America’s plutocrats are systemically complicit in the Trump restoration. Whether from ideological affinity, fear of retribution, or cynicism, big money is either passively or actively contributing to his attempts to subvert the anchor institutions of American democracy.

The US corporate world has either fallen silent or quietly “normalised” Donald Trump, as if the storming of Congress and the attempted coup d’état of January 6 had never happened.

Warnings about putting Donald Trump back in the White House have fallen on deaf ears.Credit: Bloomberg

The warnings of America’s top military officers can hardly be clearer. “A fascist to the core” and “the most dangerous person to this country”, says General Mark Milley, ex-chairman of the joint chiefs of staff.

A proto-dictator willing to throw off all constraints, is the verdict of General John Kelly, Trump’s White House chief of staff. It seems to fall on deaf ears.

More than 100 major companies vowed to cut off campaign funding for the 147 Republican congressmen who voted to decertify the election result in 2020 or persisted in claiming that Joe Biden had stolen the election. This corporate pledge has been comprehensively ignored.

An analysis of campaign finance records by Accountable.US shows that Amazon, Intel, Pfizer, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Oracle, Goldman Sachs, Allstate, General Motors, Ford, Boeing, GE, ADM, AT&T, J&J, Tyson, Walmart and Home Depot, among others, have since funnelled money to election deniers after saying they would not do so.

ProPublica says the percentage that goes to deniers makes up 75 per cent of total political funding for Alcoa, 62 per cent for Cheniere Energy, 57 per cent for NRG Energy, 40 per cent for ADM and 38 per cent for American Electric. Most oil majors never made the pledge in the first place.

The result of letting off all these putschists with a slap across the wrist is a........

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