We've been under the rule of an ever increasing oligarchy for decades now. In fact one could argue that we're now in our fourth period of oligarchial rule. The first was the colonial rule of the British. It took a revolution to break that. However oligarchs almost immediately took over, mainly from the South. It is no accident that four of our first five presidents was a southern slave owner, nor that our Founding Fathers came from the elite rich.
Washington was the richest man in the country at the time. Nor is it an accident that the Constitution at the time favored the southern oligarchs, from the Electoral College, to the election of Senators, to the disenfranchisement of over half the population. The Founding Fathers didn't like democracy, likening it to mob rule, so they put just a thin veneer of democracy over their oligarchy, just enough to pacify the population.
This lasted until the Civil War blew it apart, destroying the economic base of the southern oligarchy. Sadly, with the end of Reconstruction, combined withe the accelerated industrialization brought about by the Civil War, our third period of oligarchy came about, commonly known as the Gilded Age. Politicians were bought and sold, African Americans were brutally suppressed by Jim Crow laws, unions were violently put down, and women still weren't allowed to vote until a mere nine years before it all came crashing down with the Great Depression.
We were fortunate that FDR was able to step in and save capitalism from itself. In the process he put some serious checks on the oligarchy, checks that kept it from starting to reform until the early seventies with Nixon. Factors such as the Southern Strategy, the Powell Memorandum(and subsequent appointment of Louis Powell to the Supreme Court), the rise of evangelical Christianity as a theocratic power, capped off and accelerated by the Reagan/Bush years. During that time oligarchy came rushing back in force, increasingly making the money game of elections more and more important, and our votes matter less.
This led us to Citizens United, and where we are today, virtually a democracy in name only, with the big money players calling the shots while we the people are almost entirely ignored. The curtains have been pulled back, the stage set struck, and we are facing that proverbial brick wall, to paraphrase Frank Zappa.
Will we even notice when democracy is gone? I contend that the better question is, except for a few brief moments, was democracy ever really here?
= new reply since forum marked as read