What if ... Democracy isn't dying ... what if it was sold?

Conspiracy theories are generally about something that happened in the past; what would one look like in the making in real time ... right now?

I started this post 2 days ago when things were strange. Now we’ve rocketed into full blown crisis. The United States of America is in the midst of a coup.

I’m leaving the post as it is and just want to say that I’m grateful to be in a community of independent voices in action. Stay strong and take care.

Strange how things come together. I recently started an online Visual Thinking Workshop and the technology is making my brain fritz. Or maybe it’s the post-election nightmare … or both. Anyway, the workshop is forcing me to use a new-to-me technology and, as I began plunking about, the thought of tech bros storming the Treasury took me down one of those strange rabbit holes with questions popping up where there should have been carrots.

Suddenly, I wondered why Peter Thiel’s name keeps popping up. When I followed that trail, I found an article from 2009 where he writes, “The Education of a Libertarian.” My scant understanding of this philosophy developed with the TeaParty days and I dismissed it as a form of reaction against President Obama. Turns out … at least the way Thiel describes it, it is fairly interesting … on the surface … as it weaves together both liberal and conservative concepts.

You can read the article for yourself, but here’s what Thiel proclaims:

FOR: authentic human freedom as a precondition for the highest good; 
AGAINST: confiscatory taxes; (wonder what counts as "confiscatory?")
AGAINST: totalitarian collectives; (not sure what he means here)
AGAINST: ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual. (some don't die?)

The point of writing his article seems to be to explain the following statement:

"Most importantly, I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible." - Thiel

He tells us that he began his days at Stanford trying to “bring about freedom through political means.” He seems to feel like he was progressively losing the battle, especially with the way the government handled the depression in 2008.

Let’s stop for a minute for some context. (This is where my visual thinking work came in.) As the century closed, you may remember that we had a tech boom that made everyone who bought stock in those days think that we were geniuses. Two who might actually have been were Peter Thiel and Elon Musk. They married their young companies into something called PayPal which was the right thing at the right time as they soon sold PayPal to eBay and both made bundles of cash. It was 2002.

Think of it as a well-packed snowball at the top of a big hill. Both are now billionaires and Musk is shooting to be the planet’s first trillionaire. However, in 2009, Thiel, despite his wealth, was unhappy about the political state around him. (key to coming visuals … companies are in red).

This is how what is sometimes called the PayPal mafia began.

“Government Intervention” is what Thiel calls the actions taken to mitigate the economic collapse of 2008 and adds, “The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics.” (The fact that it was followed by a devastating depression didn’t seem to register with him.)

Thiel bemoans the negatives that have continued since that time … including “the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron.” (To be fair, that was 25 years ago and he did walk back the “suffrage” comment a bit when called on it. Who knows what he thinks now.)

“In our time, the great task for libertarians is to find an escape from politics in all its forms — from the totalitarian and fundamentalist catastrophes to the unthinking demos that guides so-called “social democracy.” - Thiel

So, Thiel and Musk, with their brilliance for turning technology, especially technology related to money transfers, into cash now have the wherewithal to buy themselves the keys to the kingdom.

Wikipedia has a page titled “PayPal Mafia” which includes an extensive list of men who were part of PayPal and continue to influence the tech industry. The last paragraph was all too prescient.

“After the 2024 United States presidential election, The Economist wrote that ⁣⁣the PayPal Mafia would “take over America’s government” with the reelection of Donald Trump.

Add to this mix, JD Vance, protégé of Peter Thiel, who wears the official mantle, opens the doors and clears the debris.

The Billionaire Red Carpet

Perplexity tells me there are 813 billionaires in the US (at least 13 of them in the #47 administration) and 2,850 in the world … it’s a growing number. Which prompts a question … when you’ve bought all the toys and reached the top of all the money lists, what’s next?

Power, of course … which comes in two flavors … building and destroying. History is full of pyramid builders and warring hoards. Now we have Elon Musk, who turned on his own money taps just in time to salvage a close election.

Musk has been attempting the building part with his Mars colony fantasies but chafes at the restrictions placed on him by others with the power of a purse greater than his, so onto the destroying part: “Look at all that money just sitting there in the US Treasury, going to people who don’t deserve it when it could be going to build more rockets!”

It’s time to take what’s happening very seriously. We might, indeed, be in the midst of a modern, billionaire-based form of a coup. Why fight a bloody battle when you can just walk in and take over the computers where all the money and power are stored?

Here’s the sad, frustrating, teeth-grinding part of the story … Musk is a volatile rocket with no guard rails. His power grab is outside the carefully balanced structures we’ve built to protect our nation, our people, our economy … the world’s economy. He doesn’t play by the rules … in his mind he is the rule. Whatever he wants; whatever is good for Elon Musk; that’s the rule. Everything else be damned.

Here’s the game Musk is playing … only with a lot more zeroes, each one representing a human life … and our planet. And, remember, Musk doesn’t have to be that powerful … he just has to push the first domino … which is what he is trying to do right now.

Click here to watch the dominos.

PS: I abhor conspiracy theories in general … however, as I watch Musk and knowing how techie he is and his access to probably the most technical minds on the planet, brings me one main question: could he have rigged the election for Trump? I’m sure we’ll never know, and, actually, the only thing that truly matters is that we stop him … NOW!

What can YOU do? Become informed. Talk to people. Help others understand the danger a wannabe trillionaire, power-mad space cadet can do to our … to the world’s systems. This isn’t Red or Blue … this is US!

Here are some places to start:

>Yes, It’s a Coup and Yes, It’s Targeting You, David Rothkopf

“What the Musk-Trump administration’s first two weeks in office have communicated with gut-wrenching clarity is that the coup attempt on January 6, 2021 has never stopped.

“What’s more, that coup looks very much like it is now succeeding, thanks to the fawning, yawning complicity of the supine media, timid Democratic leaders, Republican sycophants and the obliviousness of an electorate apparently unbothered by the slow-motion destruction of their own democracy.” (Click above to read full article.)

>Heather Cox Richardson, historian: 2/3/2025: “Instead, they are permitting unelected billionaire Elon Musk, whose investment of $290 million in Trump and other Republican candidates in the 2024 election apparently has bought him freedom to run the government, to override Congress and enact whatever his own policies are by rooting around in government agencies and cancelling those programs that he, personally, dislikes.” (Click above to read full article.)

>Lawrence O'Donnell Calls For Impeachment Of Trump Treasury Secretary. “Of all the horrendous things that have happened in the Trump regime just in the last weekend. Nothing. is potentially more dangerous than that. Nothing is more corrupt than that. Donald Trump's Treasury Secretary is now the first Treasury Secretary in history who should be impeached. Impeached for handing those keys to the Treasury to Elon Musk.” (Click above to read full article.)

>Democracy Now: Is Elon Musk Staging a Coup? Unelected Billionaire Seizes Control at Treasury Dept. & Other Agencies. Elon Musk, the tech billionaire and unelected adviser to President Donald Trump, is asserting control over much of the federal bureaucracy and sensitive government computer systems despite lacking clear authority. The highest-ranking career official at the Treasury Department was pushed out after refusing to hand Musk’s team the keys to the government’s entire payment system and the $6 trillion in payments the system processes annually, including Social Security checks, tax refunds and Medicare benefits. (Click above to read full article.)

>Greg Olear - author, Rough Beast: Who Donald Trump Really Is, What He’ll Do if Re-Elected, and Why Democracy Must Prevail

Elon the Destroyer