a sequence:

(1) you let the plutocrats return (by repealing 90%+ top marginal tax rates)

(2) they become phenomenally wealthy and their interests diverge sharply from those of the broad public

(3) they fund industry upon industry — trad media, influencers, think tanks, politics consultants — to heighten conflict and stoke division in order to paralyze democratic governance

(cont’d)

(4) the only possible governance, then, becomes the plutocratic authoritarianism which they’d have no incentive to sabotage

(5) since the broad public requires a governed world even more than it requires governance in its interest, eventually it succumbs.