Broligarch visions are a nightmare for the rest of us

Ok, politics fans, it’s time to get past the shock and awe of Donald J Trump inching past Kamala Harris to become President of the United States on January 20. Nope, not a mandate.

The media, by and large, has conceded their independence, starting with the Morning Joe hosts, the choreography of three major east coast newspapers disposing of their political editors, and the biggest newspaper west of the Mississippi replacing their editorial board just days after the election.

Speaking of bootlicking, check out this statement by Los Angeles Times owner Dr Patrick Soon-Shiong:

• The appointment of three highly qualified, critical thinkers—all of whom are MDs—to leadership positions in key agencies that influence the health of all Americans…FDA, CMS, and CDC… is an inspired decision! These doctors understand the needs of patients and community care and have the vision to finally transform our health system from sick care to true health care. Hopefully, the era of dogma, group think and implementing policies based on incorrect assumptions that have driven our high cost, poor outcomes healthcare system for decades, is over. Congratulations on these great decisions, President Trump and RFK. @realDonaldTrump @RobertKennedyJr

The Department of Justice has taken the steps needed to put a “hold” on its various prosecutions of Trump, and his sentencing for the 34 felonies in New York state’s jurisdiction has been indefinitely postponed.

The president-elect has already seized the top spot when it comes to media attention, with a blitzkrieg approach to nominations, bombastic declarations about tariffs, and a billionaire-led non-governmental entity charged with targeting the funding of programs throughout government.

Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) leader Elon Musk has already given us an example of its ability to harness the stochastic power of the MAGA mob by publicly naming and shaming a government employee, chosen via an anonymous social media poster as an example of people who needed to lose their jobs.

Here’s an excerpt from the Wall Street Journal’s coverage of a scientist who’s been subjected to a barrage of hate and is now laying low to protect her family. The “trigger” for the denunciation were the words “climate diversification” in her agency’s description.

•  With engineering, business and water science degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of Oxford, Thomas spent years doing field work in Africa and writing research papers such as one on a technology that can help extract water from air in arid countries, according to her past tweets.
• She eventually went to work as the agency’s director of climate diversification in 2023, when federal personnel records show she earned $172,075 a year. 
• An agency official said the climate diversification portfolio is highly technical and is focused on identifying innovations that serve U.S. strategic interests, including bolstering agriculture and infrastructure against extreme weather events.

Two things readers should be aware of before reacting to the various threats and shiny objects coming out of the regime-in waiting:

• Awareness of the reality that much of what got threatened in Trump V.1 never happened. The menacing remarks (acted on or not) always served his interests in the moment by overwhelming would-be opponents whose constant mentions of his remarks end up giving them additional visibility.
• The most significant source of funding in Trump’s victory came from what  Dartmouth College sociology professor Dr. Brooke Harrington describes as “Broligarchs,” the wealthy post libertarian scions of Silicon Valley. Donald Trump is the ringmaster for a circus at the White House, but the tent is owned by a bunch of ultra wealthy guys who consider the nation-state to be obsolete.

So, while it’s certainly smart to be aware of Project 2025 and Trump’s utterances, they need to be seen as calls for preparation rather than immediate action. Gov. Newsom’s announcement that the state will step in to replace federal rebates on electric vehicles (except Tesla, lol) is an example of preparation. It’s a big maybe requiring little more than a press release at the present.

Brooke Harrington’s “What the Broligarchs Want From Trump” in The Atlantic makes a case for the class expectations for the current transition of power.

• [B]ut the broligarchs are distinct from old-school American oligarchs in one key respect: Their political vision seeks to undermine the nation-state system globally. Musk, among others, has set his sights on the privatization and colonization of space with little or no government involvement. Thiel and Andreessen have invested heavily in creating alternatives to the nation-state here on Earth, including libertarian colonies with minimal taxation. One such colony is up and running in Honduras; Thiel has also invested in efforts to create artificial islands and other autonomous communities to serve as new outposts for private governance. “The nature of government is about to change at a very fundamental level,” Thiel said of these initiatives in 2008.
• Cryptocurrency is the financial engine of the broligarchs’ political project. For centuries, states have been defined by two monopolies: first, on the legitimate use of coercive force (as by the military and the police); and second, on control of the money supply. Today’s broligarchs have long sought to weaken government control of global finance. Thiel notes in his 2014 book, Zero to One, that when he, Musk, and others started PayPal, it “had a suitably grand mission … We wanted to create a new internet currency to replace the U.S. dollar.” If broligarchs succeed in making cryptocurrency a major competitor to or replacement for the dollar, the effects could be enormous. The American currency is also the world’s reserve currency—a global medium of exchange. This has contributed to U.S. economic dominance in the world for 80 years and gives Washington greater latitude to use financial and economic pressure as an alternative to military action.

If you sum up what seem to be (and sometimes are) Donald Trump’s immediate selfish interests versus the long game context of destroying modern state apparatuses, our struggle for hearts and minds requires building awareness of the intentions of the Broligarchs.

Bernie Sanders is right when speaking of opposing the billionaire class, but his vision is limited by the world he sees today. This techno-wealthy class has built its vision around ideas plundered from science fiction, fantasy literature, and even comic books.

To be clear, they feel entitled to rule by virtue of their accumulation of wealth. And the expectation of any entity replacing our current form of governance will be preserving and expanding those privately held assets. The nuts and bolts of small acts of governance will be handled by machines, the ones that are training on our collective knowledge and history in the present day.

There will be no “commons” in their future, nor rights other than those required for maintaining the new pseudo-government’s expectations. Unlike the concept of monarchy  -where authority was designated by Supreme Being–  the broligarchy will draw on technological mastery of the illusions us peasants will be expected to live under. Trust me, this will be no land of milk and honey.

I may not have all this analysis exactly right, but a historical understanding of the corrupting influences of power and wealth is the basis for my predictions.

We shouldn’t need or want billionaires in this society. After running down numerous examples of what Elon Musk’s wealth ($348 billion) could buy (China’s defense budget with $50 billion in change),Hamilton Nolan in Enough Wealth to Warp the Universearrives at some sobering observations.

• Even with all of the hysteria about Elon Musk and what a disaster his Department of Government Efficiency could be, I do not think that it has fully sunk in how far into the dystopian hole America has already gone, and how much deeper we may soon go if one guy decides he wants to have every federal politician in his pocket.
• This is why billionaires should not exist. Not only because many of them are rat bastards. Not only because nobody needs that much money and it could be put to much better uses. But also because the accumulation of so much wealth in the hands of a single person makes that person so ridiculously powerful that an entire nation of hundreds of millions of people cannot outweigh the influence of one.
• If we want a democracy, we will confiscate their wealth. We are not going to be in the position to do it any time soon. But when Democrats regain control of the government, they need to take this seriously. If the only response to billionaires on one side is for the other side to desperately try to cultivate their own billionaires, all the rest of us get left on the side of the road, disempowered observers of the dumbest soap opera that has ever existed.

Doug Porter was active in the early days of the alternative press in San Diego, contributing to the OB Liberator, the print version of the OB Rag, the San Diego Door, and the San Diego Street Journal. He went on to have a 35-year career in the Hospitality business and decided to go back into raising hell when he retired. He’s won numerous awards for his columns from the Society of Professional Journalists in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016. Doug is a cancer survivor (sans vocal chords) and lives in North Park.