Episode Transcript
It is March 2001, approximately two months into the presidency of George W Bush and something strange is going on.
Commentators and TV influencers (before the rise of social media) keep using the phrase, ‘He’s a great president’, about a man who has barely got his feet under the desk after an election won not through the ballot box but a legal decision of dubious provenance, is not known for his intelligence or vision, has not embarked on a great re-set of America likely to benefit its people so what is going on?
The answer lies in who these people represent, one of the great unasked questions of American politics and society - whom does the president represent?
They are paid-for hacks and shills.
More important is the fact that as the holder of the only political office which all the American people vote for, (of course, even this is not true because in reality it is the Electoral College, an obvious barrier to the popular vote that decides) the answer about the president should be obvious.
The question in 2025, in the midst of Donald Trump’s second term is even more relevant because he lays bare all the contradictions of the presidency, and the American political system, in a manner never done before.
As we have noted in Excluded Part 5, the American political system is neither under the control of the American people or works for their benefit even in a minor way.
Again, as we have pointed out in Excluded Part1, this is its default position because it was systematically founded by the elite to work for, and on behalf of, the elite.
So, it is important to continue with the illusion of democracy, and the hopes of the American electorate, that the president represents them.
Unfortunately, for them as Trump is proving and American presidents have confirmed to the people, with occasional short-term exception, that the president in Joe Biden’s immortal self-incriminating sentence, ‘I do not work for you.’
Let us look at the Trump phenomenon because it is so revealing. Here we have a self-proclaimed billionaire with a history of bankruptcies who has openly used his political position to enrich himself and his family, an uneducated privileged scion of wealth, unproven and lacking any depth of political or geopolitical understanding or knowledge masquerading as a global statesman, at best non-religious playboy with dubious sexual history supported by the religious right as a man of god on a mission, posing as a spokesman for the ordinary white, generally less well-to-do people while in effect working for the financial elite to whom, including himself, he has given the biggest tax cuts in history.
All this while he is cutting Medicaid and food stamps to the poorest, as he is being hagiographed by social media commentators and MAGA influencers.
Trump should not have come as a surprise in these fevered times of flux and engineered misperception.
He is, it appears, an anomaly.
Yet that is far from the reality because one thing remains constant within the American system.
Either American presidents come from the wealthy elite, and if not, like Ronald Reagan and Barrack Obama, because they have chosen to represent elite interests. Thus, they owe those very people for their privileged position, and in return, are charged with increasing their wealth and power.
Only two presidents in American history, Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt and Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) who were not related or even from the same party, have broken this elite mindset of what America is, and should be, and attempted actions in line with the propounded ideals the country claims to stand for and for the benefit of all ordinary people.
Paradoxically, part of FDR's own privilege came from the Delano side of the family whose fortune had been made by drug smuggling in Asia.
Both were personally attacked for being traitors to their class, NOCD ('Not Our Class, Dear'), that is, they were not ruling on behalf of the elite as they were expected to.
A third, John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK), became a symbol of change but was killed before he could implement any fundamental change himself.
Their examples from the 20th Century are important here because they represent what America could have become but also why it is what it is today.
They also illustrate how difficult it is to affect any meaningful, long-term change in the country.
Teddy Roosevelt was the unexpected president who assumed office after William McKinley's death in an era that eerily echoes today, of no limit to corporate and elite greed.
Given his privileged background and having been vice-president in the McKinley presidency that had seen the massive rise of monopolies, Roosevelt was expected to continue the 'laissez-faire', 'business-friendly' approach of his predecessor.
However, Roosevelt had come to believe that the greatest existential danger to America as a nation was too much power in the hands of corporatocracy and Wall Street financiers who believed themselves beyond elected government.
He also believed that the post of president made the incumbent uniquely qualified to look at the wider, national picture and act in balancing the interests of competing strata of society.
Roosevelt decided to use the Sherman Antitrust Act, passed by Congress in 1890, which declared illegal all combinations "in restraint of trade" as his unexpected weapon of choice to bring 'trusts' or monopolies to heel.
Even under its terms, the Supreme Court had refused to dissolve the American Sugar Refining Company that controlled 98 percent of the sugar industry.
Roosevelt focused on a railroad company known as Northern Securities controlled by the most powerful industrialist in the country, J P Morgan, after whom the bank is named.
Morgan, through Northern Securities, in combination with railroad moguls, James J Hill and E H Harriman, had monopoly on the bulk of railroad shipping across the northern United States thus could set prices, exclude competitors and limit the wages and work conditions of workers to a minimum while maximising profits. In reality, a 'too big to fail' corporation had been created with all the cards stacked in its favour.
Despite Morgan's vehement opposition, outlined in face-to-face meeting with the president, the Supreme Court, in a narrow, unexpected 5 to 4 decision, ruled against him and dissolved the Northern Securities Company.
However, before he could turn his attention to other monopolies, Roosevelt was faced by an explosive situation which pitted worker against employer in the most visceral terms; the Pennsylvania Miners' Strike had begun.
With 140,000 Pennsylvania coal miners (it is shameful that we have to talk in terms of colour when talking about fellow humans but it is important when talking about a society such as America thus we have to remind the reader that these workers were white and ostensibly enjoying some privilege) going on strike on May 12, 1902, demanding better wages, shorter hours, and recognition of their union membership, all looked to Roosevelt as his actions were to be decisive.
The Sherman Antitrust Act's definition of "in restraint of trade", had been regularly applied against labour or workers union when they attempted to agitate for better wages and working conditions so it could easily be applied again.
There was another factor further weakening their position.
America's historic open-door policy to immigrants and refugees from Europe.
While presented as one more great example of the altruism that resides in the heart of the American system, it is another myth.
It had, in fact, little to do with welcoming tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free air in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty.
It was the perfect tool for the elite to control white, working people both economically and politically.
Immigrants and refugees provided a regular supply of cheap labour.
Slaves are the cheapest form of labour but that was not available in the post-civil war, rapid industrialisation and besides nobody wanted African Americans in their workplaces competing for jobs, however lowly paid, let alone living in their neighbourhoods.
White immigration was an intrinsic part of the political approach of excluding black people from the economic, social and political life of the white country.
The newly arrived white immigrants and refugees allowed production costs to be kept artificially low for business and also created a whole new group of consumers for new industries.
The Free Movement Policy of the European Union today while presented as an example of shared values amongst all EU member countries achieves the same effect of moving cheap labour from Eastern Europe to Western Europe to lower costs for employers and take power away from workers.
Added to that was the knowledge that they would not challenge elite power.
Immigrants never do.
They are too busy surviving.
And seeking acceptance.
This made them ideal Americans.
Conforming to the expectations of the elite.
The Pennsylvania mine owners, not used to having their power challenged and expecting presidential backing, flatly refused the striking miners' demands.
Unexpectedly, Roosevelt invited John Mitchell, union leader, and George Baer, representing the owners, to the White House on October 3.
Baer resented the summons to meet a "common criminal" as he called Mitchell.
He saw the strike and the demands of the workers for higher wages and improved working conditions as an affront to his right to run his business as he wanted and rejected Mitchell's proposal to submit to an arbitration commission and abide by the results if Baer would do the same.
Faced by this intransigence, Roosevelt ordered the army to prepare for his orders but not the orders that Baer expected.
The coal operators were informed that if no settlement was reached, the army would seize the mines and make coal available to the public in the coming winter.
This act by Roosevelt was deemed unconstitutional by the courts but Roosevelt persisted.
Unwilling to make Roosevelt even more determined to act, a chastened JP Morgan convinced Baer and the other owners to submit the dispute to a commission.
On October 15, the strike ended.
The following March, a decision was reached by the mediators. The miners were awarded a ten percent pay increase, and their workday was reduced to eight or nine hours. The owners were not forced to recognize the United Mine Workers union as representing its workers.
It was a pyrrhic victory for American workers because by not putting union recognition into law, the Supreme Court ensured that every strike would need its own settlement rather than creating a framework that could be applied to all industries, workers and employers nationally.
This has been the pattern in America for working people.
Victories for workers are small and localised while the defeats are national and universal.
Today, workers seeking to gain union recognition amongst major corporations like Amazon and Walmart, but not limited to them, still come up against the same attitudes amongst employers that were around in the Nineteenth Century.
Even attempts at self-help by white workers have only achieved passing success.
In 1947, John L Lewis, president of the United Mineworkers, helped create the United Mineworkers Health and Welfare Fund; a medical system for his members by pressurising both the mine owners and local government to contribute to it.
However, it only lasted as long as the mining industry needed the men. Without corporate and state goodwill amid the drive for ever greater profits and the attendant redundancies it could not survive a generation.
Neither did many of the men from the illnesses picked up on the course of their daily work, most commonly silicosis, pneumoconiosis (black lung disease) and hearing loss.
Teddy Roosevelt's actions were not an attempt to fundamentally balance the system but an effort to mitigate its worst abuses.
FDR's actions thirty years later were more dangerous after the Great Crash of 1929 because the New Deal was seen by the elite as a socialist experiment which intruded directly on their wealth and power and distributed it to the people.
There was no government financed 'safety net' of welfare or relief programs when FDR came to power but the devastating economic and social effects on the lives of ordinary people were only too clear to see.
Jill Lepore outlined them in her outstanding History of the United States, These Truths.
" Over 12 million people became unemployed (25% of the population),
" 20,000 businesses went bankrupt and closed,
" Industrial production halved and foreign exports plummeted,
" Between 3-4 million Americans (about 10 percent of US households) had invested in the Stock Market, 'buying on margin' with loaned money. Many Americans were in debt. Many lost their life savings as banks collapsed. Those that became unemployed also lost their homes,
" Suicide rates, which averaged 12.1 per 100,000 people in the early 1920s jumped to an alarming 18.9 per 100,000 people in 1929 and remained high throughout the Great Depression,
" 18 million poor, elderly, disabled and single mothers ended up living in dark, overcrowded, squalid and unhealthy living conditions in densely populated and highly congested neighbourhoods without sufficient income to meet their basic needs of food, water, clothing and shelter,
" Wages were cut considerably amidst declining working conditions,
" African Americans and Immigrants in the district of Harlem in New York in 1932 had an unemployment rate of 50%, double that of white Americans,
" Women workers also faced heavy discrimination and were denied jobs in favour of men,
" In 1932 alone, 273,000 families were evicted from their homes,
" At least 33% of deaths over this period were due to poverty related causes such as homelessness,
" Between 1 - 2 million men and boys left their homes to search for any kind of employment all over the country in what was the real gig economy,
" Schools closed as teachers were laid off and school hours were cut,
" Bread Lines at which free handouts of food, notably bread. (At the time a loaf of bread cost a nickel),
" Soup kitchens provided food to the hungry,
" Starving and destitute Americans resorted to begging and their despair was conveyed in the lyrics of 1932 song by Bing Crosby called "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?",
" The number of children born to women aged 15-44, declined by nearly 20%,
" Fewer couples could afford to marry. In 1929 the marriage rate was 10.14 per 1000 people. In 1932 the marriage rate had fallen to 7.87 per 1000 people,
" Divorce rate fell by 10% during the Great Depression. It was too expensive to pay the legal fees and support two households. A 1940 survey revealed that 1.5 million married women had been abandoned by their husbands.
The New Deal was fought tooth and nail by elite interests including the Supreme Court which ruled certain New Deal laws unconstitutional on the grounds that neither the commerce nor the taxing provisions of the Constitution granted the federal government authority to regulate industry or to undertake social and economic reform.
The Supreme Court, the highest legal authority in a democracy, was telling the person elected by the American people that he was expressly forbidden by the Constitution to regulate business that impacted nationally, had brought misery to millions, and bring about change that would benefit them.
Undeterred, in 1933 Roosevelt acted quickly to stabilize the markets by passing the landmark Glass-Steagall Act to rein in the bank led speculation that had caused the stock market to crash, inflate the economy, provide jobs and relief to those who were suffering.
In addition to Glass-Steagall, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) which granted government insurance for bank deposits in member banks of the Federal Reserve System and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) were formed to protect the investing public from fraudulent stock-market practices.
Over the next eight years his government instituted a series of experimental New Deal projects and programs with agencies such as the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) established to provide emergency and short-term government aid for temporary jobs, employment on construction projects and youth work in national forests.
To revive industrial activity, the National Recovery Administration (NRA) was granted authority to help shape industrial codes governing trade practices, wages, hours, child labour and collective bargaining.
Tellingly for America where business is king, the agreed caveat to all these actions was that they would not infringe or compete with private corporations in their areas of work.
Roosevelt's New Deal fundamentally changed US federal government by expanding its size and scope, especially its role in the economy but mainly because for the first time in American history it was acting for the American people as a whole rather than for the elite.
FDR's impact on American political life is arguably as great as Abraham Lincoln.
He had thrown down the challenge of an alternative America, one that he could argue was more in tune with what his country purported to be than what it had been in actuality.
While he did not change the system like Lincoln had, by attempting to get it to work for the American people as a whole rather than the select few, he was in some ways attempting a fundamentally harder task in trying to alter the foundational mindset of the unwilling elite.
Before his presidency, and in wake of the American Civil War,
After his presidency, the Democratic Party has had the same number of presidents as the Republicans, seven.
Significantly, it has given the Democratic Party a majority in the American populace which should have been the motivator for creating an America in line with their wishes which it has clearly failed to do.
One of the major issues that the Democratic Party has not been able to resolve is its narrative as a political party.
It never created a coherent manifesto around FDR's actions so that they could be the bedrock of the story that they told the American people about what America could be under their rule.
This would have also effectively countered the mindset long-established by the Republicans.
This was because its establishment was so effective that they too were instilled with it, were its elite beneficiaries and so unable, or unwilling, to override it and tried to work within it. In fact, tinker with its outside edges for appearance sake while leaving the whole system intact.
For an avowed Christian nation, it's as if Jesus' New Testament message of love is being preached by a schizophrenic preacher who is constantly interrupting himself by shouting the fire and brimstone of the Old Testament so the message of love is only half-heard or most times not heard at all.
The result from the Democratic Party's failure to stand up for what are seen as FDR's achievements, indeed help those who were engaged in eviscerating them in the last fifty years, means that it is in an existential crisis of its own making.
However, by creating this alternative perspective on what America can be, FDR also created an existential challenge for the Republican Party which had previously been philosophically unchallenged in terms of the country it had created but now as failures of the system become more clear it is struggling for a new vision while still always harking back to the past.
So, the test facing America today is due to the two great presidential figures in its history, Lincoln and FDR, who represent a fundamentally different idea of America, not in terms of ideals because we can all agree on ideals, but in terms of how it works in everyday life.
Neither the Republican Party or the Democratic Party are equipped to answer that question.
The people had given their own answer. Given freedom to choose, by 1937, eight million workers had joined trade unions.
So contentious and effective were Roosevelt's reforms for ordinary people and so vehemently opposed by the elite that throughout the Nineteen Thirties rumours of a coup d'état against him were rife.
One appears to have been more than a rumour, and although not generally highlighted in the American narrative, it came to be known as the Business Plot, also called the White House Coup and Wall Street Putsch.
The plot was uniquely American.
It came not from a political party or the military but an elite group of businesspeople who felt that a president elected by the American people was acting against their interests. Therefore, their interests superseded the interests of the American people, the promises of the Constitution and the country.
While big money is often behind coups that replace democracy with dictatorship, it does not show its face.
It is too dangerous if it should fail, both for them and their businesses.
Big business and finance underwrote Hitler's election campaign and rise to power in 1933 but this was kept secret until the Nazis lost the war. It was then revealed how the two groups had worked together with money circulating from famous companies including Krupp and I G Farben in donations to the Nazis, who, in return, gave them massive contracts.
Much of Nazi funding and theft was passed through Deutsche Bank amongst others.
Even after the war and the collapse of the Nazi regime, nearly 4 out 10 bankers in key positions in German banking had previously had close links with the Nazis.
The fact that those involved in the White House Coup were openly identified as the face and voice of big money and big business suggests either the plot was just hot-headed conversation or the plotters felt immune from the consequences both for themselves and the businesses they represented.
A group of American financiers and businessmen, including George H. W. Bush's father and G. W. Bush's grandfather, Prescott Sheldon Bush, DuPont, Morgan, S.B. Colgate, Sewell Avery, John Raskob, Alfred P. Sloan, and former secretary of State, Elihu Root amongst others, allegedly planned the coup in 1934 with today's equivalent of US billions of dollars to buy arms and men for the job.
From their perspective, they were trying to re-claim their country that had been taken away from them.
Their stated aim, "We need a Fascist government in this country."
This fascist thinking was common across a significant number of the American elite who shared Hitler's views on white supremacy and violent pursuit of national wealth and power.
The attraction of fascism to the capitalist elite is no accident.
Fascism is the most extreme form of crony capitalism.
And the most inefficient.
Military dictatorships are a form of fascism because they have the same economic aim but without the philosophical framework to wrap their inhumanity in.
They both do not reward entrepreneurship but being part of the chosen.
Fascism is also the most brutal and extreme form of maintaining or returning to the perceived lost, status quo. It always harks back to a better, imagined past which it is seeking to revive and re-impose.
It's a nationalist vampire.
It lives on Us v Them in its own country.
You can see it as America drifts towards fascism today.
The alleged plotters desired fascism because they wanted guaranteed, full economic and political control of the country that they had had since the country's inception.
They saw the marginal efforts made for the greater good as a threat to their benefitting system.
What the conversations, and possibly more, taking place while as many as one-in-four Americans was in dire straits and it was a given that FDR's actions would not infringe or compete with private corporations in their areas of work, actually revealed was their sense of entitlement, the moral indifference at the heart of the American system, and their lack of concern for the supposed constitutional values their country, and they, are supposed to represent and uphold.
The importance of democracy is not the ability to put an 'X' next to a name every few years. As we can see in the world around us, even countries that could not be described as vaguely 'democratic' engage in the same process every few years.
The importance of democracy rests in the ability of an individual citizen to say 'no' to its power structures and in his/her refusal to conform to the elite, societal mindset without fear of arbitrary justice being applied to his/her dissent.
Take that away and you take away democracy.
Silencing Martin Luther King and other high-profile dissidents in American history shows the actions of not a democracy but an autocracy.
US Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, the most popular military man in America at that time, whose book a year later, 'War is a Racket,' exposed how elite America works, alerted Roosevelt about the plot thus ensuring its failure.
Butler, a believer in democracy, subsequently testified to The McCormack-Dickstein Committee set up by US Congress details of the entire plot which included using him as a military front for a government ruled by the bankers and their corporate allies.
The Committee eventually confirmed that everything Butler had told them was true.
The maxim of any viable, working democracy is that no one is above the law.
Established over centuries of bloody conflict.
And a proud boast of representative form of government.
None of the plotters was charged with treason despite Butler publicly begging for them to be arrested and prosecuted because Congress either knew, or did not think, it could bring these men of wealth and power to account.
Or perhaps wanted to.
Roosevelt was lucky.
The coming Second World War gave the corporatocracy and financiers another source of massive profits, and in all likelihood, saved him.
Most importantly, the warning to any American president had been carved into the political psyche.
Work for the elite and survive.
Don’t and you…know the consequences.
The rest is a merely conversation.
