Not A Republic, Not A Democracy

There is an oft-told story about Benjamin Franklin. Allegedly, as he was walking out of Independence Hall after the Constitutional Convention in 1787, someone shouted out, "Doctor, what have we got? A republic or a monarchy?"

To which Franklin supposedly responded, with a rejoinder at once witty and ominous: "A republic, if you can keep it."

This opinion piece explores whether the USA is a republic or a democracy. Or something like that:

https://ammo.com/articles/constitutional-republic-vs-pure-democracy-how-us-election-process-has-changed

I think it misses the point, which is that the USA was, is, and always will be an oligarchy.

In spite of our formerly hallowed institutions, a few extremely powerful people have always run the country from behind the scenes. That fact should be so obvious now that you'd have to be wilfully blind not to see it.

Here is a discussion of the domestic electoral landscape:

https://www.wnd.com/2020/07/american-collusion-weaponizing-media-big-tech-government/

... and here is another which illustrates how this trend is actually global in scope:

https://dnyuz.com/2020/07/12/while-america-looks-away-autocrats-crack-down-on-digital-news-sites/

In spite of what you may think, We the People have no real say in what will happen to us. We never have, we never will. And those who are now making the following counter argument are just plain delusional:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/10/arts/open-letter-debate.html

We might have had the chance to achieve something along those lines, but we slept while the enemies of personal freedom worked in the shadows, and now it's too late. The ubiquitous technocratic tools they have created are just too powerful to be overcome.

All we're "accomplishing" right now is changing which of us will in future play the role of bottom-most underlings while those who before were last now will think they have become first. That's nonsense. The ultra rich were, are, and always will be first, and there's nothing we can do which will change that. The rest of us are mere stooges in the eternal class struggle.