One could make the argument that the USA became an oligarchy during the 1896 Presidential election season. McKinley’s campaign was run by Mark Hanna, and the ca

One could make the argument that the USA became an oligarchy during the 1896 Presidential election season. McKinley’s campaign was run by Mark Hanna, and the campaign managed to secure funding from Standard Oil as well as various mining companies. This doomed the Bryan campaign. I find it interesting that the McKinley administration launched the US into war against Spain, and the USA has thereafter been continually at war… so first modern campaign finance, modern press involvement, military-industrial complex, and so on. McKinley looks to be the first truly bought and paid for politician in the USA. The rich got what they wanted and the poor were sent to fight and die and slaughter the innocent in a poor nation (the Philippines in this case). Seems startlingly similar to the current state of the USA.