Our MOST DANGEROUS Minority: BILLIONAIRES
What do they love besides money? Other billionaires!
If you’re sick and tired of hearing about billionaires …
… then you’d best brace yourself. You can’t watch the news for 5 fucking minutes without hearing the word ‘billionaire.’ That’s not likely to change. At least 13 billionaire nominees and appointees are already on the Trump 2.0 team, although it might feel like there’s a billion of them. Every one of these particular billionaires seemed to have badly wanted Trump to win, and they exercised their best quid pro quo behavior to help make it happen, for which they were subsequently rewarded. What’s their reward, really?
Their reward, on the surface, would seem to be a respected cabinet position, or a cushy ambassadorship. But look deeper and you’ll see more.
They’re now “made men” in the Trump mafia. They’re overlords in the New American Oligarchy.
We’re going to see gluttonous greed … the peddling of power to make masses of money in a cornucopia of corruption, like nobody’s ever seen before, let me tell you. Should any of them take too much liberty or go too far … their boss - the “Don” - has immunity … and the power to pardon.
It’s pretty gangster. In fact, it’s right out of Godfather 2 - when Michael Corleone and Hyman Roth were joined by bankers and industry titans in Cuba, and Roth said: “We finally have what we’ve always wanted … a real partnership with a government.”
This is no ordinary group of billionaires, folks. Some of them will be in more impactful positions than others, but all of them are people who want to own all the land next to theirs. They want to amass as much as they can and keep it all. Some of them also seem to believe that if you have less, it’s easier for them to have more.
These billionaires don’t look at America and see the land of the free and the home of the brave. They look outside of America to places like Russia and Hungary instead and then they imagine that style of government coming here. They get off thinking about the kind of wealth that could yield, a wealth which they would wield.
Billionaire Lutnick can’t wait to supplant taxes with tariffs. Billionaire Sacks can’t wait to dismantle and deregulate while building up block chains. Billionaire Linda McMahon can’t wait to metaphorically throw the entire Department of Education into the turnbuckle and then whap it over the head with a metal folding chair.
And then … there’s Elon Musk.
SS: I truly think that Elon Musk is the most dangerous man in the world.
OS: More dangerous than Trump with his newfound immunity and our nuclear codes? More dangerous than Putin, who invades sovereign countries and tosses people out windows?
SS: Good point. I’ll rephrase to say that Musk is the most dangerous, TO AMERICA - partly because his motivations are so global, and more world dominant. His wealth is unparalleled, it's cemented in place, and it’s spread out everywhere, especially in China. He has already developed direct economic relationships with many foreign governments, and for all we know, he’s got Putin on speed dial. He's a market manipulator turned megalomaniac. He's smarter and less ignorant than Trump, yet just as thin-skinned. And what makes the situation most unique is that he’s so socially awkward, possibly on the autism spectrum (as he claims), and he flits between being defensive to hypersensitive to immature, amusing himself with his own antics. If that’s not enough, he controls a social platform where he’s the leading voice and doesn’t tolerate dissent. It’s a nexus of hate. AND … by all credible reports, he abuses drugs.
OS: That’s terrifying. People have referred to Musk as a James Bond villain, but sometimes I think we’re more accurately at the beginning of a new Stephen King novel. Maybe we should do a whole issue of Banters on Musk.
SS: Yes. Let’s see how it plays between Trump and Musk after the inauguration.
OS: Deal. Their dynamic for us is interesting. As Musk often says - concerning.
America’s fixation with extreme wealth …
… is not a new thing. Back when Robin Leach hosted Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, it was about extravagance and giant toys. Billionaires were not seen as cannibalizing the rest of us, they were more the stuff of fantasy. Even now, if you step away from the Trumpian brand of billionaire and just reflect on the math, two thoughts that probably come to mind, are: Damn - such a small percentage of their collective wealth could impart so much needed “good” in this world - AND - If I was a billionaire, I’d be cool, generally content, not so desperate to obtain more, strive to do some good, and definitely not fixate on keeping others down.
But in today’s world, the term billionaire has come to connote more than someone with extreme wealth. It’s politicized. For some people, like George Soros, the word billionaire is practically attached to their name, glued to it like a fucking adjective. In fact, it you ever hear Soros’ name mentioned without the word billionaire preceding it, it’s probably being used by the Far Right as an antisemitic trope for “Jew.”
OS: Oh, that’s rich.
SS: I see what you did there.
OS: I think in our modern lexicon, the word billionaire has come to imply someone who is successful, but also shameful, selfish, or strange. Especially selfish.
SS: Sadly, I agree with that.
OS: Is there a pathological explanation? Are they all fucking narcissists?
SS: Psychologists believe that NPD (narcissistic personality disorder) is present in between 0.5% and 2% of people overall —
OS: Gotta be mostly men.
SS: — yes, it’s higher in men. And while I don’t know of any study about the prevalence of NPD in billionaires, it’s believed to be as high as 20% among CEOs, so that’s quite a jump.
OS: I’m surprised it’s not higher. I’ve known quite a few CEOs that were narcissists. When I think of a CEO, I think of someone of considerable influence, wielding power over others. And while few CEOs may rise to billionaire status, I’ve read that most earn more in a day than their average employee earns in a year.
SS: I think you just hit on THE issue that colors the conversation about billionaires most and it is at the heart of our problem, and at the core of our American society’s insecurity - massive wealth disparity.
OS: The level of wealth disparity is out of fucking control.
There are 813 billionaires in the US (Forbes, 2024) …
… and they are not all selfish, entitled douchebags and weirdos, fixated on creating a new world order. In fact, most of them are not. Back in 2010, two of the wealthiest, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, tried to convince the other 400 most wealthy to sign a Giving Pledge to donate 50% or more of their wealth to charity during their lifetimes. 74 of them did sign the pledge. Now, 14 years later, Forbes did some research and awarded each of the 74 billionaires who had signed that pledge a grade between 1 and 5 to see how they were doing on it. Only 10 of the rich bastards got a 5 (including Buffett, Soros, Ted Turner; Gates was close).
Interestingly, the #1 philanthropist of all was Mackenzie Scott, Jeff Bezos’ first wife who has given a whopping $17.3B to 2300 non-profits. Do we even have to tell you what grade her Trump-appeasing union-busting space-exploring WaPo-ruining ex-husband got? Yeah, it was a 1. What a dick.
There have been many papers written in psychology journals …
… about a tendency of the super-wealthy to behave using traits known as the Dark Triad. It’s similar to malignant narcissism except it includes Machiavellianism - which is characterized by extreme manipulativeness and deceit, aimed at self-promotion. Put into less clinical terms, it’s the tendency of very rich people to defend their wealth and the system that facilitated it through deceptive arguments and diversions that now extend well beyond the ‘trickle down’ myth: concerns over wealth inequality are overblown; change is more costly; change is dangerous; critics of the super-rich are misguided and misinformed; the wealthy deserve the public’s trust; critics of the billionaire class are un-American; the one-percent aren’t to blame for society’s problems; and other contrived arguments that accomplish or facilitate obfuscation, obstruction, weaponization, and entitlement.
Machiavellianism is especially dangerous when it comes from people running wealthy governments and corporations whose claims and appeals cannot be easily debunked. Think about how long Enron managed to obscure its fraud and prop up its stock price, so that when it suddenly tanked it blindsided employees and took down most of their pensions. And think about how tobacco companies spent decades withholding scientific evidence and misleading the public about the harmful effects of smoking.
Bringing it full circle back to Trump, very few have ever exhibited traits of the Dark Triad in as pronounced a way as has Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who long sat at the nexus of government bigwig and corporate CEO. And what he did, was nothing short of sanctioning murder. And it earned him … wait for it … billionaire status.
OS: I think the reference to Kushner is important, because he worked that MBS deal long and hard. It should never be forgotten or forgiven, and it both underscores how much wealth is outside the U.S. that could and would be traded for favor, as well as how eager the new Trumpian Traitor Elites will be to make those trades. Especially Elon, who isn’t even an American to begin with.
SS: If there is one thing that oligarchs love as much as money, it’s other oligarchs. And remember - just before the holidays, when we were hours away from a disastrous government shutdown, Musk was pulling the strings. I couldn’t help thinking he was perhaps orchestrating an American catastrophe partly as a favor for China.
OS: I don’t put anything past that piece of shit. But more broadly, there will be quite a few players in the new government who will put personal financial interests above country, who have shown that they will, and based upon some of what you’ve said here, it appears that some of them are actually wired to be that way.
SS: Yup. It’s a somber thought.
IN CLOSING, this Banters collaboration will continue to present a more complete picture of what we’ll face ahead with frank exchanges that never pull punches. We’re resistors. And resistance needs focus and perspective. Outspoken HATES Trump, pure and simple. Shallow State says that what he really hates, is TrumpISM, the apparatus, and the fact that truth is being trampled.
CREDITS: Art by Outspoken. Credit to psychologist Roy J Eidelson and Psychology Today. The reference to “sanctioning murder” was about Khashoggi.
COMING UP in future issues of Banters:
MAGA New Year’s Resolutions
Anxiety is normal, getting addicted to it, isn't
The Trump Cult - WTF - maybe we're asking the wrong question
Fear is the point, but the Grift is the goal
What happened to Happiness, and why don’t Americans pursue it anymore?
TIPS on dealing with stress
This was absolutely fabulous & very much needed. I will definitely repost it. - YpsiGal
Thanks.....diuly shared