The Billionaires Are Afraid

This is not the behavior of confident people.Larry Ellison isn't trying to turn CNN, CBS, and TikTok into propaganda bullhorns because he's supremely confident that he has American culture under his thumb. Jeff Bezos didn't buy and castrate the Washington Post because he's feeling good about his long term chances at erecting a permanent corporatist autocracy. American oligarchs aren't just trying to destroy journalism, they're trying to replace it with a well-funded simulacrum designed to blow smoke up your ass. They're so positively terrified by the threat of informed consensus they've taken direct aim at the last remnants of institutional knowledge. What are they so afraid of? The extraction class is (quite correctly) worried that this golden age of corruption will trigger a wave of public introspection, outrage and awareness, culminating in a light gravitational pendulum swing back toward more equitable, progressive ideals. Radical stuff like modest labor reforms and semi-equitable…