Trump promised a golden age, some see a gilded age, I see a gelded age. That’s not to say that money doesn’t talk, it always has in politics, but I don’t see a plutocracy of tech bros calling the shots in Washington. Even though Musk appeared to secure a co-presidency through a $270ish million-dollar donation to Trump, he will soon learn that a fool and his money are soon parted. Anyway, technically, a billionaire occupies the White House, one who used his first term to increase his wealth and does not seem averse to using his second term to accumulate greater wealth and power. He is a profiteer at heart, while proclaiming to be a disruptor of the Washington swamp.
The tech bros, while appearing to leverage power through wealth much like Gilded Age titans of industry, they don’t leverage much if any real power. A ‘like,’ a ‘post,’ a ‘search’ are ephemeral. Except for Musk, they really don’t make anything of tactile value. They do control the flow of information, however, and that’s what Trump wants access to. He wants to coopt the tech bros to obliterate the difference between fact and fiction, truth and falsehood for the purpose of eroding democracy. That’s the irony, using tech to control and manipulate the lifeblood of democracy: An informed and educated populace.
Jefferson wrote it best in a letter to Judge William Johnson in June 1823 some two hundred years ago: “I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of society but the peoples themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.”
The theater that was the inauguration said much about how Trump sees the world and the tech bros. Those that read tea leaves saw plutocracy, a new Gilded Age, pointing to Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Mark Zuckerberg (Meta), Sundar Pichai (Google), and Elon Musk (Tesla, Starlink, X, SpaceX) sitting behind Trump. With Musk closest to the Trump of the four.
What I saw was a modern version of a Roman Triumph. Way back when Rome ruled much of Europe, when a Roman general won a significant victory he was accorded a paraded through the streets of Rome. Behind the chariot carrying the general were his warrior prisoners, marking their subjugation, and carts of gold and silver or other tributes. The Tech Bros, provided Trump million-dollar donations – the modern American version of tribute – to fund his inauguration. To me, the four weren’t there as honored guests but were Trump’s display of defeated enemies. Fortunately for the Tech Bros, they did not suffer the same fate as the defeated after the end of the procession.
How does Trump coopt them? Simple: Greed and fear. Greed: They all have multibillion dollar businesses to protect and fear Trump because he has the power to cancel their billion-dollar government contracts. Amazon’s cloud computing contracts, for example, or, for Musk, other government investments. Musk benefited from $38 billion in federal investments. Zuckerberg’s fears are more focused on DOJ civil litigation threats, I think. Fear: They know Trump’s penchant for vengeance. With a phone call Trump’s regulatory agencies can investigate. Trump’s IRS can audit. Trump’s DOJ can threaten both civil and criminal investigations, for instance, target Google’s internet search monopoly.
They all reacted differently. Musk became the collaborator, Bezos the stooge, Zuckerberg a wet piece of toast, Pichai seems to have gone deep and silent after changing Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America.
Bezos’ behavior is comedic. Changing and limiting the opinion section of the Washington Post, the newspaper he owns. Recall, he pulled the Post’s endorsement of Harris before the election. Additionally, Amazon Prime reportedly paid Melania Trump $40 million for a biopic. More recently, Amazon Prime began streaming Trump’s reality TV show, The Apprentice. Zuckerberg, jettisoned content moderation and fired its fact checkers and quite publicly proclaiming the end of DEI at Meta.
Bezos, Pichai, Musk, and Zuckerberg are not part of a new Gilded Age but are part of a new Gelded Age. An Age marked by dissolving the lines between fact and fiction, truth and falsehood so that abuses of constitutional power are unchecked.
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