It
becomes clearer with each passing day that the people who took us to
war with Iran had and have no idea what they’re doing — that they’re
adolescents who think they’re playing video games while thousands die
and the world careens toward economic crisis. The New York Times reports
that Trump officials dismissed warnings that attacking Iran could
disrupt world oil supplies. Among other things, the Times reports that
Mr.
Trump, both publicly and privately, has been arguing that Venezuelan
oil could help solve any shocks coming from the Iran war.
In 2024 Venezuela produced 900,000 barrels of oil per day; normally 20 million barrels a day transit the Strait of Hormuz. But arithmetic has a well-known woke bias.
Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports
that the Pentagon has barred press photographers from briefings about
the war after they published photos of Pete Hegseth that his staff
considered “unflattering.” Priorities!
Amid
the bloody shambles, one big question is, who put The Gang That
Couldn’t Think Straight in power? In an immediate sense, Trump was put
over the top by low-information voters — defined by G. Elliott Morris
as voters who don’t know which party controls Congress. But the
groundwork for the MAGA takeover was laid well before by the Roberts
Supreme Court and by right-wing billionaires that the court enabled.
A few weeks ago I wrote about Billionaires Gone Wild,
the extraordinary influence acquired by a tiny group of ultra-wealthy
men. I shared this chart on campaign contributions, based on estimates
from Americans for Tax Fairness:
On Monday the Times published a deeply reported story about billionaires’ influence that, among other things, found that the chart above somewhat underestimates
their role in campaign finance: According to the Times, they accounted
for 19 percent of contributions in 2024, not 16.5 percent.
The
Times also pointed out that the big money swung hard right in the 2024
election. The magnitude of the largesse showered on Republicans is clear
in OpenSecrets data on the top 100 donors in different cycles:
Moreover, the Times presents numbers that are even more extreme than the Open Secrets data:
In
past elections, as ultrawealthy donors became more active, both major
parties reaped rewards. But there was a stark divergence in 2024, with
less money flowing directly to Democrats and a sharp increase in the
amount donated to Republicans.
For
every dollar donated by billionaires and their immediate families to a
candidate or committee associated with Democrats, five dollars went to
Republicans.
Much
of that was a result of ultrawealthy people in the tech industry, who
aligned with Mr. Trump’s tax and deregulation policies. More than a
dozen billionaires were awarded roles in his administration.
And
these explicit money flows don’t capture the immense effect of other
deployments of billionaires’ wealth, notably the subversion of both
conventional and social media. Elon Musk purchased Twitter in 2022 and
quickly began converting it into the Nazi-friendly cesspool it is today —
and no, that’s not hyperbole. How much did this contribute to the
degradation of public discourse? Paramount, controlled by Larry Ellison
and run by his son, has taken over CBS News — which is rapidly going
downhill — and is on the verge of taking over CNN too. And Jeff Bezos is
gutting The Washington Post, although kudos to the remaining reporters
who are still trying to do their jobs.
There
is, however, something that is still puzzling me: To a large extent
billionaires bought themselves a government friendly to their interests.
Trump and company have granted many items on the tech broligarchy wish
list, from tax breaks to deregulation to promotion of crypto and
unregulated AI. But why the abject incompetence? Couldn’t billionaires
find political allies who wouldn’t plunge the country into a potentially
disastrous and historically unpopular war without considering the
risks?
I have two tentative answers.
One
is that no, competent allies weren’t available. Money buys a lot of
influence, but to actually take over the U.S. government requires more
than money — it requires politicians who are utterly corrupt. In his
first administration, Trump learned that hiring people who were even
modestly competent eventually presented barriers to his authoritarian
instincts – for example, his former Vice President Mike Pence. Hence
Trump learned that in choosing his political hires the more incompetent,
the more venal, the more bigoted, and the more cruel, the better.
You
might think that presidential pardons for scammers, money launderers
and outright crooks are unrelated to the ill-advised war on Iran. But
corruption is a key feature of a billionaire-installed regime, and
corruption and incompetence go hand in hand.
My
second answer is that the vast wealth of tech billionaires has made
many of them unconcerned with the little people’s lives — and deeply
unpatriotic. If Americans are being brutalized and murdered by rogue ICE
agents…well, that’s not their problem. If the Justice Department and
the FBI are totally subverted and operate as Trump’s enforcers, they
know that vindictive, unlawful tactics will never touch their lives. If
Republican budget cuts decimate rural hospitals and deprive hundreds of
thousands of health insurance…well, they have their own private doctors
and clinics. If Trump starts an ill-conceived war that doubles the price
of oil…well, they can certainly afford the higher gasoline bills for
their limousines and yachts. And it won’t be their kids hunkered down in
a bunker in the Middle East.
So
if you want to understand how this country has degenerated to such a
state, how we can be spending nearly $2 billion a day attacking Iran
without a clear endgame in sight, while children go without healthcare,
nursing homes are understaffed because their workers have been deported,
home electricity bills skyrocket due to data centers, consider who
benefits and who isn’t hurt.
This is a billionaire’s war, waged at everyone else’s expense.