Trump is bad enough, obviously. He’s a horrible person and a dangerous demagogue.
But even worse, I think, are the billionaire tech-bros and crypto-crims whose money made Trump’s (and Vance’s) election possible...
___________________________________
“These guys think they’re Superman, that they’re genetically endowed with superior characteristics, and that their genes should populate the Earth,” says Dartmouth sociology professor Brooke Harrington, who studies the ultra-rich and has helped popularize the term “broligarchy.”
As their wealth has grown, the tech right’s long-standing opposition to government regulation has shifted toward a more extreme, neo-reactionionary, and antidemocratic frame of mind. Why should the “fittest” men submit themselves to taxes, regulation, DEI accountability? Why shouldn’t they be the ones in charge, if not here in America then in their floating island “network states” or on their interplanetary colonies? And if pesky government interference threatens the development of the miraculous tech that will allow these things to come to pass, why shouldn’t the American government be bought, infiltrated, and managed just like a tech startup, with total corporate control and the “fittest” guys at the top of the roster?
That was the next logical move once the tech elite had enough money to pull it off. “The broligarchs believe they are entitled to own everything and rule everything,” Harrington says. “If your goal is to own everything worldwide, if that is actually your ketamine-addled goal, then you need to destroy any institution that has the power to hold you accountable. Buying the U.S. government is a brilliant strategy: ‘Fuck democracy. We own it, we bought it, and we’re running it the way we want.’ ”
___________________________________
FULL ARTICLE ➡️ https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-commentary/billionaires-psychology-tech-politics-1235358129/
#Politics #Economics #Capitalism #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange
