This is the Tom Hartman program.

Well greetings my friends, patriots, lovers of democracy, truth and justice, believers and

peace, freedom and the American way Tom Hartman here with you.

I've mentioned a few times I think this week that my new book, The Hidden History of

American Oligarchy, reclaiming our democracy from the ruling classes out.

I say that not because I'm trying to sell another book, although I don't object to that.

But I say that because I think that we are really at this moment at a real critical

turning point.

I'm just going to riff on this for a minute and then I'll turn it over to your calls.

But here's how it works.

Oligarchy is when a government essentially disconnects itself from the people.

When a government has been seized by Oligarchs, by the very wealthy, and begins working exclusively

for the very wealthy and ignoring the needs and desires of the average working person.

And the result of that is widespread cynicism and discontent with the political system.

Follow along with this.

So therefore, Oligarchies are very unstable forms of government.

The way that we know that America has become an Oligarchy, we're in this little moment,

like the South was in the late 1850s, like the entire country was in the late 1920s, we're

in this moment.

The way that we know that we've become an Oligarchy is that the desires of the average American

are not translated into legislation.

Gillens and Paige did this amazing study that was published in 2014 that found that before

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