The President’s farewell address to the nation last week highlighted the ominous emergence of an oligarchy in America, with Washington’s elite neighborhoods already teeming with the new power brokers. The cabinet picks and senior roles in the Trump administration are a veritable Who’s Who of billionaires, with one man at the helm boasting a net worth that puts him at the very top of the global wealth pyramid. Once a city where power reigned supreme over wealth, Washington now seems to be a seamless blend of both. The Trump administration, once a bastion of populism and the protector of the American working class, has been infiltrated by the very plutocrats it vowed to defy. It’s a reminiscent scene of the Gilded Age, albeit with a more direct involvement in the political arena.
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