Many Americans ask ‘What is an oligarchy?’ After Biden’s farewell speech

President Joe Biden used it farewell speech Wednesday to call out what he called an emerging oligarchy in the United States. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Google Analytics shows that many Americans had no idea what he was talking about.

“America today has an oligarchy of extreme wealth, power, and influence that threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair chance for everyone to get ahead,” Biden said. at the address. “We’re seeing the results across America.”

Biden compared the current oligarchs with those who rule the country In the 19th century. “More than a century ago, the American people stood up to the robber barons at that time and destroyed the factories,” he said. “The rich were not punished. They just played the rich by the same rules as everyone else.” Biden added that creating labor rights for the public “has helped put us on the path to building the largest middle class, the most prosperous century the world has ever seen.” He concluded: “We have to do it again.”

Confused by Biden’s use of the term “oligarchy,” Google search analytics show that increase in searches for “oligarchy meaning” and “oligarchy definition”. Of the top five states the most searched for termthree of these (Nebraska, Iowa, and Wyoming) were states that went for Trump during the election.

In a tribute to Eisenhower’s farewell address, Biden also used his speech to say what he called the “techno-industrial complex” represented a dangerous “concentration of technology, power and wealth” in the hands of too few. “Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation that allows abuse of office,” he said. “The free press is collapsing. Editors disappear. Social media refuses to check facts. The truth is drowned by lies told for power and profit.” Certainly the tech moguls of Silicon Valley Helped Trump win It had some influence on Biden’s decision to include it in his speech.

It’s impossible to tell if those who voted for Trump were people who had never heard of “oligarchy,” though it would make sense if there was a crossover between those two demographics. The Trump campaign hasn’t been particularly quiet about whether it plans to institute plans and policies specifically designed to benefit the wealthy while throwing the rest of America under the bus. Somehow, 50 percent of voters voted for him anyway.

Now that the Trump administration is in sight, it is clear that it will be one of the richest administrations in the country’s history. Both Trump himself and his new political wingman Elon Musk are billionaires. Vivek Ramaswamy, Musk’s partner in DOGE — an organization designed to subvert the federal government — is also a billionaire. Trump’s candidates Heading the Department of Education, the Department of Commerce, the Department of the Interior, the Treasury, and NASA.

After his election, those close to Trump openly advocated policies that would benefit the wealthy at the expense of the rest of us. In order to achieve a balanced federal budget, the right-wingers are pushing for Social Security, Medicare, and other federal programs designed to distribute benefits to Americans. At the same time, Trump promised lowering taxes for the wealthy– a move that would be paradoxical the deficit is growing by trillions. Trump also suggested ending taxes About social security benefits drying up program revenuesthus threatening some programs 79 percent of Americans believes that it “should not be reduced in any way”.