Our elites fold like they’re paper-thin

I read a few arguments in the last century that having big, powerful media conglomerates was a good thing. They’d have deep pockets to stand up to lawsuits. They’d be able to stare down officious governments. They’d be strong enough to publish controversial books and deep, anti-government reporting.

As we’ve seen under the Felon, that was a pile of horse manure. Jeff Bezos, who has more money than the felon, refused to back a candidate last year, when the WaPo editorial board wanted Harris. The NYT and the WaPo are both happy to sanewash the Felon administration, along with other media outlets. One article earlier this year (I forget which company) described FOTUS “teasing” the acquisition of Greenland and Canada, as if it was all just so, so amusing and whimsical. It’s not, and if it was some other country — India threatening to take over Pakistan, say — they’d never phrase it like that.

We have an otherwise excellent piece on the Felon’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein that phrases the issue as “what Mr. Trump’s long association with Mr. Epstein says about his judgment and character.” Or Variety saying David Ellison, whose Skydance Media may be taking over CBS, “has projected an image of being intrigued by the politics espoused by President Donald Trump.” Sounds like a careful way to avoid saying “right-wing dictatorship supporter.” (judging by this article, Ellison is indeed intrigued by the politics espoused by the Felon — will CBS be the new Fox News?).

I’ve heard some bloggers say it’s because the media can’t admit what a nightmare we’re in, but I don’t buy that. If Biden had started calling Canada our “cherished 51st state” they’d be describing him as either a warmonger or senile — but Biden isn’t going to hunt them down for hurting his fee-fees the way President Snowflake does.

Now we have CBS, settling a $16 million lawsuit over supposedly editing a Harris interview that the Felon thinks made her look smart — everyone has to say widdle baby Donny is the smartest widdle baby of all time! On top of that, they’ve fired Stephen Colbert for mocking the Felon, while insisting it has nothing to do with wanting approval of the Skydance deal. Oh, and Ellison may be talking about bringing right-wing hack Bari Weiss aboard in some news capacity (the Writers Guild wants CBS’ capitulation investigated as a bribery case).

This isn’t new. There was a story back in the 1990s about how one journalist had written a blockbuster book about the blood feud between the Lebanese-American families that ran Guess and Jordache jeans. It was going to be a big, big deal … then Paramount bought up the publisher. Paramount’s head at the time had married one of the women involved in the feuding; suddenly word came down to the publisher not to name her anywhere in the book. Publicity and promotion plans evaporated; the book tanked. The story I read said it’s not necessarily that Paramount’s CEO wanted it killed; it’s equally possible some underling worried about how he’d react. The result was the same either way.

(Sidebar: there are rumors Bezos wants to buy Conde Naste, which owns Vogue, because his wife would like him to own Vogue. This would also make him the owner of Wired, which has been doing blockbuster reporting on the current administration).

Theoretically the elites could do fine defying the Felon. They have money enough for the best security. They do indeed have the power and pockets to fight bullshit suits — hell, big corporations routinely spend millions of dollars a year on legal fees. But they’re risk-averse or in some cases opportunistic. The CBS merger, for instance. And Bezos wants the National Labor Relations Board, which oversees union elections, declared unconstitutional. And in some cases, they may be okay with what the Snowflake is doing. Sen. Thom Tillis, a multi-millionaire, has announced his retirement but he’s still voting a straight Republican ticket.

Business guru Harvey Mackay wrote once that if you think $10 million is enough, you will never have $10 million. The same thing is in play here. Billionaires could lose all but one billion and still have enough to live in luxury. But they can’t bear the thought — they’re like Smaug grieving for a missing bit of treasure. Only much less interesting.

And they have egos, as witness the bizarre story of Trumper Bill Ackman buying his way into a tennis tournament he’s not qualified for. Retiring and living comfortably may not suit them as much as getting bigger and bigger, more and more, and seeing an ever-widening gulf between them and their imagined inferiors.

Reagan’s foreign policy advisor Jeane Kilpatrick once argued that one of the reasons right-wing dictatorships were better than left-wing ones was that they kept everything calm and stable. The poor would get screwed over but they’re always getting screwed over; the rich and powerful would be fine as long as they respected who the new top dog was. She thought this was a good thing.

As we are seeing, it is not.