In 2020 and 2021, Tina Peters was an election-denying Colorado election official. She broke the law by plotting to tamper with election machines. She was convicted, jailed, then recently pardoned by Colorado governor Jared Polis. He’s a Democrat but he apparently wanted to make the Toddler happy.
The Toddler is not happy: his administration recently yanked hundreds in millions in grants for Colorado to retaliate over Peters’ conviction. Which is the way it always works with the current president: he’s a double-crossing rat and even f you give him exactly what he wants — well, once he’s got what he wanted, he’ll want more.
That makes capitulating to the Toddler a sucker bet, particularly when he’s not invincible: Harvard beat back a recent lawsuit over alleged antisemitism, which makes the universities that collaborate that much more contemptible. They could have fought; they could have won. So could many others who’ve rolled over and provided the Toddler with whatever he was demanding: anti-trans measures, an end to DEI policies, etc. Consistently they took what they imagined would be the easy route. Buy him off. Humor him. Tell him whatever will make him happy. Vote for horrible cabinet officials such as Pete Hegseth, Todd Blanche and RFK Jr. Contrary to Elon Musk’s misogynist bullshit, big strong men don’t have some special ability to go against the consensus.
For some of them, it probably feels easy because their commitment to the principles at stake — equality, diversity, free speech, LGBTQ rights, women’s rights — is paper thin. Even so, as No More Mr. Nice Blog says, lots of these people have the money and resources to stand up to the Toddler.
Case in point, Jeanine Pirro is a US attorney who chose to file bullshit lawsuits against people who did not vandalize the Toddler’s precious reflecting pool. Sure, the Toddler telling himself that it was sabotage, not that he handed out a sweetheart contract to someone with no experience make him feel better (admitting he screwed up would hurt his snowflake fee-fees). Pirro had to know the case was bullshit; if she had any principles she sold them out, shitting on an innocent man to pacify the Toddler. As NMMNB says, she’s worth $11 million, she’s 75 years old. She can retire and live comfortably. Most of our senators are billionaires; they could retire too instead of catering to a senile lunatic’s whims. Jeff Bezos is a bazillionaire yet he’s following up the money-losing Melania documentary with a documentary streaming series.
NMMNB’s explanation: “Te world is run by people who aren’t merely ambitious — they can’t seem to turn off their ambition. They succeed at a level 99% of us will never attain and they still can’t stop. And because you have to please people more powerful than yourself even when you’re near the top, and because most of those people are colossal assholes, that means the people near the top still need to abase themselves, out of their compulsive desire to remain near the top.
Which leads to what I call the Fuck-You Money Paradox. Ordinary people, when they imagine being rich, think wealth would give them the clout to say “Fuck you” to anyone who wanted them to do something they didn’t want to do. But, paradoxically, the people who are ambitious enough to attain elite status manage to do it because they’re addicted to pursuing and attaining elite status — and because they’re addicted, they’ll never do anything to put that status at risk. So people at or near the top are precisely the ones who’ll never say “Fuck you” to anyone who might put even a tiny amount of their money or status at risk. In other words, the people who obtain “Fuck you” money or status would never use it as “Fuck you” money or status.”
It’s the same point I made last year: the mindset required to make $10 million is a mindset that never thinks $10 million is enough (more here). If you have to lie, cheat or steal or kowtow to someone in power to get that $10 million, or $10 billion for that matter — well, maybe you’re skating on the thin edge of ethics but you’ve got to have it, dammit! Our senators don’t want to lose the attention and status they get by hanging onto their position in congress; men wealthy enough to attract or pay for all the women they wanted still visited Jeffrey Epstein’s island. Or consider the White House press corps: no matter how much the Toddler belittles and insults women reporters, they say nothing. Piss the Toddler off, you might lose access and there goes your status in the profession.
As C.S. Lewis puts it, “you will be drawn in, if you are drawn in, not by desire for gain or ease, but simply because at that moment, when the cup was so near your lips, you cannot bear to be thrust back again into the cold outer world.” For some people, no amount of fuck-you money will compensate for that.
