The Liberals’ Con-Game Against Their Voters

3 August 2026, by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)

Liberals believe in the free market and think that they care about the poor and that an ‘equal-opportunity society’ will dissolve and end the prevailing injustices. But, if an equal-opportunity society will end prevailing injustices, then how can the poor have equality of opportunity with the rich whose opportunities in a free-market society are naturally proportional to how wealthy they are? They can’t. Those two objectives actually cancel each other out. The difference between a liberal and a progressive is that a progressive cares enough about the poor so as to refuse being that conservative — as conservative as are liberals, who actually care so little about the poor as to be comfortable about holding those mutually contradictory beliefs of advocating a free market and caring about the poor. They care so little about the poor so that even their own self-contradiction about the poor evidently doesn’t bother them. When push comes to shove, and the rubber of their ‘beliefs’ hits the road of reality, they shove the poor off the pavement in front of their store or residence, and claim that “those people” don’t belong in their neighborhood.

Conservatives believe in the free market and that the most objective way to measure retrospectively a person’s value to society is how much wealth that person has “earned” (which some measure by the individual’s net worth — current wealth — but which others  measure by that individual’s net worth plus tax-exempt charitable’ donations under the assumption that a “charity” constitutes “value to society” instead of “value to the donor”). Oddly, however, any conservative who holds racist beliefs (which scientific studies show to be held especially by conservatives) is thereby contradicting his/her belief that a person’s worth can most objectively be measured by that person’s net worth. For example, in a majority white Christian society, a high percentage of conservatives devalue Jews, Muslims, Blacks, Asians, etc., and therefore violate the basic conservative rule that a person’s worth is his/her net worth. And, of course, they certainly don’t believe in equality-of-opportunity; they instead believe that a free market, and maybe also a person’s race, ethnicity, or religion, ought to determine how much opportunity a person will have. “To the winner belong the spoils.” Winning is its own ‘justification’.

The following, however, concentrates upon the self-contradictions by liberals:

A youtube on August 3rd by “The Diary of a CEO” (which name tells you that he has the values “of a CEO”) headlined “2028 Presidential Frontrunner” and interviewed Pete Buttigieg, who is a liberal former Rhodes scholar who became Mayor of South Bend Indiana and as the AP reported on 13 February 2020 about him (“Buttigieg’s rocky record on race gets a closer look”) during his contest that year for the liberal Democratic Party’s Presidential nomination, “spent eight years as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has tripped up in recent days as he was grilled about his record, including the racial disparity in marijuana arrests in South Bend and decisions that led to him having no African American leaders in his administration in a city where more than a quarter of residents are black.” His career thus far (including his term as U.S. Secretary of Transportation) has been a superb example of “failing upwards.” His comments in this interview are like stringing together bumper stickers (most of which are true but all of which are shallow and avoid the real questions — which questions the “CEO” didn’t ask) to present his ‘case’. It’s directed at and to the stupids.

However, he has been remarkably successful at getting Democratic Party billionaires to back his campaigns. On 16 June 2019, the New York Times headlined “Wall Street Donors Are Swooning for Mayor Pete. (They Like Biden and Harris, Too.)” On 2 March 2020, Forbes headlined and reported:

“Here Are The Billionaires Funding The Democratic Presidential Candidates”

Biden 66

Buttigieg 61

Klobucar 33

Steyer 13

Warren 6

Gabbard 3

Blioomberg 1

Sanders 0

Kamala Harris, who had already dropped out because of her incompetent campaign, wasn’t listed.

On 29 July 2024, Forbes headlined “Billionaires Loved Kamala Harris For 2020. How Many Are Backing Her For 2024”, and opened:

Kamala Harris needs lots of cash. Luckily for her, she has a history of finding it. Since launching her campaign 108 days before the election, she raised $200 million in her first week atop the ticket to help close the $32 million gap between outgoing president Joe Biden’s campaign and Donald Trump’s war chest. And Harris has grabbed support from the likes of such billionaires as Melinda French Gates, Sheryl Sandberg and Reed Hastings. There is likely plenty more where that came from: in the early days of the 2020 election, when she last ran for president, more billionaires and their spouses donated to Harris than to any other candidate.

Through September 2019, 47 billionaires and their spouses had donated to Harris’ fledgling presidential campaign, according to a Forbes analysis of Federal Election Commission records. Next best at the time was her fellow Senate Democrat Cory Booker, who had pulled in donations from 45 members of the three-comma club. Meanwhile, by that point 44 billionaires or their spouses had donated to the eventual winner, Joe Biden.

While past performance is no guarantee of future results, the vice president’s campaign could enjoy a substantial cash boost should these billionaires come back to her in 2024.

Three of Harris’s 2020 billionaire donors have passed away since the last election. Of the remaining 44, 26 (or 60%) had donated to Biden’s re-election as of May 30, about two months before he dropped out of the race and Harris took over the top of the ticket and its pile of campaign cash. …

The billionaires will spend however much they need to spend in order to make sure that ONLY candidates they own will have a chance to win their Party’s nomination.

Conservatives think that that’s okay because the super-rich are better than everyone else. Liberals aren’t so sure. Progressives view candidates who are predominantly backed by the super-rich as being just fronts for traitors who are pulling those candidates’ strings.

On 24 July 2026, Buttigieg did a 15-minute interview with the Republican Billionaire Rupert Murdoch’s family’s Fox ‘News’ — America’s largest-audience ‘news’-medium — to pitch himself to Republican billionaires and their suckers. A typical one of the 4,240 viewer-comments was “Hope Pete’s voice of reason and compassion penetrates the Fox fog of hateful disinformation.” Maybe the Murdochs are aiming to foreclose a possible Tucker Carlson candidacy in 2028. (Carlson’s mix of progressive and conservative positions would terrify billionaires — because of the progressive ones.)

The fastest way to determine how likely it is that a given candidate will turn out (if elected) to vote progressively (as a Senator, etc.), is to look at the candidate’s foreign-policy positions, because America is bleeding education, healthcare, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, infrastructure, etc. in order for the federal Government to continue to spend 65% of the entire world’s military expenses. A progressive candidate would support Iran against America and Israel, and support Russia against Ukraine, and would cut the currently $1.6 trillion total annual U.S. military spending down to less than $500 billion (which would still be vastly more than any other nation in the world) so as to bleed the super-corrupt warfare state that polices the world for our billionaires. Even so-called ‘progressive’ candidates such as James Talarico don’t AT ALL advocate ANY of this. Where would a Senator Talarico get the money for his advocated social programs if he continues the warfare economy as his platform promises to do? It won’t; he won’t. The billionaires spend billions just to fool voters to hate China, Russia, Iran etc., and so to keep the military corruptness going for their own benefit. A Government like this is the bane of humanity. To call it a democracy is to insult democracy. It’s anything but.

For example, among America’s roughly 1,000 billionaires, NONE supports the Palestinians against the Israelis.

Any progressive American knows that changing the Party in power still leaves the billionaires in control over the Government. I have instead proposed replacing the U.S. Government itself by passing an Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.