miércoles, 9 de julio de 2025

The Repblican fantasy of independence

 K. Cronick

Just a quick note: one might ask why the U.S. Republican party disparages and attacks the wellbeing of the country’s the working class. After all, doesn’t much of MAGA membership come from there? Why take away their health care, retirement funds, and education?

I think there are two reasons for this. The first is that the leadership and those who form the base of the party’s financial muscle[1] either believe they can control any upcoming elections, or that there won’t be any more popular voting.

The second reason is that these magnates that support Trump believe that automation and artificial intelligence will make the working class obsolete. When they can be free of these troublesome employees, then who cares what happens to them?

They dream of independence. 

I suppose that these magnates imagine themselves living and working in spacious castles on a high hill with a beautiful view, or on tropical islands surrounded by palm trees and robots.

I don’t believe they have thought this fantasy through to the end. The oil executives will find themselves in an overheated world with no vegetation, and furthermore, without customers because most people won’t be able to buy cars or fly in airplanes. Real estate mongols will only be able to sell houses and buildings to the rich, and anyway many of these structures will be under water or too hot. Weapons manufacturers will find that mass murder is no longer profitable. And so forth.

The kings and nobles need peasants.

So, this great Republican fantasy is not even a feasible long-term design even for its draftsmen.



[1] For example: Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman, Diane Hendricks, the cofounder of roofing company ABC Supplies, Harold Hamm, an oil and gas magnate, the Texas-based banker Andrew Beal, Home Depot cofounder Bernie Marcus, Venture capitalist Doug Leone,  Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, and Open AI CEO Sam Altman, among others.

 
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