Did you know that the US is a kleptocracy?
And, have you heard Governor Pritzker's clarion call to all of us?
Over the past several years, they sat around in back rooms and swanky resorts, systematically figuring out how to get around the rules, the laws, the checks and balances, the Constitution and every foreseeable obstacle to their focused grab for power and money. They put all the loyal people in all the right places and identified the paths around all the obstacles … all except one … us … we the people.
Before you imagine a few old guys smoking cigars and gleefully rubbing their hands together as they dream of the gold to come, “they” includes a lot of us … from the over one hundred organizations that created Project 2025; to every corporation big enough to hire a bevy of tax accountants, to those of us who “fudge” our tax returns a bit (an estimated one in four of us under-report income).
Thinking about “they” reminds me of a high school acquaintance who came home after being in the Army for awhile. He was in logistics and explained how “things work.” If he wanted to steal a radio, he had to steal 10 in order to grease the works enough so that no one who could say anything, wouldn’t. Thus, creeps “cronyism.”
Avoiding taxes is just one of the many games that have become popular as we skirt around the rules of our society, as if they didn’t matter.
Question: Do we hate tax time because we don’t want to pay our taxes or because we know other people are gaming the system much better than we do?
Let’s back up a bit as I try to address my Pollyanna nature to a few facts. First, a question: what exactly is a kleptocracy?
If they don’t want “democracy,” what do they want? 3 other choices:
Plutocracy … rule by the richest (The City of London may be a plutocracy and “In 2018, Paul Volcker, a former chair of the Federal Reserve, stated he also believed the U.S. to be developing into a plutocracy.” (Wikipedia)
Oligarchy … rule by a small elite (when the USSR failed, rich people gobbled up the assets and became an oligarchy.)
Kleptocracy … corrupt politicians enriching themselves secretly outside the rule of law, through kickbacks, bribes, and special favors from lobbyists and corporations, or they simply direct state funds or contracts to themselves and their associates (“cronies”).
This trail wound toward “CORRUPTION” and a score card
While I lean Pollyanna, I’m not completely naive. If, prior to DT and the DOGE bros, you had asked me if our government was corrupt, I would have said that “yes” some politicians and civil servants are corrupt but, on the whole, we’re not. So, it came as a surprise to me that there is an organization that measures corruption in all countries and we basically are about a C+. We are more corrupt than Canada and less corrupt than Mexico (for now).
“As of 2025, the United States scores 65 on a scale from 0 ("highly corrupt") to 100 ("very clean") according to Transparency International's 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index.”
Plus, we’ve dropped 11 points since 2015 and are predicted to drop further under trump’s cronyism. (See graphic below for details.)
HOWEVER: HOPE … “the reckoning is here” — JB Pritzker
In the opening, I mentioned that “they” might not have figured out how to handle one obstacle to their autocratic grab for power and money … us … the people … and still the voters.
We have taken to the streets. Tune into Rachel Maddow every evening as she shows the thousands of us showing up in cities and towns all over the country. And, no matter how much Musk calls them paid demonstrators, we know they are there because what the current administration is doing is WRONG in so many ways.
The speech I’d like for you to hear, more than any other right now, is Illinois Governor Pritzker’s speech. His is a voice we’ve been waiting for as we’ve been wondering what to do to resist the trump-led crisis. The Governor made me cry, he made me laugh, and he made me stand up straighter.
We can do what needs to be done. We can say “no” to their doing away with “due process”; we can resist the masked men whisking away students for speaking their minds, men and women for being brown, child cancer patients for no reason whatsoever other than to prove they can and spread pain and fear.
“They are an affront to every value this country was founded upon.”
“Immigration with all its struggles and complexities is part of the secret sauce
that Makes America Great Always!” — JB Pritzker, Governor of Illinois
Snippets:
“When we emerge from this, and we will emerge from this, our democratic agenda must be bold and our ideas fearless. We must be willing to slay the sacred cows and allow the courage of our actions to match the immediacy of our words. And we must deliver on that agenda for working families and for the real people who truly make America great.
“Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption. But, I am now. These Republicans cannot know a moment of peace. They have to understand that we will fight their cruelty with every megaphone and microphone that we have. We must castigate them on the soapbox and then punish them at the ballot box.
“They must feel in their bones that when we survive this shameful episode of American history with our democracy intact, because we have no alternative but to do just that, that we will relegate their portraits to the museum halls reserved for tyrants and traitors.
“Cowardice can be contagious, but so too can courage. … What we do and don’t do matters.”
Here’s a graphic of the world’s corruption:
This was interesting, I had to google kleptocracy never heard that word before, I was pleased to see Australia on the less corrupt side of the chart
How is it corrupt to root out and end government corruption the way the current administration is focusing on rooting out and ending it?
For many years, I longed for a time when USAID would get a deep and hard audit, based on what little I know about the agency as a cooperating partner and grantee. Multiply that level of corruption and mismanagement across all the government agencies, I am puzzled why so many activists are using the word fascist to describe an administration that is focused on reducing the power, scope, and cost of government. Fascists “bind together” government and business to increase the scope and power of control, not reduce it.