Do You Feel In Charge?
There's this great scene in The Dark Knight Rises...
Gorman: Not that we know of.
Daggett: Aww, clearly you don't know much of anything do you? Where's Bane?
Gorman: We told him it was urgent.
Daggett: Oh where is that mask?
Bane: SPEAK OF THE DEVIL... And he shall appear.
Daggett [to Bane]: What. The. Hell. Is. Going. On?
Bane: Our plan is proceeding as expected.
Daggett: Oh really, do I look like I'm running Wayne Enterprises right now? Your hit on the stock exchange – it didn't work, my friend. And now you have my construction crews going around the city at 24 hours a day. How exactly is that supposed to help my company absorb Wayne's?
Bane [to Gorman]: Leave us.
Daggett [to Gorman]: No, you stay here. I'm in charge.
Bane: [Puts his hand on Daggett's shoulder] Do you feel in charge?
Daggett: We've paid you a small fortune.
Bane: And this gives you power over me?
Daggett: What is this?
Bane: Your money and infrastructure have been important – til now.
Daggett: What are you?
Bane: I'm Gotham's reckoning. Here to end the borrowed time you've all been living on.
Daggett: You are... pure evil.
Bane: I'm necessary evil.
[A crunching sound as Daggett screams in pain and terror and Gorman hides.]
In many ways, it's just an updated and elongated version of the famous Darth Vader scene from The Empire Strikes Back: "I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further." The core idea is the same: someone strikes a deal with the bad guy thinking they've set up a win-win only for the bad guy to reveal the true terms.
That is: I win, you lose.
I found myself thinking about these scenes in reading Casey Newton's latest newsletter on the topic of "the billionaires hedge their bets". That is, of course, a reference to the current crop of tech titans showing varying degrees of fealty to Donald Trump. Some, like Elon Musk, are overt. Others, like Mark Zuckerberg, are more indirect. Jeff Bezos is the latest example of this. He claims it has nothing to do with Trump, but it does indirectly, if nothing else. Many VCs are getting in line as well. I would say it's pathetic, but it's really just business.
But also, yeah, it's pathetic.
Because much like the fictional scenes above, if Trump wins, this is all clearly going to end with him thanking them for their service by telling them to pound sand. Because that's what someone like Donald Trump does in order to prove his power. He lures in the powerful only to hit them with the "do you feel in charge?" when they try to cash in. This is what he does. This is what he has always done. This is what he will always do.
This is why so many that were previously in his administration are now not only openly talking shit about their former boss, but actively campaigning against him. They didn't suddenly grow a conscious. He lured them in and then screwed them over.
To put it in less cinematic terms, as Casey does:
This is not, of course, a moral case for business leaders supporting Trump. There is no moral case for business leaders supporting Trump. Trump is an openly corrupt 78-year-old fascist, twice impeached and on 34 felony counts convicted, who attempted to stop the peaceful transfer of power in 2021 and now promises to further undermine the democracy of the United States if he manages to assume power again.
But a democratic emergency like the one we are now living through is not necessarily a business emergency. In the billionaires’ view, it could actually be an opportunity — to bring an end to the antitrust cases, to block further regulation of Big Tech in Congress, and to pursue their dreams of superintelligence in peace.
This is an appealing fantasy. But it is one that rests on the idea that whatever happens, the billionaires and their companies will be protected by the rule of law.
The history of authoritarianism suggests that the billionaires are likely to be disappointed. On Threads, Bulwark editor Jonathan V. Last tells the story of Russian billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Khodorkovsky became an oil billionaire after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and among other things founded a civil society organization named Open Russia to promote democracy and human rights. Two years after he founded it, Putin had him arrested and charged with fraud. His businesses fell apart, and he was sentenced to nine years in prison. Today he lives in exile in London.
“The entire point of the Khodorkovsky affair was for Putin to show the class of people with enough money and power to threaten him that he could destroy their lives,” Last writes. “They got the message, quickly. And so the oligarch class became his courtiers, rather than potential rivals.”
Fact or fiction, it's all the same idea. Do I think American billionaires are suddenly going to succumb to a window-falling epidemic? No. But there are other ways to inflict pain and show power. And those kowtowing to Trump are now tempting such a fate. Maybe they won't see it. But that will only be because Trump has lost. And regardless, they aren't going to look good in the history books here.
I hope these folks feel in charge now, jumping up and down like fucking idiots at the circus. Because no matter how much money they have, they are not in charge.