-funded person we put in office is someone who is handing more power over to the elites, which is the opposite of what this country needs.
