Oligarchs

The massive programme of cuts and deregulation that Musk and Ramaswamy seek extends the sadomasochistic politics now ascendant on both sides of the Atlantic. Demagogues have found that it doesn’t matter how much their followers suffer, as long as their designated enemies are suffering more. If you can keep ramping up the pain for scapegoats (primarily immigrants), voters will thank you for it, regardless of their own pain. This is the great discovery of the conflict entrepreneurs, led by Musk himself: what counts in politics is not how well people are doing, but how well they are doing in relation to designated out-groups.

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Why has the class war been unleashed now, not just in the US, but in much of the rest of the world? Because the democratising, distributive effects of two world wars have worn off. We fondly imagine that the semi-democratic era (exemplified in rich nations by the years 1945–1975) is the normal state of politics. But it was highly atypical, and made possible only by the wars’ erosion of the power of the ruling classes. The default state of centralised societies, to which nations are now reverting, is oligarchy.

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In nations that have not yet fully succumbed to oligarchy we need to recognise, and recognise fast, that democratic politics do not emerge spontaneously. Our systems achieve a quasi-democratic character only with an active citizenry, whose engagement is largely defined by protest, and an independent media. But, at the direct behest of capital, governments are criminalising peaceful protest, while many independent media, such as the BBC, shut out dissenting voices.

Bannon said after Zuckerberg’s visit, “the floodgates opened up and they were all there trying to be supplicants. I look at this, and I think most people in our movement look at this, as President Trump broke the oligarchs. He broke them and they surrendered.” Bannon added, with a laugh: “They came and said: ‘Oh, we’ll take off any constraints, no more checkings, everything.’”

“I view this as September of 1945, the Missouri, and you have the [Japanese] imperial high command, and he’s like Douglas MacArthur. That is an official surrender, OK, and I think it’s powerful”, Bannon added.

The comments come as Joe Biden warned that “an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy” and of “the dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a few ultra-wealthy people”.

But according to the White House archives, Biden had not uttered the word “oligarchy” in the context of American politics until last week. Progressive Democrats called out Biden for being an imperfect messenger having courted and relied on big-ticket donors during his 50-year career.

“It’s cowardly that after representing the oligarchs for 50 years in office, he calls out this threat to our nation with just days left in his presidency,” said Nina Turner, a national co-chair for the senator Bernie Sanders’ last presidential campaign.

The MAGA-Tech alliance is rooted in a shared hierarchical worldview. This worldview concentrates power in the hands of wealthy and predominantly white men. Their job is to impose a strict social order based on their continuing supremacy.

Trump Republicans and tech authoritarians may frame their beliefs differently, but their actions reveal an alignment: maintaining hierarchy, resisting egalitarianism, and elevating profit, power, and their own desires above all else.

What the tech authoritarians describe as “gray” politics is a 21st century version of Strict Father Morality. It is a moral system that replaces God with technology and money – and with the moral supremacy of those who control both.