You say "aa · luh · gaar · kee," Jen & Carolyn say "O-luh-gaar-kee!"

Send us Fan MailCan Jen & Carolyn pronounce "oligarchy?" Apparently not. But do we know that the US is being controlled by one? Hell yeah, we do! Oligarchy is a word that has been popping up a lot lately to describe the Trump administration and we think it fits! Simply put, an oligarchy is a small group of people having control of a country, organization, or institution.We think this shoe fits, so we’re going to break down the elements of an oligarchy as well as try to answer the question “has the U.S. actually been an oligarchy (or at least influenced by oligarchs) for over a century?” Spoiler alert-we think the answer is “yes” and we want to trace the historical line from robber barons to tech bros!  Encyclopaedia BritannicaWikipediaWikipediaWikipedia‘Headed for technofascism’: the rightwing roots of Silicon ValleyRudman, L. A., & Fairchild, K. (2004). Reactions to counterstereotypic behavior: The role of backlash in cultural stereotype maintenance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87(2), 157–176.Dobbin, F., & Kalev, A. (2016). Why diversity programs fail. Harvard Business Review, 94(7-8), 52-60.Wynn, A. T., & Correll, S. J. (2018). Puncturing the pipeline: Do technology companies alienate women in recruiting sessions? Social Studies of Science, 48(1), 149-164.Hoffman, S. J., & Tan, C. (2022). Anti-diversity rhetoric in the tech industry: A computational analysis of online discourse. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 6(CSCW1), 1-28.Conger, K., Wakabayashi, D., & Benner, K. (2017). Google fires engineer who wrote memo questioning women in tech. The New York Times.