Refer to David Brooks' opinion piece in today's NYT, about Republican Nihilism. He claims there is a spirit of "burn it all down". Seems to be seconded by several comments in this thread.
I'm rapidly getting to the point of joining that group.
I'm getting real tired of fighting tax breaks for people with 131 Scrooge McDuck piles of money already, at the cost of services a large portion of the country uses or may need.
To be clear, I don't have kids, but want my tax dollars to fund free lunches, but we can't have that. Instead we get garbage like public school busses being used to drive kids to private schools, while the public school students walk. (See Ohio)
Oh I think the wealthiest will be the first with heads on pikes when it all comes tumbling down.
The wealthiest people aren’t descendants of Julius Caesar, the Medicis, the Hapsburgs, Rollo (who is an ancestor to every European monarch), the Astors, the Vanderbilts, the Morgans, etc.
Some of these are moderately wealthy now (eg the Rothchilds) but they don’t dominate the world’s wealth.
Part of this is that can be hard to maintain a lineage over time. Also, foolish fail sons will squander family wealth.
But some wealthy people just go the French Revolution way.
I don’t believe the Gateses, Musks, Bezoses, etc will survive the upheaval, violence and revolution they are making inevitable.
From the outside, the current model looks more like the Russian style burning down, not French revolution.
At the end it's an olygarchy with too much stockpiled military slowly creeping on it's neighbour and stationning troops "on vacation" across the border.
The wealthiest live in gated communities with private security, and are the ones who can scramble to their private jets when SHTF. The ones whose heads mostly end up on the spikes are the richest proles (i.e. "top middle class") - those who have enough money that it is obvious they're each, yet not enough to buy actual security or to be truly isolated from the rest of society if they so wish.
Yeah but who are their private security, cooks, cleaners, gardeners, handymen, pilots, etc? They're ordinary people and loyalty becomes harder and harder to motivate when the world is burning down.
Also, where are they running to? In an increasingly interconnected world, the whole developed world looks like it'll go down together.
I advocate for things like universal healthcare and providing food and shelter for every person not only because it's moral but also because we can afford it and it preserves the current system. If the ultra-wealthy really took a long-term view, they'd be fighting for those things because they simply won't survive the revolution.
But I believe we're beyond the point where electoral politics can halt a violent upheaval of the current economic order. And many, many people will die in that process.
