Silicon Valley’s Oligarchs Got a Punch in the Head – and That’s Actually a Good Thing
10th November 2016
Funny how British journalism is so much better than American DemLegHumpMedia vaporings.
A Republican trifecta (controlling the White House and both Houses) would be the big news today as it signals a “change election”, and it hasn’t happened since 1928. But Trump is Trump, so that isn’t even mentioned today.
I guess they’re too upset about the sky falling.
One piece of cultural context Europeans invariably forget is that much of America’s politics is done locally, at the town, state, country and state level. Almost all policing is local. The federal government is a distant, often sinister thing, perceived in large parts with some paranoia. Electing Jefferson Smith to go to Washington is regarded as a calculated, prudent measure, not an act of idiocy.
The Crust forget that America isn’t a unitary state like most of Europe — even though they’re trying their best to make it one.
The tech oligarchs had an extraordinary ride of luck. Silicon Valley successfully disguised an attack not just on the heartlands, but the unwritten social contract. If you study Google closely, what emerges is how much the very idea of humans irritates it, what an inconvenience we are. “Post human” isn’t some sci-fi fantasy, it’s a reasonable description of a world in which many jobs have been automated, and the individual’s property rights and identity rights have been pared right away to the bone. People have begun to notice that Silicon Valley doesn’t create jobs or prosperity – except for the oligarchs themselves.
They’re the smartest people in the room, and they’ve got the checkbooks to prove it.
Trump’s victory, like Brexit, divides critics into two camps. It’s either a failure of the existing elites – such as the media and the current parties who have failed to heed people’s concerns, or it’s the fault of the people, who can then be vilified. The latter argument has the merit, for the elites, of absolving them from any fault for alienating voters, or pursuing self-indulgent and irrelevant pursuits – like having a tech policy. Eventually that leads to the elites wishing they had a new electorate, rather than listening and leading. And ultimately, that leads to a Trump.