False Profits

They’re mad as hell and they’re not gonna take it anymore. What are they mad about? They’ve come of age during an era that has been historically advantageous for people like them. They’ve made more money in a shorter time than anyone in history. They’re famous. They’re influential. And the divide between what they’ve got and what the rest of the world has is growing almost as fast as their financial portfolio. Still, for some reason the people who are benefiting the most from the status quo are the ones expressing the most anger about the way things are. And that message has a very big audience among those who actually have something to be pissed about and who are convinced that these profitable prophets offer them elite at the end the of the tunnel. It’s elite on elite crime and from RFK Jr to Elon Musk, it sells. Derek Thompson in The Atlantic (Gift Article): RFK Jr. Is a Bellwether. “This style—the elite who despise the elite—describes some of Trump’s most influential backers, including Elon Musk, the venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, and the financier Bill Ackman. What’s notable about these figures isn’t that they’re wealthy people supporting the conservative candidate; that’s a dog-bites-man story. Rather it’s that they’ve all couched their support for Trump as anti-establishment—whether it’s Ackman against colleges and the DEI bureaucracy, Musk against legacy media, or Andreessen against the Biden administration’s crypto policies. Each of these immensely powerful men has recognized that, in an age of anti-incumbency, the best way to promote one’s cause is to align oneself with the common man’s plight and to frame one’s opinions as a war against power.” Somehow when those in power pretend fight the power, they become even more powerful. I wouldn’t be surprised if they eventually put the fight on pay-per-view. Why leave all that money on the table?