The video below is chilling, and I honestly could not believe it when I first saw it. According to The Guardian:
“Rumeysa Ozturk, a doctoral student in Boston detained on Tuesday by federal immigration agents in response to her pro-Palestinian activism, was on Wednesday evening being detained at the South Louisiana Ice processing center, according to the government’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detainee locator page.
“The transfer of Ozturk, a PhD student at Tufts University, appeared to violate a federal court order from Tuesday, which directed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Ice to give the court 48 hours’ notice before attempting to take her out of Massachusetts.
“After Ozturk’s transfer to Louisiana emerged from the online locator, the federal judge ordered DHS and Ice to respond to an emergency request in court on Wednesday to produce Ozturk, by 9am ET on Thursday.”
The article cites an ICE official who claimed that Ozturk’s student visa (she is a Fulbright scholar at Tufts) was revoked because of her purported support of Hamas and not because she had committed any crime.
The thuggish nature of this action was clearly calculated to intimidate. The message is clear: if a student shows any sympathy for Palestinians, she cannot assume that she will be afforded the right of free speech. This action is not isolated and it is consistent with the Trump Administration’s conflation of anti-semitism with support for the right of self-determination for the Palestinian people.
The video should provoke outrage among those who believe in the First Amendment. So far, it has been overshadowed by the firestorm over the critical security failure of the Trump foreign policy team. But we should all imagine ourselves in Ozturk’s shoes and how dangerous the deportation policy is to the freedoms of citizens and non-citizens.
Today honors Dr. Martin Luther King for his role in protecting the civil rights of every American. His genius was in understanding his audience. When he delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington, DC in August 1963, he knew that his primary audience was white Americans and his objective in the speech was to make civil rights palatable to those who refused to grant equal rights to black Americans.
The speech came in two parts. The first was written out and he followed the script, laying out how the idea of equal rights was the bedrock of the Constitution even though the actual text of the Constitution institutionalized slavery. It is a careful and patient outline of how the black population has been denied civil rights by segregation and Jim Crow laws. This part of the speech was to make universal civil rights consistent with the values and ideals of the United States. Because it was written out, the first part of the speech relied upon logic and evidence and suffered from the typical flaws of a speech that was read and not delivered.
The second part was not written out but was a speech that he had often given to black Americans and it begins about 10 minutes in the video below. This part of the speech demonstrated the power of the spoken word and the full meaning of rhetoric. Mahalia Jackson, a gospel singer and close associate of King, encouraged him to leave off the logic and to rely upon the emotions that flow from a sense of liberation. She gave King the license to treat white America to the true feelings of black Americans:
“The story that has been told since that day has Mahalia Jackson intervening at a critical junction when she decided King’s speech needed a course-correction. Recalling a theme she had heard him use in earlier speeches, Jackson said out loud to Martin Luther King Jr., from behind the podium on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, “Tell them about the dream, Martin.” And at that moment, as can be seen in films of the speech, Dr. King leaves his prepared notes behind to improvise the entire next section of his speech—the historic section that famously begins “And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream….”
The result was one of the most powerful speeches in American history and a genuine turning point in the fight for civil rights. And the speech led to the Civil Rights Act of 1965 which laid the foundation for a more substantive understanding of what rights are. Those rights have since been extended to the rights of women and the gay community. More work needs to be done enhancing the rights of transgender individuals, disabled people, immigrants, and refugees. But King made these developments possible, and Americans should be grateful to King, and all those who supported him, for leading the way.
President Biden, in his final address to the nation as President, warned citizens against the danger of living in an oligarchy: “Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.” He was not the first President to warn of this danger. John Adams, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, wrote the following:
“9 July 1813
“Your “” [aristocrats] are the most difficult Animals to manage, of anything in the whole Theory and practice of Government. They will not suffer themselves to be governed. They not only exert all their own Subtilty Industry and courage, but they employ the Commonalty, to knock to pieces every Plan and Model that the most honest Architects in Legislation can invent to keep them within bounds. Both Patricians and Plebeians are as furious as the Workmen in England to demolish labour-saving Machinery.
“But who are these ““? Who shall judge? Who shall select these choice Spirits from the rest of the Congregation? Themselves? We must first find out and determine who themselves are. Shall the congregation choose? Ask Xenophon. Perhaps hereafter I may quote you Greek. Too much in a hurry at present, english must suffice. Xenophon says that the ecclesia, always chooses the worst Men they can find, because none others will do their dirty work. This wicked Motive is worse than Birth or Wealth. Here I want to quote Greek again. But the day before I received your Letter of June 27. I gave the Book to George Washington Adams going to the Accadamy at Hingham. The Title is a Collection of Moral Sentences from all the most Ancien[t] Greek Poets. In one of the oldest of them I read in greek that I cannot repeat, a couplet the Sense of which was
“‘Nobility in Men is worth as much as it is in Horses Asses or Rams: but the meanest blooded Puppy, in the World, if he gets a little money, is as good a man as the best of them.’ Yet Birth and Wealth together have prevailed over Virtue and Talents in all ages. The Many, will acknowledge no other ““. Your Experience of This Truth, will not much differ from that of your old Friend.”
Most Americans are unfamiliar with the word “oligarchy” since the Republic has tried very hard since its inception to convey the sense of equality best expressed in Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence. It would be years before any American President emphasized the idea of equality over that of freedom. Lincoln did so in his second Inaugural Address. For the first time, an American President declared that slavery was incompatible with the values of the American people, notwithstanding the inclusion of slavery in the Constitution.
An oligarchy is a political system in which the wealthy direct the machinery of government to protect and enhance their interests as opposed to the interests of the citizenry. Brooke Harrington, a Sociology Professor at Dartmouth College wrote this for the Washington Post at the beginning of Trump’s first term:
“There are no laws against a president and his super-wealthy Cabinet using their power to benefit their own class. There is nothing that compels them to look beyond their privilege to address the needs of the citizenry.
“The problem with these prospective leaders is not their money. It’s that they — like Trump — seem more interested in what their country can do for them than in what they can do for their country.”
The concentration of wealth in the second Trump administration is staggering. The following table gives an idea of how concentrated wealth has become in recent years. Many of the people listed, like Musk, Bezos, and Zuckerberg, have actively solicited Trump on various matters and represent business interests that clearly constitute conflicts of interest with a number of important policy issues like freedom of speech in a digital world.
Source: Bloomberg, “Bloomberg Billionaires Index”, 18 January 2025, accessed at: Bloomberg Billionaires Index, on 19 January 2025
Many of these people have contributed a great deal of money to Trump’s inauguration and several of them have been quite visible in the upcoming Trump Administration. We also have a hard time realizing exactly what these numbers represent: a billion of anything is far removed from anything we come into daily contact. One way to comprehend these numbers is to translate them into more accessible terms:
If someone made one million dollars a year, they would make about $480.77 per hour and $3,846.15 per day.
On the other hand, making a billion dollars per year would mean about $480,769 per hour and $3,846,153.85 per day.
These 20 individuals possess more wealth than most countries in the world. Indeed, there are only 7 countries with GDPs larger than $3 trillion:
There are 186 countries in the world with GDPs less than $3 trillion. The combined population of these countries comprises 56% of the global population. But 20 people have more wealth than each of the 186 countries.
Concentrations of wealth lead inevitably to a distorted political system. Adam Smith was well aware of the dangers of concentrated wealth to the public interest:
“Not only the prejudices of the publick, but what is much more unconquerable, the private interests of many individuals, irresistibly oppose it. Were the officers of the army to oppose with the same zeal and unanimity any reduction in the number of forces, with which master manufacturers set themselves against every law that is likely to increase the number of their rivals in the home market; were the former to animate their soldiers, in the same manner as the latter enflame their workmen, to attack with violence and outrage the proposers of any such regulation; to attempt to reduce the army would be as dangerous as it has now become to attempt to diminish in any respect the monopoly which our manufacturers have obtained against us. This monopoly has so much increased the number of some particular tribes of them, that, like an overgrown standing army, they have become formidable to the government, and upon many occasions intimidate the legislature. The member of parliament who supports every proposal for strengthening this monopoly, is sure to acquire not only the reputation of understanding trade, but great popularity and influence with an order of men whose numbers and wealth render them of great importance. If he opposes them, on the contrary, and still more if he has authority enough to be able to thwart them, neither the most acknowledged probity, nor the highest rank, nor the greatest publick services can protect him from the most infamous abuse and detraction, from personal insults, nor sometimes from real danger, arising from the insolent outrage of furious and disappointed monopolists.”
This pattern was present as the Roman Republic began its descent into dictatorship. It was also evident in 13th Century Venice and in late-19th Century America. It is happening again, not only in the US, but in India, Russia, China, the low-population oil producers such as Kuwait, and Brazil. It is difficult to see how democracy can persist under these conditions. Active steps must be taken to create a more just distribution of wealth globally.
President-Elect Trump has nominated a distinctive group of individuals to serve in his Cabinet: With some exceptions, they are all wealthy individuals with little or no government experience but a lot of experience as hedge fund managers. We will have to wait to see how these individuals fare in the confirmation process, but their nominations suggest that Trump believes that such people will manage the economy well. That assumption will likely prove to be very wrong.
We have historical examples of similar decisions. For example, Venice was once a powerful city-state and a dominant force in the global economy in the 13th-15th Centuries. That wealth was based upon international trade and Venice’s ability to link Europe to Asia through the Silk Trade routes.
“This brings us to the great puzzle of Venetian history. During the period 1297–1323, a defining epoch in Venetian history known as the Serrata or “closure,” Venetian politics came under the control of a tightly knit cabal of the richest families. It was, in Norwich’s (1977, p. 181) words, the triumph of the oligarchs. Furthermore, by the early 1330s this political closure had spilled over into an economic closure that excluded poorer families from participation in the most lucrative aspects of international trade. Finally, by 1400 the political and economic closure had created a society characterized by a new emphasis on rank and hierarchy. In short, after 1323 there was a fundamental societal shift away from political openness, economic competition, and social mobility and toward political closure, extreme inequality, and social stratification.”
Ultimately, more dynamic economic centers emerged, such as Portugal, Spain, the Dutch, and Great Britain, finding a way to bypass the Venetian chokehold on the Silk Trade by finding alternative routes to Asia. Venice lost its economic vitality and declined into nothing more than a footnote in the history of the global economy.
The argument is straightforward: rather than continuing to innnovate under the pressures of competition (such as the need to find a sea route to Asia), wealthy individuals tend to use political power to protect their interests through laws. That political power is then used to insulate existing techniques and technologies from externally induced change. Those industries become less efficient over time and economic growth slows as a result.
That same process seems to be in play in the US today. Robert Reich outlines the process in the YouTube video, “Wealth Inequality Explained”:
The composition of Trump’s Cabinet fits into this mold perfectly. In a broader cocntext, the process seems to be affecting many different countries in the world, as globalization produces distorted economic outcomes. Trevor Jackson describes the dynamic in his recent essay on theNew York Review of Books:
“For decades now, the ideology of free-market liberalism has obfuscated the ongoing distributive conflicts of the world, but it has not blunted the material suffering of the people on the losing end. Since the 2008 crisis, the reality of ruthless distributive conflict has become impossible to ignore, but the failure of market liberalism to reconcile political equality and economic inequality has produced a global crisis of legitimacy and a growing constituency amenable to antiliberal figures like Trump, Orbán, Modi, and Bolsonaro.”
The anger against the prevailing patterns of wealth distribution is not only found in political outcomes. The astonishing amount of support for the alleged assassin, Luigi Mangione, reflects the degree of animosity toward the “undeserving” rich. If the Democratic Party needs to make a decision about how to orient its platform for the future, it would be well-advised to concentrate exclusively on the process of redistributing wealth and breaking up the political power of economic interests.
In 1935, Sinclair Lewis published a book entitled It Can’t Happen Here about the election of a Fascist President in the United States. It is a creepy read (and not a particularly good book, but I do not think that Lewis really wanted to write great book–just a book with an important warning to Americans. Americans very rarely think about Fascism in the US, but that is due to willful amnesia. Former President Trump’s rally in Madison Square Garden reminded some of the Nazi rally that was held there in February 1939.
Nazi Rally at Madison Square Garden, 20 February 1939
The Nazi movement grew out of the virulently racist period after the Civil War that spawned the Jim Crow laws that institutionally segregated African-Americans. We are familiar with the images of the Ku Klux Klan, but there was a more explicit movement marrying fascism with institutionalized racism which was known as the Black Legion:
“The Black Legion was a spinoff of the so-called Second Ku Klux Klan, which flourished in the 1920s, fusing anti-Catholicism and antisemitism with anti-Black racism. Strongest in the North — with 500,000 members in Ohio alone — it fell apart by the decade’s end in the face of internal scandals and public denunciations. A doctor in Bellaire, Ohio, named William Shepard founded the Black Legion in 1924. He painted KKK robes black and added pirate imagery and an even greater obsession with militarism and secrecy. By 1935 the Black Legion had grown to hundreds of thousands of members nationwide, largely in the Upper Midwest but spreading to at least 21 states. No one really knows how big it was.”
The Regalia of the Black Legion
The Black Legion grew as Fascism became prevalent in Europe in the early 20th Century. It was a dynamic movement, starting with the first Fascist state in Italy in 1920 (although one could argue that Hungary was actually the first after the collapse of the Soviet Republic of Hungary founded by Béla Kun). By 1940, the only European states not ruled by a fascist party were Great Britain and Switzerland (one could argue that the Swiss worked closely with the Nazis). It was an amazing transformation in the space of only 20 years, counterbalanced by the emergence of the communist brand of totalitarianism in the Soviet Union.
Map of Fascist regimes in Europe in 1940
As Americans vote today, we should all be reminded of the Fascist history in the US. It is not necessarily a fluke in American culture, but rather a persistent presence. It can happen here.
” [aristocrats] are the most difficult Animals to manage, of anything in the whole Theory and practice of Government. They will not suffer themselves to be governed. They not only exert all their own Subtilty Industry and courage, but they employ the Commonalty, to knock to pieces every Plan and Model that the most honest Architects in Legislation can invent to keep them within bounds. Both Patricians and Plebeians are as furious as the Workmen in England to demolish labour-saving Machinery.
a Collection of Moral Sentences from all the most Ancien[t] Greek Poets. In one of the oldest of them I read in greek that I cannot repeat, a couplet the Sense of which was
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