Republican Bernie Moreno at a JD Vance event (REUTERS/Gaelen Morse)
It seems hard to believe now, but in 2021, Time named Elon Musk like your Person of the Year. Admittedly, that designation does not necessarily equate to a seal of approval. But the magazine’s coverage of Musk at the time she was very favorable, almost flattering, and highlighted her statement that “my career is mars and cars”.
Many people would disagree with that statement now. Of course, Tesla and SpaceX are still big companies. But Musk himself is largely defined in the minds of many by the way he changed X, the site formerly known as Twitter, making more room for right-wing extremists, including a substantial number of pro-Nazi accounts, and his own acceptance of anti-Semitic and racist conspiracy theories.
Musk’s rightward shift is not universal or even typical: Reports suggest that even with the rightward shift of several prominent names, Silicon Valley remains heavily Democratic. The political contributions of the Internet industry, in particular, remain heavily tilted toward Democrats. But right-wing tech colleagues are exerting a significant and, I would argue, malign influence on the political landscape.
Elon Musk (REUTERS/Mike Segar)
Let us consider the case of JD Vancehe senator from ohio y Donald Trump’s running mate.
How did it get Vance where is it? It’s a extraordinary activist; extraordinary, that is, in the sense that it seems incredibly bad in that. I am not going to repeat the setback of the “cat women” or “cat ladies”(pejorative form used in the US to refer to single women or widows without children who live alone with one or more cats) except to say that she contributed to what will probably go down in history as one of the worst running mate pitches of all time. So who chose this guy?
The answer, it seems to me, is a handful of tech tycoons led by billionaire Peter Thielwho in fact bought Vance a Senate seat overwhelming his rivals with an avalanche of cash.
And in doing so, they put someone who, in my opinion, has morphed into an extremist on a path that could very possibly put him one step away from the presidency: keep in mind that Vance took the lead in spreading claims about Haitian immigrants in Springfield , Ohio, who stole and ate neighbors’ pets, and has gleefully continued to perpetuate these claims even though they appear to be completely unfounded.
Donald Troup and J.D. Vance (NYT)
Then there is the cryptocurrencywhich isn’t exactly like other parts of the tech sector. Regardless of what you think of Musk, Tesla produces a real product with real uses; the same thing, in a different way, does PayPalthe initial source of the Thiel’s vast wealth. Las cryptocurrenciesOn the contrary, they remain a solution in search of a problem.
But a couple of months ago, Bernie Morenohe pro-cryptocurrency Republican candidate for him another Ohio Senate seathe asked in a bitcoin convention: “Are you fed up with these politicians who say that the bitcoin Is it for drug trafficking and money laundering?” Not really: I’m tired of the most obvious and easiest use of cryptocurrencies be the drug trafficking and money launderingafter having tried and failed to find significant legal uses.
However, cryptocurrencies are marketed as a revolutionary technology, and some of their biggest proponents are among the tech brethren that have been lurching to the right, so it makes sense to put cryptocurrencies’ political role in the same basket. And cryptocurrencies are playing an important role in the 2024 elections. Axios writes that, according to an August report from Public Citizen, “the cryptocurrency industry accounts for nearly half of the money contributed by corporations to political action committees so far in 2024.” He Washington Post just reported that in Ohio, the industry has spent more than $38 million supporting Moreno against the incumbent Democrat, Sherrod Brown.
Why spending on cryptocurrencies is it so big? It is quite clear that the industry fears the regulation: Gary Genslerpresident of the Securities and Exchange Commissionhas argued that the cryptographic assets should be considered and regulated as valueswhich could damage or even eliminate its value by undermining some of the advertising.
Beyond that, a growing portion of crypto assets consists of stablecoins, issued by institutions that peg their value in terms of traditional currencies, such as the US dollar. However, we have a name for institutions that issue liabilities that promise to redeem for hard currency on demand: banks. And centuries of experience tell us that banks must be regulated to ensure financial stability. Even Adam Smith, in “The Wealth of Nations,” called for banking regulation. But stablecoins are not regulated like banks, and it is not clear whether they would be able to compete if they were.
So he political spending on cryptocurrencies seems clearly motivated by personal financial interestwhile the right turn of other technological brothers can reflect – as he said the other day in The Times a founder of Facebook, Chris Hughes– a sense of common cause with Trumpwho, like them, believes that I shouldn’t have to play by the rules. (I would add that the men of great wealth They can sometimes be susceptible to conspiracy theories because too often they are surrounded by people who they say what they want to hear and they laugh at their jokes even when they’re not funny).
Whatever their motivations, political spending by tech bros could have enormous effects on American politics. That Ohio race alone could determine control of the Senate, with a huge impact on federal politics on many fronts.
In summary, the style of the tech bros in American politics has emerged as a important forceone that, in my opinion, is pushing our democracy towards catastrophe.
