“And seeing the people in a state of such awful wickedness, and those Gadianton robbers filling the judgment-seats—having usurped the power and authority of the land; laying aside the commandments of God, and not in the least aright before him; doing no justice unto the children of men;
“Condemning the righteous because of their righteousness; letting the guilty and the wicked go unpunished because of their money; and moreover to be held in office at the head of government, to rule and do according to their wills, that they might get gain and glory of the world, and, moreover, that they might the more easily commit adultery, and steal, and kill, and do according to their own wills—” (Helaman 7:4-5).
It is no accident that our current Republican President, and the Republican-controlled Congress, is gleefully doing the bidding of the large corporations and the super-wealthy. Our current disastrous state of affairs is the direct result of years of planning, funding, philosophizing, organizing, and propagandizing by, and on behalf of, those with money — big money.
Meet James Buchanon (who died in January 2013). He is the founder of the “Virginia School” of economic and political thought. Buchanon did not believe people were ever motivated by compassion or fairness. He did not believe in altruism or the desire to serve others. He believed that society was a vicious realm wherein everyone was out for themselves and wanted to control and and steal from others. In particular, he believed that property owners needed to be protected from voters by taking control of the government themselves.
For behold, ye do love money, and your substance, and your fine apparel, and the adorning of your churches, more than ye love the poor and the needy, the sick and the afflicted. (Mormon 8:37).
At the University of Virginia, and later at George Mason University, he trained people in his theories, and advocated tactics that were deliberately designed to frustrate the democratic majority. These tactics included voter suppression, tinkering with legislative processes so that a normal majority could not prevail, and sowing public distrust of government institutions.
Buchanon trained people to staff right-wing think tanks, and in the 1970s found a ready partner (and major source of funding) in Charles Koch. Koch helped Buchanon push his ideas through the media, through redesigned university curriculum, and to politicians. Buchanon and his associates oppose environmentalism and publicly-funded health and welfare programs. They want to dismantle Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and they oppose public education. They consider Feminism to be inspired by Socialism.
Buchanon’s plan to help the rich at the expense of everyone else has been enormously successful. This disastrous, anti-democratic, anti-labor, anti-safety net, anti-environment, anti-women, and anti-immigrant, agenda, amplified for several decades by the likes of Fox News, is now firmly in charge of every branch of our government. The Book of Mormon warned us about this situation, and yet we have brought it upon ourselves.
Why do ye adorn yourselves with that which hath no life, and yet suffer the hungry, and the needy, and the naked, and the sick and the afflicted to pass by you, and notice them not?
Yea, why do ye build up your secret abominations to get gain, and cause that widows should mourn before the Lord, and also orphans to mourn before the Lord, and also the blood of their fathers and their husbands to cry unto the Lord from the ground, for vengeance upon your heads?
Behold, the sword of vengeance hangeth over you; and the time soon cometh that he avengeth the blood of the saints upon you, for he will not suffer their cries any longer. (Mormon 8:39-41).
Sources: “Meet the Economist Behind the One Percent’s Stealth Takeover of America,” Lynn Parramore, Institute for New Economic Thinking, May 30, 2018.
Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America, Nancy MacLean, Penguin Books, 2017.
Why do the vast majority of LDS disagree with us?