October 2, 2018. US based Saudi journalist Jamal Khashogi, a critic of the Saudi government, was attacked in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul as he went to finalize his marriage papers. It was later revealed that he had been murdered and dismembered. A team of fifteen Saudi agents, operating under the orders of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, carried out the assassination. Shortly after the brutal murder, Trump’s Secretary of the Treasury, Steven Mnuchin has a meeting with the Crown Prince.
May 13, 2025, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman greets President Donald Trump with an elaborate welcoming ceremony usually reserved for kings. Trump, in turn, signs off on the largest defense sales agreement in history worth $142 billion as part of a series of bilateral deals with the Saudis worth $600 billion in investments.
In 2012, Chrystia Freeland wrote the brilliant non-fiction novel Plutocrats: the Rise of the New Global Super Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else. In 2016, Jane Mayer wrote an insightful non-fiction novel called Dark Money: the Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right.
On July 27,2024, Campaigning Donald Trump told a group of supporters in Florida that they wouldn’t have to vote again if they elected him President, “You won’t have to do it anymore, It’ll be fixed. It’ll be fine; you won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians.”
Way back in 1986, Canadian songwriter Bruce Cockburn wrote “Call It Democracy”, a scathing indictment of international greed controlled by the high rollers. It starts off with the verse: “Padded with power here they come, International loan sharks backed by the guns, Of market hungry military profiteers, Whose word is a swamp and whose brow is smeared, With the blood of the poor.” Give it a listen with 2025 in mind.
We can’t say we weren’t warned. The way I see it.
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- cartoon by Chris Dywanski
- Image from the news.com.pk