Us Against the Oligarchs

We can do it...

Last December during the runup to the Iowa Republican Presidential caucuses I drove with a male relative to a Vivek Ramaswamy campaign event in Tama. The relative and his wife were in town for the holidays. The family is well off, and he and his wife are computer engineers who work in the defense industry in Virginia, near D.C. They have a number of patents between them, and are smart, kind people.

I knew the man had libertarian leanings, but during the hour and a half drive he told me that he wasn’t sure he believed in democracy anymore. He told me that maybe it was time to let the richest among us, like Elon Musk, Peter Theil, Jeff Bezos, and other capitalist oligarchs run the country. He told me it was because their wealth reflected that they are the smartest and most capable among us and we should let them rule benevolently. He came away impressed with Ramaswamy, but now I presume he would be perfectly happy with Trump leading the way as president.

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Fortunately, there are millions of patriotic Americans like the Marion County Democrats who believe in democracy—not Republican political puppets propped up by right-wing oligarchs who are working worldwide to bring authoritarian rule to us all.

I stopped by yesterday morning as they were preparing to go knock doors and they told me that numbers are looking good for Democrats in the county. Laura Belin is reporting information gleaned from the Iowa Secretary of State’s website regularly. I’m interpreting her reporting as positive as well.

We can save democracy.

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I have some good news and some bad news about the Washington Post that you may have heard. The bad news is that oligarch Jeff Bezos, owner of the Post, determined that the Post won’t be endorsing a presidential candidate this year. Same goes for the LA Times under the instruction of its billionaire owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong.

I was listening to a podcast today (I forget which one) where an expert on dictators told us that this is common behavior when dictators come into power. People operate in fear of what the dictator might do should he gain control, and bend to his will in anticipation of retribution in the future.

What good does a billion dollars do if you don’t have the courage to stand up for democracy against fascism?

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But I also have good news this week from the Washington Post. In the 2020 election, Donald Trump won 66% of the vote in Marion County, where I live. On Thursday the Post published a map of individual online donations to the presidential candidates by Zip Code. In our county seat, Knoxville, as of yesterday there have been 80 donations totalling $10K to the Harris campaign and 76 to the Trump campaign totalling $9K. In conservative Pella, there are more Democratic donations, 136 to 129, totaling 10K for each. That’s a big surprise to me.

If you look at the map of Iowa, there are many blue islands, not what I expected. I know we aren’t a swing state, and I don’t know what it really means, but I think it bodes well for Democrats this year.

Check out your Zip Code here.

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And we have Barbie on our side…

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I’m a proud member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. Please check out our work here. Subscribe! Become a paid subscriber if you can afford it. Please and thank you. We need you. Thanks for being part of the team! Want to buy me lunch or a cup of coffee? Venmo @Robert-Leonard-238. My friend Spencer Dirks and I have a podcast titled the Iowa Revolution. Check it out! We can get ornery. And have fun! I also publish Cedar Creek Nature Notes, about Violet the Dog and my adventures on our morning walks at Cedar Bluffs Natural Area in Mahaska County, Iowa.

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