The Corporate Takeover of America - Status = Complete

Google’s Antitrust Win, Silicon Valley’s Super PACs & Must-Read Post by Timothy Snyder

A bill was introduced this year by Republican Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna to carve Trump’s face into Mount Rushmore (image source).

American technology and politics have become so intertwined that it’s hard to tell where one domain begins and the other one ends. This week’s post is written in this spirit as it primarily concerns domestic policy affairs in the US.

A year ago, I was optimistic that the powers of BigTech could be reined in by the rule of law, FTC’s proactive antitrust enforcement under Lina Khan, and the good will of the people.

The BigTech Cartel Is Threatened After Judge’s Ruling on Google’s Search Monopoly

Now, not so much. After Trump’s re-election which was enabled by (1) X and TikTok, (2) loud Muskian support and (3) large contributions from Silicon Valley donors, I sadly can’t imagine how democratic and legal guardrails can serve as effective backstops for unabashed corporate influence. That means no adoption of AI and/or privacy laws on a federal level, no protection for minors on social media, no antitrust enforcement that meaningfully curbs BigTech powers, no changes to addictive and manipulative design features of tech platforms, and no reform of Section 230.

Section 230 Made the Internet Possible, But Is No Longer Serving Humanity

Speaking as a lawyer who cares about human rights, this deeply saddens and frustrates me. The issues of lacking tech regulation in the US certainly transcend corporate profits, raised fingers, and my bruised ego as a human rights advocate in the digital age. We need global coordination and dialogue to deal with the consequences of climate change, new pandemics, and the threat of World War III. BigTech’s political dominion in the US affects the politics of other countries too, and it makes global challenges, much harder to deal with.

As publicly traded companies, BigTech abides by the laws of capitalism, which means that they are incapable of taking meaningful action towards the green energy transition, hindering conflicts caused by the spread of misinformation and online polarization/radicalization, and protecting people’s privacy, freedom of speech, and well-being, unless they are forced to by politicians, courts and consumers. Their moral obligations end where it affects the bottom line negatively, and the Trump administration depend on their continued financial success to brag about the Great American Progress which in reality is only great for him, his family, comrades, sycophantic followers, BigTech, and its major investors.

Does that mean that it’s finally time to let go of resistance, enjoy a life of passive consumption while it lasts, and hope that Buddhism and Hinduism were wrong about reincarnation? Undoubtedly, the Trump administration and BigTech expects people to act in this way - as passive, braindead consumers. The sky-rocketing value of NASDAQ and S&P 500 depends on it. But for people living in the US, opposing the Trump/Vance administration is not a matter of politics, but a matter of preserving democracy as such. Timothy Snyder recently delivered that message with a frightening clarity in the post Look on my works, ye Mighty. Here is a quote:

“What holds the United States together? Let me hold back for a moment on the loftier ideas of the Constitution and the history for a moment, and stay focused on those flows of wealth. It is the money, as transferred by institutions, as justified by political convictions.

The blue states pay taxes to the federal government, which redirects them to the red states. Voters in red states take advantage of this redistribution, while claiming (in their majority, not the whole population, of course) both that they are against such a redistribution and that they are being cheated because they do not get enough. Governors of red states (not all, but several) push the logic of the federal system to the limit, treating themselves (not the Constitution or the law and certainly not the taxpayers in blue states) as the final arbiter of what can be done with taxes. This is an arrangement, when looked at from the outside with a cold eye, can hardly be seen as natural and sustainable. It only works because of certain assumptions about the nature of the federal government as a whole, assumptions that are now being challenged. It depends on blue state politicians and voters acting in the name of something beyond narrow self-interest.”

Social media is greatly entertaining and a comfortable distraction, I will be the first to admit that. When people are not working it’s not atypical that they spend most of their free time on digital platforms to the benefit of BigTech. Some people will staunchly claim that the online world is just as real as the offline world, and who am I to say they are wrong. However, I do fear that Americans are scrolling, swiping, trolling, grinning, posting, chatting, raging, and moaning their way into a fascist state without free choice and autonomy, ruled by the weakness of pleasure rather than the fear of pain. This rabbit hole goes much deeper than anything the internet is able to transmit as a medium.

A democracy depends on at least 51% of the population sharing its ideals and trusting that the system works better than any alternative. Today, we will take a look at two tragic developments which could signal that resistance against the techno-elite is becoming futile in the US: Silicon Valley’s Super PACs and the disappointing remedies in Google’s high-profile antitrust with the Department of Justice as counterpart.