The statement at left has a certain surface-level appeal, but it’s inaccurate.

What’s true:

The United States was started by rich white male landowners, and its original laws were put into place to maintain the dominance of the wealthy Europeans.

The subjugation of blacks, immigrants, and the native peoples further cemented the hegemony of the upper class whites.

What’s also true:

Throughout most of its history, the U.S. has seen times where the common American somehow succeeded in grabbing a significant amount of power: the abolitionists of the mid-19th Century, the women’s suffragists, the anarchists of the early 20th Century, organized labor, the New Deal, the post-WW2 booming affluence of the middle class, Brown vs. Board of Ed., and the Civil Rights Act.

It really wasn’t until the neoliberalism that blossomed under Reagan that the super-rich forged a way to use their wealth to take control of our lawmaking processes, and the United States began its path toward oligarchy.

The Truth about the American “System”