There’ve been a lot of important revelations in the last week, but one of the most significant has gone obscenely under-reported in the shuffle.

In a recent interview with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle, timeshare tycoon and top Democratic party donor Stephen Cloobeck told the world that he was outraged at how Democrats have been treating the one percent, and that he has personally ordered Dem leaders to espouse a platform that is more warm and accommodating to the donor class.

Below is the part of the interview this article covers. Anyone who has any interest in how the US political system really works should watch it as soon as they have time.

Under no pressure whatsoever from the extremely sympathetic Ruhle, who made it clear in the beginning of the interview that she and Cloobeck are good friends, Cloobeck passionately stated that he had instructed Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, and senior Democratic Senator Ron Wyden that if they ever so much as use the word “billionaire” again, he will withdraw financial support from the party.

In what is arguably the most Democratic thing that has ever happened, Cloobeck then made an appeal to identity politics on behalf of the extremely wealthy.

“It is very, very disturbing when I hear the millionaire or billionaire word,” Cloobeck said, as though he was referring to an ethnic slur for an oppressed minority and not a conventional label for a class that effectively owns the US government. “And I’ve told them to stop it. Knock it off. Because everyone wants to do really well, and this is the world of aspirations.”

Ruhle and Cloobeck then dove down a wondrous rabbit hole of the imagination to discuss a strange fantasy land in which the Democratic party has gone “too far to the left,” so much so that Cloobeck and his plutocratic peers will withdraw funding from the party if it doesn’t stop. Such fanciful assertions are a common hobby of the elites of both parties, who use the baseless narrative that the Democratic party has moved too far to the left in order to walk the entire US political spectrum even further to the right.

Cloobeck then went on to assert that the Democratic party needs a “new brand”, not popular socialist agendas like universal healthcare, but rather a focus on tax reform and infrastructure instead.

“I know,” Cloobeck said when Ruhle pointed out that many on the left refused to support the right-wing Hillary Clinton last year. “And I can tell you that if we go far left, I’m out. I’m out.”

Most significant of all was the exchange which followed:

Ruhle: So when you tell the Democratic leadership this when you meet with Wyden and Pelosi and Schumer, what do they say to you? Cloobeck: Well, so far they’ve given me great signals that they’re willing to participate and get there. We shall see. We shall see.

And there you have it. Not enough attention is being paid to the fact that the American left has just been given a rare insider’s perspective on how the donor class uses their financial might to order US politicians to sabotage the progressive agenda and refuse to move an inch to the left.

Cloobeck has given the left a great gift in sharing this. This is what they do. This is the sort of interaction between wealthy donors and elected officials which stops all attempts to bring economic justice to America.

And make no mistake, this guy is the real deal. Cloobeck gave well over two million dollars to the Democratic party last year alone, including a million dollar donation to the Hillary Clinton super PAC Priorities USA.

So this is it, right here. This is how the rich screw you, America. A rigidly enforced two-party system with both wings completely beholden to a powerful plutocracy whose rule depends on keeping you poor. They’ll let you fight over abortion, racism, transgendered rights or gun control til you’re blue in the face, but the second anyone starts pointing to the fact that America is ruled by a class of millionaires and billionaires as completely as a monarchy is ruled by a king, they shut you up and shut you down.

In a system where money equals political power, which is the system America undeniably has, political power naturally flows upward toward those who are best at amassing money for themselves, who then use that political power to slant the system in a way which allows them to obtain more money, who then use that money to further entrench the money-equals-power system, etc. This plutocratic class is naturally incentivized to prevent the rest of the population from obtaining enough money to have political power of their own, since there can be no rulers if everyone is a king.

It’s important that we take Cloobeck at his word about what he has told Democratic party leaders and what they told him in response. He and his donor class peers will continue to threaten Democratic policymakers with the withdrawal of funding in order to force them to sabotage the agendas of the political left, and those Democratic policymakers will obey.

Dem leaders will do everything they can to keep their progressive base focused on Trump, Russia, Nazis and racism, and when backed into a corner they’ll make some mealy-mouthed concessions they have no intention of ever fulfilling about maybe someday having something somewhat-kinda-sorta like single payer healthcare. This is what they have been doing. This is what they will continue to do.

Luckily for the 99 percent, the only reason this has been able to continue is because Americans are inundated with corporate media propaganda which encourages them to consent to this insane status quo, and at this point in time media is more democratic than it has ever been. A grassroots new media effort to undermine Americans’ faith in mainstream narrative sources and question what they’ve been taught about how their country operates is all it will take to snap the power of the plutocrat-owned establishment propaganda machine, and thereby the plutocracy it supports. The plutocracy cannot survive without the consent of the governed, and if their propaganda machine fails their ability to manufacture consent fails as well.

All we need to do is disrupt the establishment narrative that this is all normal and healthy and that freedom and democracy are alive and well in America. The Cloobeck interview is a great place to start. Share it around, point at what he’s saying and what the implications are. Shove this story so far out into the mainstream that the mainstream media will have to show up and do damage control, and then use those lies against them as well. Keep them on the back foot, keep attacking, and keep pushing the truth into the spotlight. We can win this.

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