Three assumptions:

• the owning (or "billionaire") class is the ruling class
• over the years, more and more capital has been siphoned to the owning class (the rich get richer)
• this siphoning is a result of the way the ruling class has designed their laws

Combining all of this, the ruling class has ensured the ruling class got a lot richer. Doesn't sound moronic to me. What's moronic is falling for the "oh I'm just a dopey guy, I'm one of you, herpyderp" schtick they put on to court rural voters.

Why the shock? It's gone down this way every single time throughout history. Surround yourself with yes men and you lose your perception of reality shockingly quickly. People that challenge you from a place of truth and compassion are more valuable than gold.

The thing is, you don't have to be smart to become a part of the ruling class. You just have to be somewhere in the triangle of smart, lucky, and immoral. To be a billionaire, you just have to be lucky and immoral.

I’ll believe that they’re stupid instead of just malicious when they actually start to lose their wealth and power. Until such a time, any dumb statements or actions can’t compare to the overall long term success of their campaign to horde more wealth and power.

Always were

I feel that it's easier to show one's whole ass with the invention of the internet than when it had to travel via newspaper.

I remember listening to Rush Limbaugh in the late 80s, when he first came on. He had a great tonality for radio, and was facile, and could drone on for hours, in a uniquely entertaining way. He set the standard for the legion of wannabe conservative talkers that followed. That smooth talking, speculative, non-stop patter is all Limbaugh. He's the guy that did it best, and the one they all copy.

I had good Critical Thinking Skills, so he didn't draw me in, and I was able to watch from the sidelines as he spun his propaganda. But others weren't as able to resist him, and I listened as they called his show, and praised him for showing them the way, through conservatism. As his popularity grew across the country, and he quickly became the main tentpole for the Conservative Propaganda Machine, literally the recruitment and indoctrination arm, I wondered where the Republican Party, and America would be in 20, 30, 40 years time.

I figured we'd get a hold of it somewhere along the line, but I also thought about how bad things could get if they got everything on their Wish List, and that Worst Cast Scenario is exactly what has happened. The Dems let us down badly, as I also predicted was possible, even probable.

There are paths out of this, that puts America on a proper path for the rest of this century. America can be a place where people are helped to rise and improve themselves, their families, and their community, like China has done, or it can be a place where people are enslaved to profit.

The only problem is that is going to take strong Democratic and Citizen resolve, and it's going to get pretty ugly, and very possibly violent, to purge MAGA from our government and society, and the current Democrat Party doesn't have what it takes. Let's hope that changes in 2026 and 2028, and we get enough courageous people in office who will exercise that level of resolve.

You mean the ones who were dumb enough to be the figureheads. The smart ones are the ones you don't hear about in the news, but spend their money to put forward the dummy who perpetuates the systems that made them wealthy.

Um, do we have to go back and list idiotic leaders from the past fifth or a hundred years? We can do that easily enough... Takes time but isn't hard.

? They always were. Just less dumb morons.

That's what you get when you start picking politics by number of likes.

Incest is a hell of a drug

Was there a time when they weren't?

The ruling class are the ones with insatiable ambition and no morals. Intelligence doesn't matter as much as willingness to abuse others.

You need to read Machiavelli

Sophistry has always been king. We've at least been moving away from divinely chosen, but when most people can't be bothered to understand sophistry exists...

They're not all morons - some are, for sure. Those are the ones being manipulated by the smarter ones.

This also holds true in any group of people.

Checks notes: "All men are created equal..." Maintains slavery and women can't vote.

Nope, they've always been morons.

The ruling class uses the morons. It's the perfect crime.

People need to understand we are cattle, from the bottom of the streets to the president.

https://youtu.be/KmNIqhIBvzE

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Hard times create strong men

Strong men create good times

Good times create weak men

Weak men create hard times

The cycle continues

R you saying this from an american perspective?

This idea is referred to as "Circulation of Elites" and suggests that every ruling-class has to be a minority group (E.G WASPs in USA, Normans in medieval england, "the rich" in general in most places), but they will always end up being displaced by another minority group. Because the key to securing power over, for instance, a country, is to be highly organised (only possible for a small, organised minority - never a/the majority group) and when in power, this group becomes complacent, so their grip over power slips and in comes the new elite minority ruling class

historically this is often identified/misidentified as Elites mixing, sexually/culturally, with majority groups or other groups. This is more usually a symptom but it could in some cases be the cause. The opposite - Inbreeding - is of course also bad, as is a refusal to learn new ideas (i.e refusal to mix culturally).

So... it's like a law of nature. Whatever elites do they slip out of power sooner or later. American elite have probably been in power for a "healthy" amount of time tbh.

just in case it's not clear, minority does not mean racial minority here. It's literally any group that is small and organised - christians or atheists, rich middle class or gangsters.

It only takes one

it's not stupid if it works (taps head)