The Oligarchs’ Coup: America’s Democracy Under Siege

Timothy D. Synder, professor of history at Yale and author of On Tyranny, among many other books, summarizes the oligarchs’ coup and America’s democracy under siege. 

1.     American democracy may not survive another Trump campaign [Business Insider]

2.     Timothy Snyder on How Corporate America Is Bending to Trump [Democracy NOW!]

3.     Who is Viktor Orban, Hungarian PM with 14-year grip on power? [BBC]

4.     How Viktor Orban pulled off the unthinkable: Hungary’s Descent Into Dictatorship [FP]

5.     Did America Just Vote to End Democracy? [Kettering Org.]

6.     The End of American Democracy [IPS]

7.     Trump's movements as a 'regime change' towards authoritarianism [NPR]

Contact That's Life, I Swear

• Visit my website: https://www.thatslifeiswear.com
• Twitter at @RedPhantom
• Bluesky at @rickbarron.bsky.social
• Email us at https://www.thatslifeiswear.com/contact/

Episode Review

• Submit on Apple Podcast
• Submit on That's Life, I Swear website

Other topics?

• Do you have topics of interest you'd like to hear for future podcasts? Please email us
  
  

Listen to podcast audios

• Apple https://apple.co/3MAFxhb
• Spotify https://spoti.fi/3xCzww4
• My Website: https://bit.ly/39CE9MB
  
  

Other

• Music and/or Sound Effects are courtesy of Pixabay
  
  

Thank you for following the That's Life I Swear podcast!!

Transcript

⏱️ 16 min read            

What is a country? A set of borders? A flag? Or is it something deeper—the way its people govern themselves? Right now, that foundation is under attack. 

The very idea of democracy, of citizenship, of America itself, is being dismantled in plain sight. 

Here’s an unraveling and chilling reality to ponder: a deliberate effort to seize power, dismantle government, and reshape the nation for the few oligarchs, is happening. We’ve been played at the expense of the many. Do we roll over or fight? 

INTRO: Welcome to That's Life, I Swear.  This podcast is about life's happenings in this world that conjure up such words as intriguing, frightening, life-changing, inspiring, and more. I'm Rick Barron your host. 

That said, here's the rest of this story 

I read a lot—books, newspapers, and my iPad, always on the lookout for intriguing articles to write about. Recently, I came across an article by Timothy D. Synder, professor of history at Yale and author of On Tyranny, among many other books, summarizes the perilous moment we are now in.

In the article, Timothy Synder, shares his thoughts on the current turmoil now embracing the United States via Trump, Musk and the rest of the oligarchs, now having their way with our democracy.

As I began writing the script for this podcast episode, I realized that to truly capture the essence of the story, it was best to let Mr. Synder own words do the talking. So today, you’ll hear the article he wrote in his own words. It’s only right.

Let’s jump into this. 

THE LOGIC OF DESTRUCTION - AND HOW TO RESIST IT

By DR. TIMOTHY D. SNYDER, Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University

What is a country? The way its people govern themselves. America exists because its people elect those who make and execute laws. The assumption of a democracy is that individuals have dignity and rights that they realize and protect by acting together.

The people who now dominate the executive branch of the government deny all of this, and are acting, quite deliberately, to destroy the nation. For them, only a few people, the very wealthy with a certain worldview, have rights, and the first among these is to dominate.

For them, there is no such thing as an America, or Americans, or democracy, or citizens, and they act accordingly. Now that the oligarchs and their clients are inside the federal government, they are moving, illegally and unconstitutionally, to take over its institutions.

The parts of the government that work to implement laws have been maligned for decades. Americans have been told that the people who provide them with services are conspirators within a “deep state.” We have been instructed that the billionaires are the heroes.

All of this work was preparatory to the coup that is going on now. The federal government has immense capacity and control over trillions of dollars. That power was a cocreation of the American people. It belongs to them. The oligarchs around Trump are working now to take it for themselves.

Theirs is a logic of destruction. It is very hard to create a large, legitimate, functioning government. The oligarchs have no plan to govern. They will take what they can, and disable the rest. The destruction is the point. They don’t want to control the existing order. They want disorder in which their relative power will grow.

Think of the federal government as a car. You might have thought that the election was like getting the car serviced. Instead, when you come into the shop, the mechanics, who somehow don’t look like mechanics, tell you that they have taken the parts of your car that work and sold them and kept the money. And that this was the most efficient thing to do. And that you should thank them.

The gap between the oligarchs’ wealth and everyone else’s will grow. Knowing what they themselves will do and when, they will have bet against the stock market in advance of Trump’s deliberately destructive tariffs and will be ready to tell everyone to buy the crypto they already own. But that is just tomorrow and the day after.

In general, the economic collapse they plan is more like a reverse flood from the Book of Genesis, in which the righteous will all be submerged while the very worst ride Satan’s ark. The self-chosen few will ride out the forty days and forty nights. When the waters subside, they will be alone to dominate.

Trump’s tariffs (which are also likely illegal) are there to make us poor. Trump’s attacks on America’s closest friends, countries such as Canada and Denmark, are there to make enemies of countries where constitutionalism works and people are prosperous. As their country is destroyed, Americans must be denied the idea that anything else is possible.

Deportations are a spectacle to turn Americans against one another, to make us afraid, and to get us to see pain and camps as normal. They also create busy-work for law enforcement, locating the “criminals” in workplaces across the country, as the crime of the century takes place at the very center of power.

The best people in American federal law enforcement, national security, and national intelligence are being fired. The reasons given for this are DEI and Trump washing the past. Of course, if you fire everyone who was concerned in some way with the investigations of January 6th or of Russia, that will be much or even most of the FBI. Those are bad reasons, but the reality is worse: the aim is lawlessness: to get the police and the patriots out of the way.

In the logic of destruction, there is no need to rebuild afterwards. In this chaos, the oligarchs will tell us that there is no choice but to have a strong man in charge. It can be a befuddled Trump signing ever larger pieces of paper for the cameras, or a conniving Vance who, unlike Trump, has always known the plot. Or someone else.

After we are all poor and isolated, the logic goes, we will be consoled by the thought that there is at least a human being to whom we can appeal. We will settle for a kind of anthropological minimum, wishful contact with the strong man. As in Russia, pathetic video selfies sent to the Leader will be the extent of politics.

For the men currently pillaging the federal government, the data from those video selfies is more important than the people who will make them. The new world they imagine is not just anti-American but anti-human. The people are just data, means to the end of accumulating wealth.

They see themselves as the servants of the freedom of the chosen few, but in fact they are possessed, like millennia of tyrants before them, of fantastic dreams: they will live forever, they will go to Mars. None of that will happen; they will die here on Earth, with the rest of us, their only legacy, if we let it happen, one of ruins. They are God-level brain rotted.

The attempt by the oligarchs to destroy our government is illegal, unconstitutional, and more than a little mad. The people in charge, though, are very intelligent politically, and have a plan. I describe it not because it must succeed but because it must be described so that we can make it fail. This will require clarity, speed, and coalitions. I try to capture the mood in my little book On Tyranny. Here are a few ideas.

If you voted Republican, and you care about your country, please act rather than rationalize. Unless you cast your ballot so that South African oligarchs could steal your data, your money, your country, and your future, make it known to your elected officials that you wanted something else. And get ready to protest with people with whom you otherwise disagree.

Almost everything that has happened during this attempted takeover is illegal. Lawsuits can be filed, and courts can order that executive orders be halted. This is crucial work.

Much of what is happening, though, involves private individuals whose names are not even known, and who have no legal authority, wandering through government offices and issuing orders beyond even the questionable authority of executive orders. Their idea is that they will be immunized by their boldness. This must be proven wrong.

Some of this will reach the Supreme Court quickly. I am under no illusion that the majority of justices care about the rule of law. They know, however, that our belief in it makes their office something other than the undignified handmaiden of oligarchy. If they legalize the coup, they are irrelevant forever.

Individual Democrats in the Senate and House have legal and institutional tools to slow down the attempted oligarchical takeover. There should also be legislation. It might take a moment, but even Republican leaders might recognize that the Senate and House will no longer matter in a post-American oligarchy without citizens.

Trump should obviously be impeached. Either he has lost control, or he is using his power to do obviously illegal things. If Republicans have a sense of where this is going, there could be the votes for an impeachment and prosecution.

Those considering impeachment should also include Vance. He is closer to the relevant oligarchs than Trump, and more likely to be aware of the logic of destruction than he. The oligarchs have likely factored in, or perhaps even want, the impeachment and prosecution of Trump. Unlike Vance, Trump has charisma and followers and could theoretically resist them. He won’t; but he poses a hypothetical risk to the oligarchs that Vance does not.

Democrats who serve in state office as governors have a chance to profile themselves, or more importantly to profile an America that still works. Attorneys general in states have a chance to enforce state laws, which will no doubt have been broken.

The Democratic Party has a talented new chair. Democrats will need instruments of active opposition, such as a People’s Cabinet, in which prominent Democrats take responsibility for following government departments. It would be really helpful to have someone who can report to the press and the people what is happening inside Justice, Defense, Transportation, and the Treasury, and all the others, starting this week.

Federal workers should stay in office, if they can, for as long as they can. This is not political, but existential, for them and for all of us. They will have a better chance of getting jobs afterwards if they are fired. And the logic of their firing is to make the whole government fail. The more this can be slowed down, the longer the rest of us have to get traction.

And companies? As every CEO knows, the workings of markets depend upon the government creating a fair playing field. The ongoing takeover will make life impossible for all but a few companies. Can American companies responsibly pay taxes to a US Treasury controlled by their private competitors? Tesla paid no federal tax at all in 2024. Should other companies pay taxes that, for all they know, will just enrich Tesla’s owner?

Commentators should please stop using words such as “digital” and “progress” and “efficiency” and “vision” when describing this coup attempt. The plotting oligarchs have legacy money from an earlier era of software, which they are now seeking to leverage, using destructive political techniques, to destroy human institutions. That’s it. They are offering no future beyond acting out their midlife crises on the rest of us. It is demeaning to pretend that they represent something besides a logic of destruction.

As for the rest of us: Make sure you are talking to people and doing something. The logic of “move fast and break things,” like the logic of all coups, is to gain quick dramatic successes that deter and demoralize and create the impression of inevitability. Nothing is inevitable. Do not be alone and do not be dismayed. Find someone who is doing something you admire and join them.

What is a country? The way its people govern themselves. Sometimes self-government just means elections. And sometimes it means recognizing the deeper dignity and meaning of what it means to be a people. That means speaking up, standing out, and protesting. We can only be free together. 

What can we learn from this story? What's the takeaway? 

This piece is a stark warning about the fragility of democracy and the urgent need for collective action to resist authoritarianism. 

The author argues that a small group of oligarchs is deliberately dismantling American democratic institutions for their own gain, using chaos and division to consolidate power. 

The core lesson is that democracy is not self-sustaining—it requires active participation, vigilance, and resistance against those who seek to undermine it.

Key takeaways:

1. Democracy requires active engagement – Citizens must recognize their role in preserving democratic institutions and act to defend them.
2. Authoritarianism thrives on division and apathy – The strategy of those in power is to divide the population, create economic instability, and normalize lawlessness to justify their control.
3. Resistance is necessary and possible – Legal action, protest, and coalition-building across ideological divides are essential tools to counter this assault on democracy.
4. Nothing is inevitable – The destruction of democracy is not predetermined. The outcome depends on whether people recognize the threat and take meaningful action.

Ultimately, Synder’s article serves as both a dire warning and a call to action: democracy will only survive if people fight for it.

Elon Musk is running the show, Trump is golfing [10 of the 30 days in office], Congress is asleep, Musk is controlling the money and destroying the Constitution.

By the way, dump your Tesla stock and hurt Elon where he’ll feel it.

Well, there you go, my friends; that's life, I swear

For further information regarding the material covered in this episode, I invite you to visit my website, which you can find on Apple Podcasts for show notes and the episode transcript.

As always, I thank you for the privilege of you listening and your interest. 

Be sure to subscribe here or wherever you get your podcast so you don't miss an episode. 

And we’ll see you soon.