Letter to the editor: American Oligarchy 2026 | The Daily Chronicle

Our country has become an oligarchy.

A small group of extremely wealthy individuals effectively control our country. Our electoral system allows vast amounts of money to be used to influence the actions of politicians. The wealth of the top 1% has grown to a level that permits this group to buy the politicians and policies that they want, which keeps the cycle going.

A high degree of wealth inequality sets the stage for oligarchy and is a sure sign that an oligarchy exists. In an April 25, 2025, article titled, “Nine Charts about Wealth Inequality,” The Urban Institute showed that the gap between the wealthy and everyone else in America is higher than in any other developed country in the world and that it has been getting worse for the past 60 years.

Last Jan. 21, CBS News reported that the top 1% of households now own 31.7% percent of wealth. This is the widest it has been in three decades.

The 2010 Supreme Court Citizens United decisions allowed political action committees (PAC) to spend an unlimited amount of money on political elections. Rich people and corporations can spend this money and keep their identity secret.

When presidents have investments or outright own companies, extremely wealthy people can buy influence in government by channeling money into these companies. Donald Trump has made hundreds of millions of dollars since taking office in his second term from his crypto company, World Liberty Financial. He made this money while pushing policies favorable to the crypto industry.

Trump has many ways to give favors to wealthy individuals who contribute to his campaign or to his companies. He heavily rewarded the wealthy with tax breaks in the so-called Big, Beautiful Bill. He has used tariff policy to favor countries that have been nice to him such as making a carve out for Apple to make iPhones in China without facing tariffs that are on other Chinese made products. He can instruct administrative agencies to change their policies in ways that help companies that have been good to him, like telling the EPA to eliminate regulations on fossil fuels.

So how do we fix our country to make it a democracy again?

We need campaign reform. We need to limit the amount of money individuals and corporations can spend to influence elections and to influence government policies. This should include limits on corporate lobbying. Politicians should spend their time working for the people rather than collecting money from donors.

We need tax reform that recognizes that income inequality at the level we have is incompatible with democracy. We have had much higher tax rates on wealthy people in the past. We need to bring them back. We need to close tax loopholes so that rich people never have an effective tax rate less than the middle class.

Billionaires should not exist.

If we do these two things, we may be able to restore our democracy.

Daniel Meekhof

Packwood