On Friday, liberal radio host Thom Hartmann was breaking out the word "oligarch" again to define wealthy conservatives, in this case Rupert Murdoch: "Roger Ailes and his billionaire oligarch owner, Rupert Murdoch, own and define the Republican party, and so none of the questions that would have shown the Republicans for the extremists that they are were asked [at the Iowa debate]."
It's rich for Hartmann to talk about "extremists" in the same show he's talking up nationalizing the Federal Reserve System like he's on the staff of Dennis Kucinich. Last Tuesday, the Koch brothers were the dangerously powerful American oligarchs in Hartmann's rhetorical sights. A caller suggested they were "dictators," and Hartmann replied:
People talk about the Russian oligarchs. There's no Russian oligarchs who are as [politically] powerful [as the Kochs]. At least Vladimir Putin stops the oligarchs in Russia from participating in politics. One of 'em tried to. He's sitting in jail right now. [Putin] says, 'You can make all the money you want, but don't get political on me,' and [the Kochs], as you point out, are trying to take over our political system, and they're not elected to anything by anybody.
To Hartmann, Russia is superior because it doesn't allegedly doesn't allow the capitalists in politics. Later, in a talk with John Nichols of The Nation magazine, Hartmann returned to form (and added the DeVos family in Michigan that's run Amway):
In America, we have oligarchs [such as] the Koch brothers [and] the DeVos family...In Russia, they have oligarchs, but in Russia, when the oligarchs try to participate in politics, Vladimir Putin puts 'em in prison [Hartmann and Nichols chuckle]. Here, when they try to participate in politics, they end up owning the system. I'm not advocating Putin's policies, by the way. I just find it ironic.
Thom's wife Louise Hartmann added to that line with a commentary on the Hartmann website proclaiming "Democracy Died First in Wisconsin: Long Live the Oligarchs" after Republicans won four of six recall elections in Wisconsin:
And so now we enter the battle of the oligarchs over the next fifteen or so months. As the old saying goes, when the elephants fight, the mice get trampled. In this case, the mice aren’t just the voters. It’s democracy itself. America is now – demonstrably, as proven by Wisconsin – just a few years away from the possibility of a totally corrupted, totally billionaire- and corporate-controlled political system. Political scientists call it oligarchy.
The Citizens United election experiment is over, and the oligarchs won. Long live the oligarchy.
