Our Failing Constitution

INTRODUCTION

My name is Hugh Butler and I am a retired bankruptcy attorney. I have been a soldier, a veteran, a husband, a father, a lawyer, a small business owner, a grandfather, a caretaker (of a cancer patient), an author, a cancer survivor, and an entrepreneur. I am a reasonably intelligent person and have three degrees; a B.S. in Physics, a M.B.A., and a J.D. (law degree). I have watched current events unfold in the United States for most of my 74 years. I am writing this book because I want a better future for my grandchildren, whom I love so much, and your grandchildren. I want to do my part to create a better future for them and feel that writing this book is the best way for me to do that. Please note that everything in this book is my opinion based on my own personal experience and my personal research.

One of the lessons I have learned over my lifetime is to pay a lot of attention to the basics, the foundation, and the fundamentals of every problem and situation. When my wife and I look at cars, she talks about the color of the paint, the leather upholstery, and its sleek shape. I might as well have X-ray vision because I want to know what kind of frame (foundation) the car has. What is the tensile strength of the steel used? What is its thickness? Is it a C-section frame or a box (closed section) frame? How many cross-members does it have? What kind of engine does it have? What kind of transmission does it have? What kind of differential does it have? Don’t talk to me about the paint job until the chassis passes scrutiny. When I look at a potential house to buy, the first thing I do is take a careful look at the foundation by walking around the house. Are there any hairline cracks in the foundation? Are there any cracks in the mortar joints of the bricks? My watchword is that if you want a good result, start with a good foundation.

Taking that viewpoint into politics and our Government, I started thinking about the Constitution of the United States of America (CUSA), which is the foundation of our Republic, and which is reproduced in its entirety in Appendix III. Unfortunately, my prognosis for our Constitution is not good after looking at its performance over time. It is an antiquated and inflexible document that is failing to address an increasing number of important issues to the point where it is now ineffective. If this trend continues over time, our Constitution will fail and our Country will plunge into chaos, anarchy, and revolution, a scenario that I don’t want. We need to change the trajectory of our predicted future and the only way to do that is by all of us pulling together in the same direction to effect change in our fundamental governing document.

I think that one of our common oversights as individuals is that we get so consumed in our daily personal lives with raising our families, making a living, and just going through all the trials and tribulations of life, that we don’t take the time to look at long-term, macro trends which are not noticeable on a day-to-day basis. We tend to not to see the forest for the trees. It seems that one day is just like the next and we go on with our lives; we don’t notice the freight train barreling down the tracks at 80 mph until it is right on top of us. We look up, but it’s too late. We are going to get smacked.

While I was working on this book during 2017, for most of the year the major problem I had identified was the election of Donald Trump. Unfortunately, upon additional research, Donald Trump is not our fundamental long-term problem; he is our short-term problem and the symptom of the underlying long-term problems that our current Constitution is totally incapable of constructively addressing. If we were successful in impeaching Donald Trump, then Republicans would nominate (and elect) someone just as bad (or worse) for President of the United States, although it is difficult to imagine how someone could be worse than Donald Trump as President of the United States.

So what are the basic factors or forces that propelled Donald Trump to victory through the Republican Party? What I have identified is the confluence of:

A.The huge, long-standing, covert, on-going campaign and conspiracy, funded with billions of dollars, by a subset of ultra-wealthy Americans (net worth in excess of $50,000,000.00) to radicalize our Electorate and bend our political system to their primary objective, which is to promote, protect, and defend their wealth, all as more fully set out in Jane Mayer’s incredible book, Dark Money²;

B.The cumulative impact of the ongoing lies, misstatements, and propaganda of Fox News (and right-wing talk radio shows delivering similar messages³) on a substantial percentage of the American Electorate, who are susceptible and vulnerable to such propaganda, all as more fully set out in the book by David Brock, Ari Ravin-Havt, and Media Matters, The Fox Effect, How Roger Ailes turned a Network into a Propaganda Machine⁴;

C.The impact of the covert Russian campaign to influence our 2016 election in favor of Donald Trump, as has been well documented in the news media and by government reports.⁵

All three of the above malevolent forces have been interacting with and inflaming the racial prejudice of a substantial percentage of Caucasian (White) American voters, whose preexisting racial prejudice, in my opinion, makes them predisposed to accept said propaganda as factual, and who have turned into a monolithic block of voters who will consistently vote against their own economic interests and vote Republican, regardless of the facts, no matter what.

Unfortunately, what we are currently seeing with Donald Trump and today’s Republican Party has happened before in Germany during the 1920’s and 1930’s with the rise of Adolph Hitler to the Chancellorship of Germany, enabled by his fanatical National Socialist German Workers Party (NAZI) followers, as he blamed the Jews for Germany’s problems.⁶ There are eerie similarities between Hitler’s rise to power⁷ and Trump and today’s Republican Party, as Trump uses immigrants (and therefore people of color) as scapegoats for our problems. We had better start paying attention to these similarities if we don’t want to relive here in the United States what happened to Germany during the Second World War. George Santayana coined the saying, Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.⁸ Believe It!

That’s our underlying problem, this ongoing, un-American, internal subversion in the United States, aided and abetted by Russia, that our current Constitution has proven totally incapable of dealing with, because our Founding Fathers, in my opinion, could not imagine that American citizens would be willing to put their personal wealth and interests ahead of our Country.

Now let’s turn to our short-term problem and the symptom of this underlying scenario described above, Donald Trump. We need to start thinking of Donald Trump as our American Adolph Hitler as follows:

A.Trump has proven to be a compulsive and pathological liar,⁹ while Hitler was a master propagandist.¹⁰ Trump consistently alleged that Barrack Obama was not born in the United States¹¹ to send a message of his racial prejudice to his soon-to-be supporters that he was on their side (the racially prejudiced side).

B.Both Hitler¹² and Trump had huge egos. I believe that Donald Trump has a colossal, ravenous, insatiable, and malignant ego.¹³ His ego is the size of Mount Everest, just like Adolph Hitler’s ego. His ego owns him, body and soul, and controls everything he does. His ego is like an 800-pound monkey on his back. It’s hungry and it’s going to get fed. It’s going to keep him in the limelight regardless of what it takes. It’s so large that it needs a huge amount of food(attention, praise, and glorification) to satisfy it every day.

Not only is his ego hungry, but it is going to defend itself and deny any input that is inconsistent with it, namely that Donald Trump is the greatest, smartest, most brilliant, most superior person on the planet. Since he is infallible and without blemish, any input from reality that is inconsistent or contradictory to his ego-view must be denied and dismissed. His ego defense means that he is significantly out of touch with reality at all times.¹⁴

Hence the constant and compulsive lying to change the facts and reality to comport with his ego-view. The hardest thing in the world for Donald Trump is to tell the truth, for the truth is not in him.¹⁵ When he lies, he speaks his native language, just like Adolph Hitler was a chronic and pathological liar.¹⁶

Try to see the invisible 800 pound monkey on Donald Trump’s back that controls his every action; try to understand its voracious appetite for more and more attention, adulation, and glorification. Understand that not only is this monkey hungry and going to get fed, but that it will defend itself against anything that is inconsistent with its ego-view(for instance, that Russia interfered with our 2016 Election). Try to understand that Donald Trump is an addict, an addict to his out-of-control ego, and that he manifests the same behavior as any other addict when accused or confronted with their on-going addiction, lie and deny, attack the accuser, blame someone else, and look somewhere else.

C.Both Hitler¹⁷ and Trump¹⁸ aspired to be in total control of the government in spite of their Oath of Office; both men swore to uphold their respective Constitutions.

D.Both Hitler¹⁹ and Trump ²⁰ had zero regard for our precious civil liberties.

E.Both Hitler²¹ and Trump²² were completely without integrity.

F.They both were die-hard racists. Hitler defined the Swastika as the symbol of the struggle for the victory of the Aryan man²³ while Trump gave aid and comfort to the White Supremacists,²⁴ including the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), at the Charlottesville riots.

G.They were both proponents of inflicting spiritual (psychological) terror by releasing a barrage of lies and propaganda²⁵ against their political opponents. Trump’s practice of trashing his opponents²⁶ is straight out of Hitler’s playbook.

H.They were both proponents of human torture. Hitler, of course, inflicted torture on millions of people during his ascension to power in the Third Reich through the Gestapo, the SS, and culminating in the Holocaust and the elimination of 6,000,000 Jews at Auschwitz and other death camps.²⁷ Trump has repeatedly and consistently called for the expanded use of torture²⁸ by the United States and the trampling of human rights and freedoms.

The only differences I can see between them is that Adolph Hitler was not a coward. He volunteered for an infantry regiment of the German Army in 1914, served honorably at the Western Front for four years, was wounded twice, and was decorated twice.²⁹ Donald Trump has never served our country and received five college deferments during the Vietnam War³⁰ while other Americans were drafted and served honorably in Vietnam; many of them came home in body bags. Also, Hitler did not have a family, while Trump appears to have a nice family. We need to start seeing Donald Trump for what he is, our American Adolph Hitler, and his Administration for what it is, an American racist, neo-Nazi Administration, which will destroy our Liberties, our Democracy, and our Nation if given a chance. We need to start seeing that invisible Swastika armband that goes with him everywhere. He needs to be impeached immediately. Do not underestimate the threat this man poses to all of us.

I look at our failing Constitution like that freight train. The chaos, anarchy, and revolution caused by its complete failure are coming down the tracks at 80 mph and symbolized by Donald J. Trump, the man whose campaign intentionally and knowingly solicited and accepted illegal and criminal help from Russia to influence our 2016 Presidential Election.³¹ The man who sold out his country to become Commander-In-Chief and who dishonors every American who ever died for their Country in the uniform of the United States. I call that treason. When he steps onto the grounds of Arlington National Cemetery, an alarm should go off, screaming, Traitor, Traitor, Traitor, and he should be sprayed with the indelible dye used to foil bank robbers. The man does not have a molecule of integrity in his entire body. He will go down in history as the greatest American traitor since Benedict Arnold.

As previously mentioned, Donald Trump is not our primary problem. He is a problem, but not our primary problem. He was elected in the Republican Primary by a radicalized Republican base, who had their choice of several well-qualified and well-meaning candidates, including Jeb Bush, John Kasich, and Carly Fiorina, and which devoutly ignored all of them in favor of Donald Trump. Our primary problem is the huge, long-standing, secret, ongoing conspiracy, funded by billions of dollars by a subset of the ultra-wealthy in this Country to radicalize our politics³² by inflaming racial prejudice in order to promote, protect, and defend their wealth, as substantially enabled by the ongoing propaganda emanating from Fox News³³ (and right-wing talk radio shows delivering similar messages³⁴).

An oligarchy is defined by Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary as A government in which a small group exercises control, especially for corrupt and selfish purposes.³⁵ Say hello to it, for the American Oligarchy of the radical ultra-wealthy now controls the United States Government with a Republican President, a Republican House of Representatives, a Republican Senate, and a Republican majority in the Supreme Court of the United States. This successful effort by the radical ultra-wealthy to take over our politics and Government has been aided and abetted by Fox News³⁶ with their never-ending presentation of politically-motivated propaganda and the Russians³⁷. Say hello to the government of the ultra-wealthy, by the ultra-wealthy, and for the ultra-wealthy. Say hello to the American Oligarchy.

Our Democracy has been (hopefully temporarily) successfully co-opted by a shadow network of a subset of the ultra-wealthy and their organizations in this Country through their defacto operational takeover of the Republican Party, based on the psychological conditioning and indoctrination of Republican voters through Fox News³⁸ and right-wing talk radio³⁹. We need a modern Constitution that is capable of meeting and defeating these internal and external un-American and subversive efforts.

PROLOGUE

Summer, 2015

I was initially favorably impressed with Donald Trump when he announced his campaign for President, even though I’m generally a Democrat. I thought, Well, he’s smart, he’s run a large organization successfully, he has a lot of international (business) experience, and he has a nice family. Let’s take a look at him. Then, early in the campaign, he made those terrible comments about Megyn Kelly⁴⁰ and Carli Fiorina.⁴¹ I thought, What kind of man would talk like that about a woman? I was particularly infuriated by his remarks about Carli Fiorina, a lovely lady who has had to bear the heartache of losing a child, and who deserves our greatest respect and sympathy. My answer was, "He (Donald Trump) was a man without integrity or decency." Please note that everything in this book and this section is my opinion based on my own personal experience and my personal research.

March 2016

Trump was being interviewed by Anderson Cooper of CNN during the Republican Primary. His main opponent at that time was Ted Cruz, the U.S. Senator from Texas. Trump had tweeted an extremely unflattering photo of Heidi Cruz, Ted Cruz’s wife, along with a glamor shot of his own wife, Melania Trump. When asked about the picture of Heidi Cruz, Trump said, I thought it was a nice picture of Heidi.⁴² I said to myself, This man is a liar.

November 8, 2016

I was watching CNN and sweating out the presidential election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Trump was doing surprisingly well, but I was still hopeful that Hillary would win. All of a sudden, CNN called Florida for Trump. I leapt up from the couch and screamed, She’s going to lose. I was unbelievably upset and thought, We are going to actually be giving the nuclear codes of the United States to Donald Trump!! What could possibly be worse? I believe that Donald Trump will lead us into a depression and bankruptcy domestically and the Great American Sellout of our friends and allies around the World, particularly our NATO and European Allies, in the foreign policy arena. It is inevitable that he will lead us into a war because his ego will demand the attention accorded a war-time President. I just hope it’s not a nuclear war.

This is the second time this century that a Presidential candidate has been elected after losing the popular vote, thanks to our Constitution’s antiquated electoral college system. Just think how different (and better) our Country and the World would be if Al Gore and Hillary Clinton had been elected by popular vote instead of George W. Bush⁴³ and Donald J. Trump⁴⁴ being elected by our Constitutional Electoral College system. We would be so much farther ahead in reducing carbon emissions and cleaning up our World Environment.⁴⁵ We wouldn’t have anywhere near the National Deficit that we have now.⁴⁶ We wouldn’t have gotten into the Iraq War based on the lies and deception of the Bush Administration about Saddam Hussein being in possession of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons.⁴⁷ The election of Donald J. Trump prompted me to take a good hard look at our Constitution, the foundation of our Country and Democracy.

January 23,2017

Well, it only took Donald Trump three days to start the Great American Sellout of our friends and allies around the World with the signing of a memorandum withdrawing the United States from the pending Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement,⁴⁸ signaling to the World that we are unreliable allies, and turning our back on the following friends, allies, and potential allies in the Far East and the Americas:

Australia

Brunei Darussalam

Canada

Chile

Japan

Malaysia

Mexico

New Zealand

Peru

Singapore

Vietnam

I regard this action as a colossal strategic blunder that jeopardizes the future National Security of the United States in the Far East. As you may have heard on the news, China is asserting sovereignty over the South China Sea as their territorial waters,⁴⁹ continuing their historic expansionist drive to gain adjoining territories.⁵⁰ Four of the above countries border the South China Sea: Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam. If we had gone forward with ratifying the TPP, we would have had to maintain trade routes and our presence throughout the South China Sea and would have kept Communist China in check.

However, our withdrawal from the TPP opens the door for China to take our place as the preeminent Asian power in the Far East.⁵¹ We might as well have rolled out the red carpet and said to them, "The Far East is yours for the taking; we’re giving you the green light." How long will it be until we sellout our European and NATO Allies? This is a major blow to the National Security of the United States against an expansionist, authoritarian superpower, Communist China. It is no coincidence that Communist China began their uninterrupted assent into becoming a global superpower after they instituted a modern Constitution in 1982.⁵²

May 25, 2017

The answer to my question, How long will it be until we (the United States) sellout our European and NATO Allies came today. The answer was four months. The background is that, as a candidate, Donald Trump stated that if Russia invaded the Baltic States of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, all of whom are NATO members, that he (as President) would not unconditionally come to their defense under our Treaty Obligation under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, but only after he had reviewed whether they had paid and were current on their NATO dues.⁵³

Later, as President, Donald Trump refused to commit to the Article 5 Defense of NATO members when speaking at the NATO summit in Brussels, again casting doubt on his commitment to come to the defense of our NATO Allies if they are attacked.⁵⁴ Article 5 of NATO has been invoked only one time, and that was by the United States after the 9/11/2001 attack on the Twin Towers. NATO countries stood by their commitments and delivered troops in aid to the United States in Afghanistan and suffered casualties as follows:

killed in action pursuant to the Article 5 NATO Defense of the United States in Afghanistan:⁵⁵

Those men and women died for us!This sellout of our NATO Allies was dishonorable and rightfully creates the understanding around the world that we are an unreliable ally. The Great American Sellout of our Allies in both the Atlantic and Pacific is now complete. Thank you, Donald Trump.

June 1, 2017

I was watching CNN while Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Accord,⁵⁶ thereby abandoning our Environmental Leadership Role in the World. Out of the 193 nations in the World that belong to the United Nations, only three, the United States, Syria, and Nicaragua, are not members of this Agreement. How long must we suffer with this idiot?

July 8, 2017

Donald Trump met with Vladimir Putin. The Russians said that Trump accepted that Russia had nothing to do with the interference in our 2016 election.⁵⁷ Trump then tweeted that the U.S. and Russia would form a joint working group to prevent such attacks in the future.⁵⁸ Is he really this out of touch with reality? This is as out of touch with reality as if Jews were announcing that they would be working with Adolf Hitler to prevent any recurrence of the Holocaust and the Nazi Death Camps.

November 2, 2017

In an interview on Fox News where they were discussing the inability of the Trump Administration to fill important jobs in the State Department, Trump said, "Let me tell you, the one that matters is me. I’m the only one that matters."⁵⁹ This comment just confirmed my assessment of his colossal ego that controls and dominates his behavior.

November 8, 2017

I started working back on this manuscript. I had taken essentially a six-month hiatus while we were moving. The positive part of this delay was that I was able to observe Donald Trump in office for an additional period of time. Here is what I observed and learned:

A.He is a flat-out racist, giving aid and comfort to the Ku Klux Klan and their followers during the riots in Charlottesville, VA.⁶⁰

B.He is totally contemptuous of our lives and families. When over 500 people were shot, killed, or wounded by a lone gunman in Las Vegas, Donald Trump specifically refused to acknowledge that reasonable gun control laws could have substantially mitigated or prevented this massacre.⁶¹ There is a reason for this callous attitude. He doesn’t give a damn about us. He doesn’t give a damn about our families, children, or grandchildren, only he matters, I’m (Donald Trump) the only one that matters.⁶²

C.I learned how deeply and thoroughly the Russians penetrated our 2016 election through the Internet and social media like Facebook and Twitter.⁶³

D.I learned how inadequate and antiquated our laws and regulations are in failing to protect us from such an attack by a hostile foreign power like Russia and the solicitation and acceptance of Russia’s help by the Trump Campaign.⁶⁴

E.I realized how similar Donald Trump and what he stands for is to Adolph Hitler and the German NAZI party; both of their core beliefs are racism and White (Aryan) supremacy, as when Donald Trump recently stated, We should have more people from Norway.⁶⁵

December 30, 2017

I was thinking about the tax cut passed by the Republican House and Senate and signed by Donald Trump on 12/22/17. It was such a horrible idea to start with. If we were in the economic situation that President Obama found himself in when he took office in January, 2009 with unemployment at 7.8%⁶⁶ and the economy losing 793,000 jobs per month⁶⁷, then such a fiscal stimulus would at least made some economic sense, but to pass such a bill at economic full employment does not make any sense at all. I learned in Economics 101 that the government should run a deficit during periods of high unemployment and run a budgetary surplus during period of low unemployment.

We are now at what many economists would consider full economic employment and should be running a budgetary surplus and paying down the National Debt. We should have been running a budgetary surplus since we reached 5.0% unemployment back in the fall of 2015. Instead we are adding $1.5 Trillion dollars to our already huge Deficit, and since we are already at full employment, the additional aggregate demand generated by this new law will probably translate into additional inflation and therefore into higher interest rates. In summary, this bill means higher interest rates on a larger debt.

Every 1% rise in general interest rates costs the U.S. Treasury approximately 200 billion dollars per year. If we ever get into a high-inflation and therefore high interest-rate environment like we did in the 1980’s, it will bankrupt this country. We will default on our debt, plunge into an apocalyptic depression, and completely abdicate our leadership position in the World. This politically expedient tax cut by the Republicans in just plain damn stupid at this fundamental level. Besides, the lion’s share of the benefits go to the ultra-wealthy, namely a colossal reduction in the Corporate Tax Rates from 35% to 21% and a huge decrease in the Federal Estate Tax. This is a tax cut that primarily benefits ultra-wealthy Americans, whose tax benefits under the bill are made permanent, while that small portion of tax relief going to the middle classes is just temporary.⁶⁸ Welcome to the Oligarchy of the radical ultra-wealthy.

January 10, 2018

In a meeting with Republican and Democratic senators, Donald Trump referred to African countries and Haiti as shithole countries and wondered why we couldn’t get more immigrants from Norway.⁶⁹ Trump loves those blond, blue-eyed Aryans, just like Adolph Hitler.⁷⁰ How much longer do we have to put up with this blatant racist?

February, 2018

I have been following the massacre at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida and have been doing a lot of thinking about the safety of our students in public (and private) schools. My thoughts on the same are set out in Section 11A of Article XIII of this Revised Constitution. The students are right, a M-16 rifle is a weapon of mass destruction and I agree with their motto, Never Again.

Chapter 1.

OVERVIEW, HOW DID WE GET HERE?

We start off with the basic question, what is our Constitution? Our Constitution is a contract between 12 former British colonies in 1787 to unify together.⁷¹ We are governed by and our lives entrusted to a 230-year-old contract. Why would anyone expect a 230-year-old contract to work well under any circumstances? Our Constitution is entitled to respect but not reverence. It is not the infallible word of Almighty God. Please note that everything in this book and this chapter is my opinion based on my own personal experience and my personal research.

One basic problem with our Constitution is that it is too difficult to amend to stay abreast with the increasing rate of change in our Country and society seen in the last 50 years. It basically takes a two-thirds majority of both the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate (or upon the application of the legislatures of two-thirds of the states) to approve a proposed amendment to the Constitution to be sent to the States, and then a three-fourths majority of State legislatures (or State ratifying conventions) to ratify (approve) the amendment.⁷² When the Constitution was ratified in 1788, only nine States (three-fourths of 12 states) had to ratify the Constitution. Now it takes 38 State legislatures (three-fourths of 50 States) to approve any proposed amendment to the Constitution. Can you think of anything substantive that would get a two-thirds majority vote in both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate and pass 38 State legislatures (usually comprised of both a house of representatives and a State senate) in our present poisonous political environment between Democrats and Republicans? Imagine a Republican proposed amendment to make the Federal Income Tax illegal or a Democratic proposed amendment to require a national (public) health system. Our Constitution is effectively not amendable for any substantive change because of the increasing competitiveness over time between the two major political parties in their struggle to gain and maintain power and their disdain for the concept of compromise and working together for the good of the Country. That is one side of the problem.

The other side of the problem is that the rate of change in our society and our World is ever increasing and also increasing at an increasing rate. I will recommend a book for you to read on this topic, The Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweil.⁷³ He opened my eyes to the reality that we are living in a World and reality when the change per year or per decade in not linear (in a straight line), but that we are living in a society where the change per year or decade is an accelerating, upward sloping, exponential curve. This makes all the difference in the world. He postulates that the rate of change will continue to increase over time until the rate of change becomes essentially vertical, irreversibly transforming human life, an event he calls The Singularity.⁷⁴ He predicts this will occur about mid-century.

We also have other factors that I don’t think the Founding Fathers contemplated, one of which is that so many people of extreme wealth and profound influence don’t give a damn about our country, but care only about themselves, their families, and their wealth, just like Donald J. Trump. They are more than willing to despoil our country with pollution to increase their personal fortunes. Their outlook is the "Universe of Me." Not only do they not give a damn about our Country, but they are willing to go to any lengths to increase their own fortunes and stature, including taking actions that are fundamentally harmful to our Democracy⁷⁵ to achieve their goal, which is to transform this country from a Democracy into an Oligarchy. Webster defines an oligarchy as a government in which a small group exercises control especially for corrupt and selfish purposes.⁷⁶ Their efforts have been enabled by the ongoing lies, misrepresentations, and propaganda of Russia,⁷⁷ Fox News,⁷⁸ and right-wing talk radio.⁷⁹

They have been successful in achieving their goals. We now have an oligarchy with the election of a Republican President, a Republican House of