A Billionaire Dictatorship?
Richard Wolff on The Socialist Program
Richard Wolff joins The Socialist Program to examine the concentration of economic and political power, focusing on Elon Musk’s influence and the federal government’s shifting balance. The discussion explores how monopoly capitalism fuels centralization in the executive branch, raising concerns about democracy and the risk of authoritarianism. As corporate and state power merge, grassroots resistance grows, highlighting the need for public vigilance and organized opposition.
By Ronald J. Botelho
Ph.D. Student, Complex Sciences
On April 14, Americans witnessed something unprecedented yet underreported: a President of the United States defying a unanimous Supreme Court ruling—publicly, gleefully, and without consequence.
In a choreographed Oval Office meeting with El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, former President Donald Trump signaled something deeper than diplomatic theater. He made clear that constitutional rulings are now optional, and the executive branch is prepared to treat judicial oversight as an inconvenience, not a mandate.
At the center of the confrontation is the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia—a U.S. resident removed in violation of multiple court orders. But this case is no longer just about one man. It is about a system cracking open at its weakest point: enforcement.
Legal analyst Harry Litman called it a “criminal conspiracy to deprive a man of his rights.” But there’s an even more dangerous precedent: the executive’s casual fabrication of legal authority in front of cameras. In one moment, Stephen Miller claimed that the Supreme Court had ruled “9–0 in our favor.” That’s a demonstrable lie. In the next moment, the administration submitted that video—complete with the lie—as part of a legal filing.
There is no clearer sign that we are entering an era where reality is retrofitted to executive needs, and truth becomes just another political tool.
The administration’s defense? That foreign affairs fall under executive control, and thus, the judiciary has no say. This is not just flawed constitutional logic—it is the rationale of authoritarianism. It allows the President to bypass law under the guise of international discretion. As historian Timothy Snyder has written, autocracies flourish when people are pushed into legal grey zones, rendered stateless or rightless through bureaucratic theater.
What’s chilling is not just the act—it’s the reaction. No resignations. No statements of opposition from within the administration. Instead: laughter.
This was not a misstep. It was a message.
And we must be clear-eyed about what it means: if the executive can ignore a Supreme Court order and suffer no political cost, then the judiciary has been functionally silenced. If citizens can be rendered voiceless through legal fiction, then we are no longer governed by law but by will.
We’ve long discussed a “tipping point” for American democracy. That point is no longer ahead of us—it’s in the rearview mirror. The question is not how close we are to crisis, but how far we are willing to let this drift continue.
A functioning democracy cannot survive when its highest legal authority is dismissed as irrelevant. The erosion of the rule of law doesn’t begin with tanks in the streets. It begins with Oval Office meetings like this one—smiling, rehearsed, and livestreamed.
Now is not the time for silence.