Clarence Thomas, Ken Paxton and Donald Trump: The evil influence of the oligarchy

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It’s tempting to attribute the scandals currently engulfing two right wing icons Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to the same lack of men’s ethical compass. Resisting that temptation is necessary if we are to learn a larger lesson about the roots of much political corruption in this country.

The through-line in headline-grabbing events involves enormous wealth, domestic and foreign, seeking to buy power and knowing how to cultivate those who have it as well as those who have it and can get it back. In other words, people with great wealth often seek to enlist the help of the powerful to help them keep things the way they are.

This story is as old as the Republic itself. From America’s earliest days, as bestselling author Thom Hartmann writes in “The Hidden History of American Oligarchy,” our history has played out periods of back and forth between democracy and oligarchy, between “governance by, by and for the people” and “governance by, by and for the rich.”

In fact, Alexander Hamilton and his Federalist contemporaries presented what the political scientist Jay Costlabel called “a startling folly of the greed and small-mindedness of the speculator class” that, within the information , made a killing by buying Revolutionary War bonds from veterans. Such indolence allowed members of that class to enrich themselves, fostering the rise of an oligarchy that sought to destroy the government, and from time to time succeeded.

That Harlan Crowlavished private jet flights and free vacations to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas not to mention paying tuition for Thomas’ adopted son and buying his mother’s house, so Thomas wouldn’t have to pay rent or a mortgage or his mother is the latest example of the oligarchy at work.

The oligarchs buying influence today are not just American citizens.

In a sophisticated power buy that repays past favors and looks to the future, the Saudi monarchy, which happens to run one of the world’s most reactionary regimes, has sponsored a breakaway pro golf tour (via its sovereign wealth fund) that held several tournaments on Donald Trump’s courses. That came just a few years after the then-president approved a congressional veto cutoff of American military aid for the Saudi war against Yemen. (The same Saudi wealth fund also invested $2 billion in a business venture run by Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law.)

The Saudis are also, at least arguably, rewarding Trump for refusing to punish Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of the desert kingdom, after Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed and dismembered by Saudi operatives. There is also potential future influence investing if Trump returns to power.

The wealth-corruption-right-wing-politics nexus also plays out at the state level in this country, as revealed in the May 27 impeachment of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on bribery charges.

He allegedly did this in return for helping donor Nate Paul, a wealthy Austin real estate developer, by appointing special counsel, one to look into a court-approved FBI search of Paul’s home and one to question the local district attorney’s investigation of Paul.

Corruption, the abuse of the political system by those with the means to abuse it, is certainly not limited to elected officials on the right. But it tends to hover more heavily on the conservative side of government, here and around the world.

German economist and social scientist Zohal Hessami’s empirical analysis of 106 countries over 24 years suggests that “the extent of corruption is about 10% greater when right-wing parties are in power rather than left-wing or centrist parties.”

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There are at least two reasons for that. First, those with great wealth and power tend to support the status-quo politics favored by conservative politicians. They are willing to pay to keep things as they are.

Second, and correspondingly, there is a clear relationship between corruption and efforts to maintain or increase economic inequality and diversity in the distribution of wealth. A 2014 Oxfam report, “Working for the Few,” states: “Gross economic inequality and political capture all too often go hand in hand. Left unchecked, political institutions collapse and people government too much serves the interests of the economic elite at the expense of ordinary people.”

Of course corruption can be camouflaged. Think of the Saudis and Trump. Or consider Crow’s classic deployment, maintaining that he never talks to Justice Thomas about “cases.”

In all likelihood, he didn’t need to. Associating with powerful people, as Crow does, builds trust and friendship. Hassami’s research shows that “trust and reciprocity are important when people are involved in illegal activities such as corruption.”

Harlan Crow maintains that he never spoke to Justice Thomas about the “cases.” In all likelihood, he didn’t need to. Associating with powerful people brings trust, friendship and a sense of reciprocity.

What often unites those on the right, particularly those whose life goal is to accumulate greater and greater wealth, is opposition to democratic measures that protect voting rights, limit political money or expand of the rights of underrepresented groups. Those who “got theirs” prefer to keep their club exclusive.

As Finn Heinrich, an expert on governance, democracy and civil society issues, said, “the data show a strong link between corruption and social exclusion.”

Let’s go back for a moment to the first reason why corruption is often inherent in oligarchs. It’s not just that they like the way things are right now. They often love the past and seek to bring progressive reforms back to the conditions of earlier decades, or even earlier centuries.

Take billionaire Richard Uihlein, heir to the Schlitz family fortune-maker, and his wife, Liz, described by the New York Times as “the most powerful conservative couple you’ve never heard of.”

They are funding a right-wing campaign in Ohio to neuter perhaps the greatest democratic reform brought about by the Progressive Era, the initiative process. That device gave citizens the right to enact laws by majority vote and bypassed legislatures that were often bought, sold and paid off by the robber barons of the 19th century’s “Gilded Age”.

There are lessons to be learned from analyzing this wealth-right wing politics-corruption story. One of the most important came from Harvard anti-corruption expert Matthew Stephenson: “The fight against corruption in the US has been a slow slog, one that spans generations.”

In fact, it unfolded on many occasions where determined Americans took back their power, even the Jacksonian Democrats who overthrew the Second Bank of the United States for its corrupting influence, the abolitionists who defeated a proud aristocracy of slaves dominating poor whites alongside African American slaves, or early 20th century workers who fought for their rights to organize and strike.

Now we have legislation to fight for, including bills that would impose ethical accountability on the Supreme Court, or limit the role of dark money in elections. of a few “bad apples” and see it as a symptom of the oligarchs’ efforts to destroy democracy and equal opportunity.

To protect those things, citizens need to speak out against corruption and the oligarchs who want to destroy government by and for the people. The moral arc of the universe bends toward justice, but getting there requires action to curb the power of public officials whose strings are pulled by the likes of Harlan Crow, Richard Uihlein and Mohammed bin Salman.

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