Yes, it could happen here
A personal reflection on growing up within the promises of American democracy – and the slow realisation that those promises are being hollowed out. This piece examines the gradual rise of oligarchic power in the U.S. and cautions against the perilous illusion that such corruption is confined to one country.
Childhood in the United States of America is a strange paradox: I have grown up experiencing some of the greatest privilege and access to education and resources possible, constantly exposed to the message that my country is a just leader of the modern free world. In school, after reciting the Pledge of Allegiance each morning, I was taught about the fundamentals of democracy that my government was meant to embody – and my friends and I implicitly trusted that our political system was based on the will of the people.
However, as I become a young adult, I watch my government contradict and degrade the ideals that I grew up believing were inherent to American democracy. Despite my education and my access, I have witnessed and felt a building, crippling sense that our system is broken and that our voices are no longer heard. Each day, a new story emerges about a state’s politicians manipulating voting districts to control party representation, or a billionaire subtly, yet legally, funding a politician to get their next tax break.
Although these revelations are shocking, our democratic processes have been threatened for some time – some scholars argue that a shift toward oligarchy has been occurring in the United States for decades. I think that it is likely that our exponentially increasing political unrest can be largely credited to how brazenly Trump’s presidential terms have acknowledged these tendencies.
In contrast with previous presidents, he has unashamedly flaunted his relationships with figures like tech oligarchs. Most notably, he selected Elon Musk, the world’s richest man as of April 2026, to co-lead the Department of Government Efficiency (with arguably devastating effects on American bureaucracy). Musk continues to donate millions to Trump’s politics through PACs and has undeniably profited from his appointment.
As a citizen of both the United States and the United Kingdom, with family in England and Scotland, I am well aware of the global perception that American politics is rife with corruption and public naivety that has allowed people like Trump to come into power. I understand this point of view – no one feels more frustrated about the choices American voters have made than someone on the political left in the United States.
However, the belief that this problem is limited to our side of the Atlantic is no less irrational or ignorant, and blaming it solely on voters deflects attention from the ways political systems favour the wealthy and powerful without sufficient checks. French economist Claude-Frederic Bastiat described this aptly: “When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time, they create for themselves a legal system that authorises it and a moral code that glorifies it.” Though he lived in the early 19th century, his words can just as easily be applied to the realities of modern politics.
The rise of American oligarchy has felt like a shocking, recent betrayal to much of the country – because the processes that led to it were subtle and intangible to most citizens. In reality, no political entity is immune to this kind of threat, and Scotland is no exception. One of the most crucial barriers against corruption is thorough government transparency, but politicians who benefit from obscuring their operations are unlikely to be staunch defenders of such accountability.
“Blaming it solely on voters deflects attention from the ways political systems favour the wealthy and powerful without sufficient checks.”
This is a problem we are quite familiar with in the States: the recent publishing of the Epstein Files initially appeared to be a win for transparency, but parts of the files still remain obscured, and no real action has been taken to hold political figures accountable for involvement with the crimes associated with Epstein’s circle.
The Epstein Files are a shocking example of an extreme case in which transparency is crucial, but has not been fully delivered. However, it is again unwise to view this as a solely American phenomenon. For instance, political entities like Scottish Limited Partnerships have facilitated massive money laundering operations due to a lack of transparency and the inability of the Scottish Government to act against such institutional fraud.
Similarly, abuse of the legal system via tools such as SLAPPs, or strategic lawsuits against public participation, prevents members of the public from speaking out through accusations of defamation. This threatens everyone, from those being defrauded or abused to people speaking against corporations’ environmental harm.
In Scotland, the Freedom of Information Act plays a crucial role in protecting the public from politicians interested in taking advantage of their positions to profit from disenfranchising citizens. While the Act has undeniably facilitated progress toward transparency, it is always worth questioning and challenging the efficacy of such mechanisms. Recently, Perth and Kinross Council was found to have "prevented scrutiny” of its actions via poor record-keeping. Delays in answering FOI requests and legal complexities in how they can be issued also prevent the Act from functioning to its full extent.
As an American citizen and a student studying law and political philosophy, it is easy to fall into the mindset that our politics is a depressing, unfixable system saturated with corruption that seems impossible to resolve. Often, it feels pointless to study the law in a time when politicians seem capable of rewriting it and manipulating it to serve their interests.
However, though the problems we face are overwhelming, political discussion is alive and well even in the United States. We have to continue to criticise our corruption and to voice condemnations of anti-democratic actions to have any hope of moving the needle.
I don’t think that Scotland is in the position that the U.S. is, but that is not a justification for passivity or ignorance. The best way to fight corruption is to prevent it from occurring and fight its spread. We achieve that through vigilant, vocal action against the forces that contradict democracy’s purpose: governments and politicians serve their citizens—not themselves.
Freya is doing a summer placement with Common Weal where she will develop policy work on strengthening legal protections against creeping central control and the weakening of checks and balances.