Yonorth How democracy endsIn his elegant book published after Trump’s election in 2016, David Runciman raised a surprising point: While the liberal democracy we take for granted will not last forever, it will not fail in ways familiar from the past: no revolutions, no military coups, no breakdowns in the social order. Fail forward In an unexpected way. The implication was that people who made comparisons with what happened in Germany in the 1930s were wrong.
Until a few weeks ago, that seemed like good advice, but then something changed. Significant sections of Silicon Valley – which for decades had been a Democratic stronghold – began to support Trump. In 2016, Peter Thiel, the maverick billionaire and co-founder of PayPal, had been the only prominent figure in Silicon Valley to support Trump, which merely confirmed the fact that he was the region’s statutory maverick. But in recent weeks, several of Silicon Valley’s heavyweights – Elon Musk, Marc Andreessen and David Sacks, to name just three – have come out as Trump supporters – and donors to him. Musk has set up and donated to a Republican-aligned political action committee (or Super Pac). On June 6, venture capitalist Sacks hosted a $300,000-a-plate fundraising dinner for Trump at his San Francisco mansion. And so on.
What is all this sudden interest in politics about? It is probably due to a combination of several different factors. One is Biden’s plan to impose a tax on billionaires (and his administration’s enthusiasm for antitrust litigation). Another is Trump’s newfound enthusiasm for cryptocurrencies. A third is that Biden had raised a lot more money in campaign contributions. Finally, and most importantly, before Biden’s withdrawal, the Trump train had begun to look unstoppable.
The last two factors are what remind us of the 1930s. In 1932, the Nazi Party was in serious financial trouble, and when Hitler became chancellor the following year, he made a personal appeal to business leaders for help. Money came from 17 different business groups, with the largest donations coming from IG Farben and Deutsche BankAt the time, such donations must have seemed like shrewd gambles to the industrialists who made them. But, as historian Adam Tooze put it in his landmark book on the period, they also meant that German industrialists were “willing partners in the destruction of political pluralism in Germany.” In exchange for their donations, Tooze wrote, German business owners and managers were given unprecedented powers to control their workforces, collective bargaining was abolished, and wages were frozen at a relatively low level. Corporate profits also rose very rapidly, as did corporate investment. Fascism turned out to be good for business — until it wasn’t.
One wonders if any of these thoughts crossed what one might loosely call the minds of the tech titans as they tucked into their $300,000 dinners one June evening in San Francisco. My guess is not. The denizens of Silicon Valley, it turns out, don’t really study history, because their business is creating the future. Consequently, they have nothing to learn from the past.
It’s a pity, because history has some lessons for them. The German industrialists who decided in 1933 that they should support Hitler may not have had a clear idea of what he had in store for Germany and possibly knew nothing of his plans for the “final solution.” However, the guests at David Sacks’ dinner have no such excuse: Project 2025Trump’s plans for a second term are on display in a 900-page document posted online.
It’s an interesting read. It has four main goals: protecting children and families; dismantling the administrative state; defending the country’s borders; and restoring “God-given” individual freedoms. But at its core, it’s a plan for a great increase in presidential power (including putting the Justice Department under presidential control), replacing nonpartisan public officials with loyalists, rolling back environmental legislation, mass deportations, and a whole bunch of hysterical stuff about removing “sexual orientation and gender identity, diversity, equity and inclusion, gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender sensitivity, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights” from every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, and piece of legislation.
The rationale for Project 2025 was a concern that when Trump came to power in 2016 he had no idea what to do with his new powers, and to ensure that he would do it next time. As public concern about the document has grown, he has sought to disassociate himself from it. This could be because he does not believe he will need a plan after being elected. Speaking at a Christian convention in Florida the other day, he said: “Go out and vote. Just this once. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what: it will be sorted out, everything will be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians.”
And the moral? Be careful what you wish for. Silicon Valley, please copy.
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What I’ve been reading
Where to start?
Tim Harford has written a really interesting essay entitled “How to fix the UK? Let me tell you the ways” in it Financial Times.
False balance
There is a thoughtful Substack by historian Timothy Snyder at both sides-isma pernicious deception of the mainstream media.
In the ether
Molly White’s skeptical blog post for her newsletter, Citation Needed, reflects on When cryptocurrency policy became an election issue.