A New US Revolution?

Here, from various sources on the Internet, is a composite view of 18th-century France leading up to its revolution against a tyrannical ruling class of wealthy people. I see signs of what Trump is doing with all his billionaire friends as similar to what happened in France.
If I'm right, we may only have one shot at fixing the problem democratically: the 2026 congressional elections and the downballot.

The French Revolution occurred because France's royalty and wealthy classes disregarded any pretense of caring for the common people and manipulated society for their own benefit.

The First Estate


From wechronicle.com, we learn that the Old Regime in France featured a social hierarchy defined by a strict structure involving the nobility and clergy. In contrast, common people had limited political influence and financial security.

One of the key features of the Old Regime was the heavy tax burden imposed on the common people. The nobility and clergy were largely exempt from taxation, which meant that the responsibility of funding the government fell on the shoulders of the poor. This circumstance led to widespread resentment and anger among the common people, who felt mistreated.

Another important aspect of the Old French regime was the lack of social mobility. A person’s social status was determined mainly by birth. It was very difficult for someone from a lower social class to rise and achieve a higher societal position. This scarcity of opportunities for upward mobility was a significant source of frustration for many individuals, contributing to the growing unrest that eventually led to the French Revolution.

The following is based on information from bigsiteofhistory.com and describes conditions in France leading to their revolution. I have truncated the text and inserted US entities for the so-called clergy and nobility of France.

The so-called first estate in the US, which includes the fundamentalist and religious right, plays a significant role in U.S. politics. While all religions generate substantial wealth, Christianity is the richest religion in the world, largely due to the Roman Catholic Church. It is among the oldest and most widely practiced faiths.

The Catholic Church is the second-wealthiest institution in the world, with a net worth of $30 billion. Generally, churches generate a significant portion of their revenue through donations and tithing. They then invest this money in the stock market, various businesses, and political activities.

Churches are also receiving numerous donations online, having collected over $2.2 billion in contributions within a year. Both religions and churches benefit from tax exemptions. Only when religion and churches generate income from unrelated trades will that income be subject to taxation.
2023 Worldwide Church Net Worth

The largest churches in the world—Episcopalian, Scientology, Opus Dei, Trinity, Church of England, Seventh-Day Adventists, Catholic Church of Australia, Catholic Church in the Vatican, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, also known as the Mormon Church—have a combined net worth of USD 215.57 billion.

Federal law prohibits religious organizations with 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status from making financial contributions to candidates or specific political campaigns. Churches are also barred from organizing or contributing to political action committees (PACs).
However, this prohibition does not apply to pastors acting independently rather than as official church representatives. As long as a pastor is not representing the church, he or she may engage in various political activities that are restricted for churches, and they do.

It is essential to understand that the ban on churches supporting or opposing any individual candidate does not apply to current government officials unless they are running at that time. Additionally, the restrictions on candidates do not limit free speech regarding public, social, and moral issues, nor do they impede the actions of any official in office, provided they are not candidates.

In other words, churches have served as political influencers well before that term became widely popular online.

Per opensecrets.org, donations from churches between 2019-2020 = $16,493,451.

No matter which party or candidate they support, the idea that religion isn’t permitted in U.S. politics is a joke.

Nobility - The Second Estate


The Second Estate comprised the sovereign and the nobility, who had considerable influence and money.

The French Nobility of the Middle Ages comprised the class of people below the reigning sovereign in the country’s social order. The US parallel would be our incoming president as the reigning sovereign, billionaires, and mega-millionaires Trump surrounds himself with.

It’s easy to envision that they will make decisions that achieve two objectives: solidify their positions of power and increase their wealth at the expense of the Third Estate.

The Third Estate


That’s you and me, the working class. For my purposes, the working class is most people below our nation's executive management level of business and industry.
In 2018, the average CEO's compensation from the top 350 US firms was $17.2 million.
One source sums up the components of executive pay as:
-Base salary
-Incentive pay with a short-term focus, usually in the form of a bonus
-Incentive pay with a long-term focus, usually in some combination of stock awards, option awards, non-equity
-incentive plan compensation
-Enhanced benefits package that generally includes a Supplemental Executive Retirement Plan (SERP)
-Extra benefits and perquisites, such as cars and club memberships
-Deferred compensation earnings

These packages can vary widely from one corporation to the next.

What I assume are base salaries are defined at cowenpartners.com as Executive Role salaries ranging from about $200,000 to nearly three-quarters of a million.

Remember, these are base salaries and don't include all the benefits mentioned above. Many of these are designed to enrich the executives but avoid paying taxes or at least deferring taxes for a long period of time.

Why all these frigging numbers? This demonstrates that the Second Estate has a lot at stake and will look out for numero uno if it comes down to making a sacrifice.

I’ve attended meetings with VPs and Directors where the Finance team explained that profits were declining and sacrifices needed to be made in the fourth quarter to maintain profits, shareholder dividends, and executive bonuses.

Not once did any of these individuals question whether reducing some executives' excessive benefits could be an alternative to laying off the working class. They truly have a conflict of interest when times are tough and cost-cutting is necessary.

The conflict between the working and executive classes will almost always result in the working class making sacrifices. The only avenue or leverage the working class can use is to organize into unions to negotiate. If the Second Estate refuses to negotiate, you are looking at massive labor strikes or, in the worst case, some form of revolution.
That revolution can be political, the preferred approach, or turn ugly, as it did in 18th-century France.

The Fourth Estate


Most historical explorations of the French Revolution do not discuss the Fourth Estate, which was born out of the French Revolution, or at least that term was.

The first evidence of journalism came before Christ. The earliest known journalistic product was a news sheet circulated in ancient Rome, the Acta Diurna, which is said to date from before 59 BCE.

Although initially hindered by government-imposed censorship, taxes, and other restrictions, newspapers in the 18th century came to enjoy the reportorial freedom and indispensable function that they have somewhat retained to the present day. However, they are not nearly as robust as twenty years ago.

Competition for advertising money and audiences seems to have deteriorated journalism's critical role. The new face of electronic media has created a plethora of live and streaming choices for the viewer. The media seems to have been reduced in many ways to carnival barkers.

What used to be an effort to publish honest and unbiased stories has become a circus of dramatic headlines, misleading information, and, in some cases, outright falsehoods designed to attract a certain audience.

Can the Fourth Estate continue to play a key role in preserving and protecting the truth and our democracy? Perhaps, but as it is constituted today, it’s hard to see them in their traditional role of unbiased observers.