An oligarchy is a government run by a small number of people. If a country is an oligarchy, it’s not a democracy. It might have the appearance of democracy, with elections for show, but the ruling insiders call all the shots. Some countries fit this description. Most would say that the United States doesn’t, and until recently claiming it is would have fallen under crazy conspiracy theories.

It’s getting more popular, though, to claim the USA is an oligarchy. An article in The Nation, not usually considered a fringe publication, is titled “It’s Official: America Is an Oligarchy.” Its “evidence” is that some people are very rich. Today I saw a post by Robert Reich casually taking it for granted that we’re living in an oligarchy, and a search turned up an article by him titled “How America’s oligarchy has paved the road to fascism (Why American capitalism is so rotten, Part 7)”. He makes it clear he understands what the word means, and he claims that the current American oligarchy emerged around 1980.

This is a very serious claim. If it’s true, then our politicians are either part of the oligarchy or its pawns. There’s no point in voting, since the Secret Masters make all the important decisions. Everything our government does, all its laws, policies, and regulations, are dictated by the people who are really in charge.

If this were true, there would be no sense in promoting candidates. Maybe Trump is a part of the oligarchy and Biden merely follows its orders, but there’s no practical difference. This isn’t the same as saying that the Democrats and Republicans aren’t as different as they claim to be (which is often true); it’s saying that their differences don’t matter, because both are somehow compelled to enact the desires of those who really run the government.

To put it bluntly, the oligarchy theory is nuts. It’s the old notion that the Illuminati or the Elders of Zion run everything through their mysterious channels of power. But if you put a conspiracy theory into the right words, it becomes acceptable.