Have We Mentioned Lately That Billionaires And Democracy Can't Coexist?

And They're Making Their Play To Dispose Of Democracy Right Now

"Which Votes Will Count?" by Nancy Ohanian

Billionaires bought the Washington Post— Jeff Bezos— and the L.A. Times and prohibited them from endorsing Kamala for president. (The L.A. Times billionaire, Patrick Soon-Shiong, isn’t just a stinking rich Trumpist; he’s also a foreigner— a South African scumbag like Musk— with not an iota of patriotism towards the U.S.). Neither paper matters much in the election; Kamala is winning for a landslide in both California, DC and Maryland and will win in Virginia as well. And their example hasn’t stopped more important newspapers, the Philadelphia Inquirer and New York Times and the Houston Chronicle from making loud and clear endorsements.

This year, The Inquirer’s readers are the most important so let’s start there. The editors started by writing that “voters face an easy but tectonic choice.” Easy at least for the ones who could comprehend what they read, or read at all. “Will they choose the first woman or the oldest man to be the next president? Will they choose the prosecutor or the convict? Will they choose the candidate who supports restoring Roe v. Wade, or the man who bragged about overturning it? Will they choose the candidate with a tax plan to help the middle class or the one who wants to help the superrich? Will they choose the candidate who backsa tough bipartisan immigration law or the guy who killed the measure?Will they choose the candidate who wants to combat climate change or the one who thinks it is a hoax? Will they choose the candidate who upholds the peaceful transfer of power or the one who summoned a violent mob to attack the U.S. Capitol? Will they choose the candidate who stands up to Vladimir Putin or the one who said Russia could do “whatever the hell they want?” Will they choose the candidate who champions education, health care for all, and sensible gun safety laws, or the person who wants to close the U.S. Department of Education, repeal Obamacare, and told supporters after a school shooting to “get over it?” Will they choose the candidate who supports the working class or the one who is anti-union and opposed raising the minimum wage? Will they choose a woman of color who wants to unite the country, or a man with a history of misogynistic, racist and divisive comments and actions? Will they choose the candidate who supports LGBTQ rights or the one who wants to roll back protections for the gay community? Will they choose the candidate who will uphold the presidential oath, or the one who was impeached twice for high crimes and misdemeanors, profited from the White House, dangled pardons to cronies, and was indicted four times?”

And the key point of all— “Kamala Harris wants to help all Americans. Donald Trump wants to help himself.”

She eviscerated Trump so thoroughly in their first debate that he backed out of a second meeting. During the debate, Harris did what no man has been able to do to Trump in his nearly 10 years on the political stage: She exposed his lies, frailties, and lack of vision for the country while laughing off his carnival-barking blather.

Harris’ dismantling of Trump served as a real-time reminder that he is unserious and unprepared for the world’s toughest job. Her ability to rattle Trump showed how foreign adversaries can easily steamroll and manipulate him.

Beyond unmasking the raging bully, Harris has substantive plans that will build on the Biden administration’s success. Her tax plan would lower taxes for 95% of Americans while those at the very top would pay more. Hence, the billionaire rebellion led by Elon Musk and others.

…Trump is mainly running to escape a mountain of legal troubles, stemming from his coup attempt,  stolen classified documents, and conviction for paying off an adult film star to influence the 2016 election.

He is also out for retribution. More than 100 times, he has threatened to jail perceived enemies. He also has targeted media companies and journalists.

Trump has spent the campaign tearing down the country. He rails about the enemy within, but claims his armed mob of supporters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, took part in a “day of love.” He likens America to a failing, “third-world” nation.

Trump has nothing to offer but fear itself.

…There is no vision to lift or unite the country. Instead, Trump pits neighbor against neighbor. He has made it safe for white supremacists, antisemites and neo-Nazis to come out from the shadows and attend his events waving swastikas and shouting, “Make America white again.”

Trump claimsimmigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” echoing the rhetoric used by Adolf Hitler.

John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff and a retired Marine general, said Trump met the definition of a “fascist” and would rule like a dictator.

Retired Gen. Mark Milley, who served as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Trump, warned that the former president is “the most dangerous person to this country” and a “fascist to the core.”

Those warnings should not be ignored.

Beyond the anger, lies, and hate, Trump’s half-baked policy proposals would spell disaster for the economy, democracy, and his supporters, save a few billionaires.

…America deserves much more than an aspiring autocrat who ignores the law, is running to stay out of prison, and doesn’t care about anyone but himself.

The better angels of our nature demand it.

There is only one candidate— Kamala Harris— who will preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States from foreign and domestic enemies.

So help us, God.

The Houston Chronicle editors seemed most worked up over Trump’s divisive use of venal conspiracy theories, most recently in hurricane-ravaged western North Carolina. Instead of helping, “his visit to Helene-devastated areas was a vehicle to spread lies, inflame and divide. His claims that the Biden administration isn’t helping victims because they’re Republican or that FEMA has run out of money— ‘It’s all gone. They’ve spent it on illegal migrants’— are baseless. They’ve been refuted by Republican officials and yet, they’re still stirring fear, anger and distrust that have led to threats against FEMA workers and confusion among vulnerable people about whether help is available and whether it can be trusted. This is how Trump leads. He doesn’t. Even in a desperate hour of need, he exploits. Even from people who have lost everything, he takes.”

… A man who will exploit a deadly hurricane will exploit you. A man with six bankruptcies and millions owed that he may not have the cash to pay is trying to win the White House in part to stay out of the poor house. He will not do any better with our economy. The inflation you’re feeling wasn’t invented by Joe Biden. It’s an aftershock of the global pandemic, it hurt wallets all over the world, and it’s finally easing off. As for Trump’s economy as president, rose-colored glasses are doing a number on us. Trump’s 2017 tax cuts didn’t grow the economy like he promised. He added twice as many trillions to the deficit as Biden, not even counting pandemic spending, and added half as many jobs.

…Harris’ best asset is that she’s not Trump. Beyond her basic qualifications of human decency, self-control and mature leadership skills, her career path from law enforcement to the U.S. Senate to the vice president’s office illustrates independence, drive and a steely spine. And perhaps as important, a propensity to give more than take. Prosecuting child molesters and rapists required patience and compassion to earn the trust of frightened children. Later, prosecuting transnational cartel members required guts.

… We don’t expect this endorsement to change many minds. We can’t inspire voter participation like Taylor Swift or Beyonce. We won’t buy it like Elon Musk.

We just ask you to consider one question before you cast perhaps the most consequential vote of your lifetime:

If the brown floodwaters were rising around your house and the Cajun Navy could only send a small boat, who would you trust to pick you up: Kamala Harris or Donald Trump? 

We know who we'd trust. 

I’m sure the NY Times’ endorsement from a couple of weeks ago stung Trump the hardest, even if he knows there isn’t a MAGAt alive who cares what they have to say about the cult leader, not even questioning his supposed patriotism. And for 30-50% of readers who just look at the first paragraph… well they’re get the point: “It is hard to imagine a candidate more unworthy to serve as president of the United States than Donald Trump. He has proved himself morally unfit for an office that asks its occupant to put the good of the nation above self-interest. He has proved himself temperamentally unfit for a role that requires the very qualities— wisdom, honesty, empathy, courage, restraint, humility, discipline— that he most lacks.”

It gets worse of course. “Those disqualifying characteristics are compounded by everything else that limits his ability to fulfill the duties of the president: his many criminal charges, his advancing age, his fundamental lack of interest in policy and his increasingly bizarre cast of associates. This unequivocal, dispiriting truth— Donald Trump is not fit to be president— should be enough for any voter who cares about the health of our country and the stability of our democracy to deny him re-election. For this reason, regardless of any political disagreements voters might have with her, Kamala Harris is the only patriotic choice for president.”

As Jonathan Last noted on Friday, our nation’s guardrails of democracy are already crumpling. He related Bezos’ decision to forbid the Washington Post to endorse Kamala to the analogous situation “we saw in Russia in the early 2000s: We are witnessing the surrender of the American business community to Donald Trump. No one cares about the Washington Post’s presidential endorsement. It will not move a single vote. The only people who care about newspaper editorial page endorsements are newspaper editorial writers… Following Trump’s 2016 victory, The Post leaned hard into its role as a guardian of democracy. This meant criticizing, and reporting aggressively on, Trump, who responded by threatening Bezos’s various business interests. And that’s what this story is about: It’s about the most consequential American entrepreneur of his generation signaling his submission to Trump— and the message that sends to every other corporation and business leader in the country. In the world. Killing this editorial says, If Jeff Bezos has to be nice to Trump, then so do you. Keep your nose clean, bub.

We have seen this movie before.

The year was 2003, and the scene was Russia, where Vladimir Putin, still in his first term as president, had not yet let the mask slip.

Putin was carefully consolidating power and he realized that the same oligarchs who had supported him initially were also a source of danger. Their money and control of important industries— especially the media— gave them independent bases of power. And every autocrat knows that dictatorship only works when his subjects understand that the only power they may have is the power he grants them.

At the time, Mikhail Khodorkovsky was the wealthiest man in Russia. He controlled Yukos, a massive oil company he cobbled together from formerly state-owned assets. He had the kind of wealth and power that made him untouchable, and he started making noises about getting more involved in politics— maybe even running for office.

So Putin had him arrested.

You may not remember this, but the Khodorkovsky case was a major piece of international news at the time. In the West, people weren’t quite sure what to make of it. Khodorkovsky’s people waged an aggressive PR campaign on his behalf claiming that his arrest was politically motivated and that Putin was becoming a thug.

Putin’s side portrayed it as an anti-corruption move, since Khodorkovsky was no angel.

Here in the West, we were all still giddy over glasnost and the end of the Cold War. We didn’t want to believe that Russia might be plunging back into authoritarianism. So people mostly took a wait-and-see approach.

But the Russians understood.

Khodorkovsky was convicted and sent to a labor camp in the Russian Far East while the government confiscated Yukos and redistributed it to Putin’s cronies. Khodorkovsky’s money, his power, his connections—none of it could protect him from Vladimir Putin.

The rest of the oligarchs got the message. If Putin could get to Khodorkovsky, he could get to anybody.

And so the oligarchs fell in line and ceased to be a source of concern to Putin. Instead of alternative power centers, they became vassals.

Which is exactly what Jeff Bezos has just taught Jamie Dimon and every other important American businessman.

These guys can hear the music. They’ve seen the sides being chosen: Elon Musk and Peter Theil assembling with Trump’s gangster government in waiting. They see Mark Zuckerberg praising Trump as a “badass.” And now they see Bezos getting in line, too.

What’s remarkable is that Trump didn’t have to arrest Bezos to secure his compliance. Trump didn’t even have to win the election. Just the fact that he has an even-money chance to become president was threat enough.

Or maybe that’s not remarkable. One of Timothy Snyder’s rules for resisting authoritarians is that “most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given.” People surrender preemptively much more often than you might expect.

Two weeks ago, Ian Bassin and Maximillian Potter wrote what might be the most prophetic essay of the year. They warned about “anticipatory obedience” in the media.

Seventeen days later, Bezos made his demonstration.

In case you needed reminding: The “guardrails” aren’t guardrails. They’re people.

And they’re already collapsing. Before a single state has been called.