July 6, 2020

By Thom Hartmann

If a group of international billionaires who don’t like democracy, business regulation, or the idea of a functioning multiracial culture wanted to hire somebody to destroy America, they couldn’t have done better than Donald Trump.

Americans are dying from a pandemic disease at rates we haven’t seen in 100 years. A handful of Trump-connected lobbyists have pulled in over $10 billion for their clients in a stunning example of how he has completely corrupted our federal agencies. And white racists are on the rise, killing protesters and tearing down a statue of Frederick Douglass.

As most Americans watch this unfolding disaster with horror, a small group of billionaires are cheering it on. Billionaire Rupert Murdoch has his Fox News running overtime, pumping out racist memes and phony outrage. The right wing billionaires who funded Freedomworks and other such groups are pushing hard to end unemployment and other benefits so Americans are forced to return to work, even when it means getting sick and dying.

Down in Brazil, President Jair Bolsonaro just vetoed legislation that would’ve provided masks to poor people living in the slums. The Trump administration wouldn’t even consider a national mask policy. Ever since April 6, when the US national media reported widely the coronavirus was disproportionately hitting people of color, the Trump administration has even been pushing hard to expand infections and even use the force of the federal government to require largely Hispanic and Black meat processing people to return to work.

Americans have become quite used to Republicans and their billionaire buddies stealing from us and ripping us off, corrupting government, crushing unions and destroying competition through monopoly. since the Reagan revolution, it’s been a standard way of life in this country.

But now, unless you are wealthy enough to safely and comfortably shelter in place, Republicans and their billionaire buddies are openly encouraging the death of more and more Americans.

Back in the 1920s, Herbert Hoover ignored the Crash of 1929 and the Republican Great Depression for three long years, leading to massive national wreckage, including economic damage and torn-apart families that echoed through our nation for generations.

The Trump Depression and over 100,000 unnecessary deaths show us that a president who is not only incompetent but also openly malicious can do even more damage than Herbert Hoover. And still Republicans across the country support him., as billionaire-own and -supported media continues to pump out a steady stream of pro-Trump propaganda.

The Supreme Court handed these white, racist billionaires the sword they are using now against Americans with its Citizens United decision and those that preceded it. If we don’t get money out of politics and vote every Republican out of office at all levels, this effort to tear America apart and kill more low-income and minority Americans will continue.

Anything else is just putting a Band-Aid on a cancer.

Thom Hartmann is a talk-show host and the author of The Hidden History of the War on Voting and more than 30 other books in print. His most recent project is a science podcast called The Science Revolution. He is a writing fellow at the Independent Media Institute.

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