In 2008, then-Presidential candidate, Barack Obama promised to “fundamentally transform America” if he were elected. Most people who heard Obama’s promise, were envisioning him exposing and eliminating the vast corruption that had been rampant in the United States government for decades. They wanted the government to be held accountable to the people. That’s what the average citizens were cheering for when they heard those words of transformation, but they got something entirely different for the next eight years. They got a doubling down of everything that was wrong with the United States government. They got the exact opposite of what they thought Obama would bring. Instead of transparency and accountability, Obama and the Democrats gave us Critical Race Theory, DEI, open borders, the drug overdose crisis, the homeless crisis, endless foreign wars, and an expansion of the size and scope of the federal government with the power to spy on us, censor us, dictate our healthcare, and take our livelihoods.
Most people have suspected for years that our government was extremely corrupt. None of it made any sense, and it still doesn’t. Our government takes in $6 trillion every year, and spends over $7 trillion, and very few of our problems ever get addressed much less solved. Where has all that money gone? Most of us didn’t know, but we knew the money was not going to place it was supposed to go. Obama and the Democrats blamed the rich. ‘The rich are the reason why you’re poor. The rich are the reason why your problems do not get solved. The rich are the reason why we are $36 trillion in debt. The rich are the reason why we have to raise your taxes.’ And because they could blame the rich, or the Republicans, or white supremacists, no one would look any further into what was really going on. How many people asked how Nancy Pelosi amassed a $200 million fortune on a $223,000 salary; or how Elizabeth Warren’s net worth grew to $67 million while only making $285,000 per year.
What we have witnessed in our country over the last four weeks, is the fundamental transformation of the United States government that everyone who cheered for Obama in 2008 was looking for, even if many don’t know it yet. Donald Trump has exposed what many of us have long suspected – everything in our government is corrupt. The exposing of the corruption of the USAID showed how deep and widespread the fraud is. Chelsea Clinton received $85 million through the USAID. We are $36 trillion in debt and our government has given $85 million to Chelsea Clinton, for what? It has been shown taxpayer money that was funneled through the USAID to Chelsea Clinton paid for her $3 million wedding and her $10 million mansion.
The corruption was not just about enriching individuals, but also for the Democrats to hold onto power. Through the USAID, billions of taxpayer dollars went out the door to far-left wing NGO’s who funneled millions back into the campaign coffers of the very politicians who were responsible for sending those billions out the door in the first place. USAID has been funneling millions of tax-payer dollars to left wing media companies like Politico, the New York Times and Washington Post, who give 95% positive coverage to Democrats and 95% negative coverage to Republicans. That is why the media let Hunter Biden off the hook and tried to convict Trump in the press. They want the Democrat to win so the gravy train continues.
Isn’t this a violation of the First Amendment - Freedom of the press? If the government is funding media outlets, the media is not free. Its captured by the government. The First Amendment creates the separation of church and state, it also creates separation of the media and state. That is what a free press is – independent from the state. How can a company be free from the state when the state is financing it? What would happen if the government gave the Catholic Church hundreds of millions of dollars every year, and the priests from the pulpit were all giving the same highly partisan sermons every Sunday that benefitted the party funneling them the money, and Catholics voted 95% in line with the partisan sermons? That is what has been happening with mainstream media. The Democrats were using your tax dollars to purchase favorable reporting from the media to get them reelected.
It speaks volumes that the legacy media have been almost silent about our massive deficit and national debt in recent years. Why? Because the money that they were receiving from our government which was in part driving the deficits was keeping their media companies afloat. So, they are not going to bite the hand that feeds them. The deficit and the debt were political issues up until Obama took office, and then they went away. Obama ran on the deficit against George Bush because his two Middle East wars exploded the debt. People and the media were concerned about the deficit and the national debt back then. But as soon as Obama became president, Obama and the media stopped talking about the deficit, even though because of Obama’s policies, it was growing at a faster rate than at any other time in US history. And that is how we ended up with $36 trillion in debt, because the media ignored it for 16 years, so the voters didn’t prioritize it.
Everything is getting exposed now, and the biggest benefactors of this corruption are the ones screaming the loudest against transparency. Just as every preemptive pardon was a de facto admission of guilt, every politician screaming against Elon Musk exposing the waste, fraud, and corruption is an admission that they benefit from the waste, fraud, and corruption. They don’t want the books opened because they will be implicated, so they will use scare tactics to try to stop Musk. Nancy Pelosi famously said that "we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it." Apparently, they don’t want us to know what’s in these spending bills even after they are passed.
Frederic Bastiat once said, “when plunder becomes a way of life, men create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.” Those against what Musk has been doing with the USAID and other government agencies are trying to use morality and legality to stop him. This week, 14 states are suing Musk on the grounds that shining the light so that the taxpayers can see how their tax dollars are being spent by the government is somehow unconstitutional. Many critics, or more accurately, those suckling the USAID teat, have called what Musk is doing “evil” and even quoted the prophet Isaiah against him. But these are the same tactics they always use. During Covid, we were not allowed to ask questions about lockdowns, shutdowns, mandates or vaccines. “Shut-up, believe the science!” They screamed at us. Now, we are not allowed to ask questions on how our tax dollars are being spent. “Shut-up, believe the government and the bureaucrats!” They are shouting. Opening the books of a government that is carrying a $36 trillion debt, and incurred a $1.83 trillion deficit this past year, is a good thing, probably the best thing, and if you do not like it, you are either stupid or corrupt or both.
This battle that we are fighting is not between left and right; it is between the ruling class and the ruled; the elite and the average American. It is a battle between the citizens and the politicians. The politicians who can pass laws which authorize them to take more and more of our hard-earned money, then turn around and vote themselves pay raises, and then pass laws to send millions of our tax dollars to fund media organizations, which will help them get reelected. It is not a battle between left and right; it’s not a battle between black and white; it’s a battle between those who have the power and those who don’t. And those who have the power don’t like it when that power is being taken away from them. There are people who are actually screaming because DOGE is auditing the IRS. How can anyone be against the auditors being audited? That’s what should happen. Unless the IRS, as almost every other part of our government, has been weaponized for political purposes which more than likely, it has.
Donald Trump is transforming the United States government in a way that will benefit every American who doesn’t have their hands on any lever of political power. Anybody who was against what DOGE is doing? Is either part of the power structure or complicit in it?
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Mr. Garrett is a graduate of Princeton University, and a former NFL player, coach, and executive. He has been a contributor to the website Real Clear Politics. He has recently published his first novel, No Wind.