There is a lot of anger and anguish pouring out on the internet over the past 48 hours. The Washington Post, a bastion of the ‘old guard’ news media, has chosen to be silent on their recommendation for the 2024 U.S. election.
Their stated position is that this is a ‘return’ to historical political neutrality. But they haven’t been quiet about their recommendations in previous elections for the past several decades. Why the sudden shift? Because Jeff Bezos is a narcissistic and pathetic little pissant coward. The editorial staff of the Washington Post had an endorsement of Kamala Harris ready to print, but Bezos stopped it. One of the richest men in the world is cowering under his $200 billion dollars of wealth against the possibility that the Almighty Trump might win the 2024 election.
The coward’s path
Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post, and Trump took revenge on Bezos after the 2016 election during which the newspaper came out in support of Hillary Clinton. That revenge meant that Amazon ‘lost’ (failed to win) a $10 billion cloud hosting contract, and it may be behind the fact that Blue Horizon (another of Bezo’s companies) was frozen out of space related contracts.
If Trump wins in 2024, Bezos might lose another $10 billion contract, or maybe not get support for his Blue Horizons space company. Apparently this is important enough to a man who is worth more than many countries that he is happily willing to compromise any principles he might have. Democracy can crumble and a vengeful dictator can be on their way to the president’s seat: that’s fine, so long as Bezos, his ego, and his billions are stroked appropriately.
I find this incredibly pathetic. I would have expected that having vast wealth would make one immune to the opinions and thoughts of pathetic but dangerous weirdos like Donald Trump. But somehow being super-rich seems to bring on a form of deep cowardice: the kind I’d expect to see in the oppressed poor. I guess if having something makes you fearful to lose what you have, then having everything makes you fearful of everything.
As I wrote elsewhere, Bezos (and Zuckerberg) must thank their lucky stars every day that Musk is so awful that people don’t pay him much mind.
This pre-capitulation to dictatorship was pure cowardice… and pointless. Trump isn’t going to suddenly forget that the Washington Post has been critical of him. All the harm of acting like a craven coward and no upside save to signal that you’re ready to obey.
It has been suggested in some articles that Bezos’ withdrew the endorsement as a ‘quid pro quo’ arrangement with Trump. Apparently he met with the Orange One just before the event, which seems somewhat suspicious if true. I don’t really think this changes anything except possibly for the worse.
Regardless, Wilhelm, your assessment of the mega-billionaires definitely rings true to me.
Oh yeah, the word is out that he got some promise about Blue Origin getting government contracts just before he pulled the endorsement. But given how much Musk has been pouring into the Trump campaign there is zero chance of that being honored. Trump loves when his foes surrender and then he gets to humiliate them over and over while they just smile and take it. He never forgets a slight.
Most of the ultra wealthy are terrified of losing their wealth because it’s all they have. The poor have had to build character, figure out who they are and spend every day resisting in some small way those with more power or become broken shells of people.
The ultra wealthy have seldom faced such choices and are usually the ones doing the crushing. I remember reading Bill Gates autobiography in the ’90’s and realizing that this was a man who had never known failure or lost in any meaningful way.
It is the terror of having to deal with the unknowns of failure, loss, and lack of control that drives many of the ultra rich to pursue ever increasing wealth at all costs.
The simple courage of getting up to exhausted, going to an unfulfilling job for meager pay, knowing it is another day of life and dreams lost forever, but doing it anyway, day after day after day, because your loved ones depend on you doing so… This is courage few of any of the ultra wealthy will ever have, and indeed most ridicule.
I suspect because deep down they know that they couldn’t do it.
You speak truth, Chris.
I also think that many of the people who are super-rich (or even just ‘somewhat’ rich) are mentally ‘divergent’ i.e. borderline or full-on sociopaths. They are completely unable to accept any blame for things that go wrong or give credit to anyone or anything else for being part of their success. And perhaps more importantly, they have zero empathy for anyone else.
It seems that fear and greed dominate most of us, regardless of our wealth. Someone who learns to manipulate that fear and greed can turn us so deeply inward that we lose ourselves.
I am so surprised that the polling numbers are so close. Don’t people know what a bad president he was? From this Canadian YouTuber, https://youtu.be/AlP3MFMbmTw?si=gAVPkV6TCVwU9LNl, some people will vote for Trump because they are pissed off and they want to upset the “system”. In a close election, a small minority of disaffected people can tip the scales in favor of Trump. If Trump gets a second term, there will be no adults in the “room” to stop him.
I agree, Ernie. Trump is a horrible human being, but what really bothers me is that half of the voting American population support his presidency. What that says about the average U.S. citizen is really distressing.
I think that ‘Project 2025’ is a real plan: Trump may not fully understand it as reading isn’t really his thing, but he will support it. If Trump wins, there will be ‘immigrant collection camps’: millions will be collected and deported with minimal consideration for human rights or basic standards of care. And it is a surprisingly small step to something more ‘permanent’ if deportation becomes challenging.
I would like to think that the American ‘dictatorship immune system’ would protect them against such atrocities, but lately I’m not so sure. The same folks who want to elect Trump seem to like the idea of absolute presidential authority.
And there will be many forms of Trump’s personal, petty forms of vengeance. Whether the more horrifying aspects of Project 2025 come to be, Trump’s natural predilection towards being a bully will be unleashed.
Project 2025 is a real thing, it’s also been named a lot of things over the years, and it has worked in the past partially. This is taken from the ACLU’s website
Project 2025’s largest publication, “Mandate For Leadership,” is a 900-page manual for reorganizing the entire federal government agency by agency to serve a conservative agenda. And I will post the link here https://www.aclu.org/project-2025-explained. It’s not what most think it is that Trump has had his people written it. It’s from a Foundation called The Heritage Foundation, most are or were under Trump in the past, but a lot of them are liberals. Here is the Heritage Foundation’s website , the ones that have written this Project 2025. https://www.heritage.org/ , Project 2025 was written in 2023, It was first brought when Regan was President and he did use some of their things back then. Then again what cracks me up is everyone is saying Yes or No to this and or that Candidate yet what no one realizes is that we’re not voting for the President. We’re voting for the General Election, but yet there is a hidden under lining one called the Electoral College, and they hold the final vote. So yeah we’re not even allowed to be the ones that pick our leaders. Here are a few more links about our voting.
Electoral College: https://www.usa.gov/electoral-college and General Election: https://www.usa.gov/presidential-general-election.
As for Money, well as the age old saying is, Money talks and bullshit walks. I was born poor, I’ll die poor because our government doesn’t care about us. It’s been proven recently since the hometown I grew up in has hit national television newscasts. Charleroi, Pennsylvania has seen a lot of media coverage since Trump said the name on National TV.
The Heritage Foundation is a pretty unpleasant organization itself. They may have started out with good intents sixty years ago, but these days the Foundation is more or less hell bent on the idea of establishing a right-wing evangelical theocracy. There is no question in my mind that they look at Trump as a ‘useful idiot’ to establish their perfect white protestant society, with men in charge, women in the kitchen, and people of colour either gone or not allowed to (effectively) vote. As you say, Shadowz, Project 2025 is just their latest ‘manifesto’.
The Electoral College is a weird thing. The worst parts of it are the elements that allow the vote to be subverted by individual electors. The electors ‘pledge’ to vote according to the votes cast in their district, but in reality nothing stops them from voting according to their personal desires. So an elector can, at least in theory, decide that their district voted ‘wrong’ and choose a different President than the people selected.