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USA is an oil hegemony. It became rich from it, after WW2. It built military, financial and allies for it, as imperialists and caused a lot of harm/enemies. Our governance became stocked with entrenched interests I learned about as an aide to a US Senator in 1993. My interest was health care, working with the Republican Senator who was ranking majority leader of HHS. But we worked with Sen Kennedy on our bills and true bipartisan collaboration. The softball games were epic.
But I was saddened to see how lobbyists influenced our work. How we learned to pivot and compromise for them, to attain a lesser goal. Our work became Clinton's and late Obama's health care bills. By ACA, the lobbyists had made so many changes our work was unrecognizable.
During this time, many wars happened. I was in pre-med then medical training while my friends went off to fight and lose limbs/lives/longevity for it. We saw the lies and manipulation, hoping it was for a greater good only to discover later how corrupt the GOP had become. The Dems were corrupt as well, but with different factions supplying the ever increasing $$ needed for QpQ votes.
I'm old. I've read so much that explains the past that I lived. Most of what I've learned was not what was presented by the politicians and media at the time. Most was for oil and the military industrial complex. It's how USA became a superpower and everyone seemed ok with the lies if it meant our economy remained strong. Nothing else mattered.
There have been 3 petrostate superpowers during this time. USA, Gulf and Russia. The rest of the globe was abused by them. China, OTOH, saw a path forward and was tired of the 3. China didn't have a lot of oil...
A few things happened in these oil wars. Russia became reliant on selling gas. USA grew tech and innovation. The Gulf played all sides. China pursued their strategy somewhat quietly. By 2016, Obama had gone after the Russian + organized crime + Gulf jesters with sanctions after Crimea invasion. Crimea was invaded due to the proxy war over sale of RU gas to EU which it required for its strength. But as the arctic melted from burning oil, Russia and transnational oil plans to extract that oil were hit at the knee by Obama sanctions. By now, the corruption of US govt by the oil majors...esp the GOP in the era of Cheney...was understood. Exxon and Russia used new internet tactics to subvert the US GOP election and installed Trump as POTUS in 2016.
This took Obama by surprise, as their digiteal campaigns were legendary. As the smoke cleared from Mercer, Manafort and others, the Dems saw how the new systems worked. The advertiser/PR firms did too. And the platforms were under attack for being complicit with 2016 election. By 2020, Jack and Zuck were handcuffed from repeating their acts for MAGA but as well all the other players had learned better what to do. It's why Twitter lost revenue, stopping "ads" for that election.
Now that the Cheney GOP was irrelevant, the typical institutional purchasers of US govt pivoted to the Democrats. Biden admin pumped the most gas on Earth, supporting the US oil hegemony in full. That admin invaded Russia via Ukraine, took Nord 2 and pivoted sale of gas to EU from Russia to USA. It protected the legacy auto industry from EV disruption and helped Germany do the same for its automakers.
And there sat Musk. Fighting disinformation for a decade, knowing the players in auto, gas, military, aerospace and politics. Having wisely diversified to many complementary industries over 3 continents. He took EV supply chains to China as a result of the battles by oil and their bought governments to prevent it. He was convinced by others to fight back by buying an online media platform, renaming it X. 100 others joined to buy it. The list of who they are tells quite a story in 2022. Who aligns with that effort? They took pics with Musk around the globe at that time. Go look at them. China and most of the 130 countries who agree with China. Who ignored RU sanctions. Who pivoted global trade. Who were finally rising in global power. While global militaries became dependent on one technology: Starlink.
Trump showed you that others beside US oil could buy a US POTUS. The rest was technical know how. Once that coalition had the bird in hand, the fight for who got what they wanted started. Most wanted to dismantle US superpower. Musk wanted to end Democrats corruption for oil and advance the disruption of it globally. It's been ugly. I think we will see which faction had the most dirt, the most global allies, the most political leverage and in which governments before the mid-terms.
The rest? It's al been theater.
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