Woken Capitalism: How American Oligarchs “Are Saving” Democracy

Abstract

The article is a continuation of the series on US presidential campaigns. The latest of these, “A Shadow US Presidential Campaign”, revealed that the donor consortium Democracy Alliance sponsored a secret campaign against candidate Donald Trump in favor of the Democratic candidate, ostensibly “to save democracy”. The alliance-funded political infrastructure has given itself a mandate to transform the electoral system in 2020 under the pretext of ensuring safe voting amid the pandemic. The article describes the history of the emergence of oligarchic alliances in the United States and the extent of their influence on the political life of the country, and in particular, how private foundations directly interfere in elections and donate millions of dollars to organize and finance official counting of votes at the presincts, as happened in 2020. It is noted that the academic study of the influence of oligarchs on the electoral system is difficult due to the secrecy of this activity and, as a result of it, the insufficiency of the sources. The reasons why the classifications of oligarchies available in the literature do not clarify the essence of this problem are analyzed. The author gives a new interpretation of oligarchs and donor political consortiums as independent political subjects. The conditions and limitations of the compatibility of the oligarchs and their consortiums with democracy are discussed. The oligarchs are not divided into Republicans and Democrats, although they have to decide from time to time for which team (party) they are going to play in the next election cycle. There are currently two main opposing consortiums of donors in the US: conservatives and liberals, or “right” and “left”. The article describes the characteristics of consortiums as political entities distinct from other donor entities. The author analyzes a separate cycle of political philanthropy, as well as the political infrastructure of both consortiums. The conditions and limitations of the compatibility of the actions of the oligarchs and their consortiums with democracy are discussed. The article analyzes what exactly are the specific threats to democracy from the oligarchs, their consortiums and political structures sponsored by them, as well as where the actions of the oligarchs come into direct conflict with democratic institutions. The author discusses various deoligarchization strategies in the US and their effectiveness.