Stephan: I have been examining elections of all kinds all over the country, and two things stand out for me. First, the Republicans are pursuing a deliberate and organized strategy to rig the 2022 election, with the idea of perfecting their tactics in order to make America an anocracy in the 2024 election. Second, the oligarchs are also making a move using their obscene wealth to buy the election outcomes they want. This story is about a local election in Los Angeles, but I have picked it because it so clearly illustrates my second point.
At this juncture, unless the Democrats get their act together and, more importantly, unless American citizens really want to keep democracy vital in the U.S. and get out, every man and woman, and vote Democrat, I think there is a 50-50 chance by 2024 the United States will cease to be a democratic republic and will become an anocracy.
Rick Caruso speaks in Los Angeles on March 20, 2019. Credit: Damian Dovarganes / AP Photo
Even by the cash-flush standards of modern politics, Rick Caruso’s run for mayor of Los Angeles has been a shock-and-awe spending campaign.
The billionaire Republican-turned-Democrat has already dropped $34 million on the race, single-handedly making the June 7 primary one of the most expensive elections in the country. He’s spent $25 million on TV advertising alone this year, more than any other candidate for any office in America, save one prospect running for governor in Illinois, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact. And in those TV ads, Caruso hammers away at homelessness, crime and corruption at City Hall, a trio of top issues for Los Angeles voters, while casting himself as an outsider — “not just a talker, a doer,” one TV ad narrator says.
That barrage of advertisements on TV sets, on phones and in mailboxes has put Caruso — a real estate developer and a former civilian police commissioner whose father was a major […]
