And so it goes on… before we even consider the many complaints about his character—his racism and misogyny, his ignorance and contempt for science and history, his lies, his narcissism, his vulgarity, his demagoguery. And that this really begins with coming up with a new set of rules in the United States to offset the corruptive force that money plays and globally, to recognize that we don't have a system of -- we don’t have a political ideology to deal with the political and economic realities of the 21st century. GJELTENWell, David, you make the argument in this book that a private power is becoming too big. One last call. Putting aside the fact that many of those protesting in the Arab world and in other regions rattled recently by civil unrest are not yet middle class by any reasonable definition, the analogy holds in one particularly important respect: The revolutions of 1848 failed to produce real, immediate change.

That's people recognizing that our Department of Justice doesn't work anymore and won't hold the president accountable. For example, McConnell has transformed our judiciary, changed the way our Congress works, and essentially eliminated critical checks and balances.

GJELTENDavid Rothkopf, he's CEO and editor-at-large of Foreign Policy magazine, president and CEO of the international advisory firm, Garten Rothkopf, and a former U.S. Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade Policy under President Clinton and is the author of a new book. GJELTENYou've seen that before, haven't you? The Republicans and the right wing realize that power is something that can help one acquire more power and can be used to protect itself from its own abuse. ROTHKOPFWell, first of all, the philanthropic process isn't part of a democratic process. ROTHKOPFSo, you know, they didn't seem to be that concerned about, you know, their reputational risks at that moment. Companies like Walmart and Exxon now have a financial and political reach that rivals most countries.

They have less median income over the course of this past couple of decades.

Now we as a country have got to ask ourselves, how do we get to these deeper changes? He is the author of numerous articles and several books, the latest being "Traitor: A History of American Betrayal from Benedict Arnold to Donald Trump.".

And I think, you know, I'm taking a strong stand here against extremism. And that is maximizing accountability to the public at large.

When Rothkopf asked him to elaborate on the idea, he proposed that they discuss the subject. The cats in the foreign-policy community are just as hard to label as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat were for poet T.S. Because if you're a big company and you're in my country and I say I'm going to levy a tax on you, what do you do?