'Dangerous conspiracy' to end democracy in 2025 taking root among right-wing billionaires: analysis

Right-wing billionaires are investing in a conspiracy cooked up by obscure professors at conservative colleges to end American democracy and install an authoritarian dictator. Conservatives are pining for a "Red Caesar" to suspend democracy in 2025 and wrest power back from the "cosmopolitan class" of unelected elites they believe are ruling America, and they see congressional dysfunction as a symptom of the institutional rot they believe a dictator could cure, wrote Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch. "America should be having a robust, life-or-death conversation — when TV’s cable talkfest signs on at 6 a.m. until the last words at midnight, on the floors of the House and Senate, in newspaper editorial boards and down at the barber shop and in Starbucks — about whether we really want to end this country’s 247-year uneven experiment in democracy, and whether one man should have the power to override elections, jail his enemies, free his friends, and eviscerate federal agencies," Bunch wrote. Linker warned that a "dangerous conspiracy theory" originating with obscure professors is taking root with right-wing billionaires who fund conservative causes and candidates, and Trump has openly campaigned on prosecuting his enemies, filling the government with loyalists, deporting immigrants and deploying the military against Democratic-led cities. "But in thinking about a 'Red Caesar,' it’s helpful to remember what the actual Caesar said right before crossing the Rubicon: Alea iacta est, meaning, 'The die is cast,'" Bunch concluded.