Billionaire Influence: Rich Men & Their Sheep
Individuals who have made a shit load of money are not necessarily wise by nature. There is, however, an all too ready willingness to believe in their superiority by the sheep-like members of our communities. Billionaire influence: Rich men and their sheep. Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberg, Michael Bloomberg, Charles Koch and the list could go on are some of the most influential billionaires of the 21C. The majority of us are content to shuffle along in life and follow the leader. ‘Working for the man’ means for many trading their integrity for a meagre amount of financial security. Crumbs from the trickledown effect of decades of neoliberalism. Once you have passed on your autonomy to another it is no stretch to follow their lead wherever they take you. This makes very wealthy people much more influential than their poorer counterparts.
Rich Men Ruling The Roost In Our Capitalist Economies
Poorly educated folk generally look up to the materially successful individuals around them. Their measuring criteria tends to be limited to the signs of wealth like amassed private property and positions of exalted status. Indeed, most of us are influenced by these things when displayed within our communities and circles of engagement. The main difference between college educated and non-college educated individuals is the breadth of knowledge brought to their lives and the marketplace.
If all you know is your experience of the marketplace, then, it is limited to that measuring stick when evaluating the complexities of life.
Populists Know The People Don’t Read Real History Books
The majority of modern Homo sapiens have a superficial understanding of history. Looking back and deeply into the past is not a generally popular past time. This makes it easier for populists to influence the political decisions of voters within democratic electorates. A perfect example of this is the anti-immigration shibboleth regularly brought out by populist politicians and parties. Blame the bad shit on the new arrivals who may look a bit different and possess strange customs. Billionaires have the money but in a democracy also require the popular vote to get their favoured economic policies over the line. Thus, the culture wars are rolled out to gain the support of the hoi poloi. The anti-woke campaigns which attack and fear monger illegal immigrants, refugees, non-whites, LGBTQI folk, and other demonised targets. In some countries this includes women and their reproductive health rights. Religions born in the Bronze Age cast their outdated shadow over 21C life in a bid to subjugate women and control their bodies. Have you noticed how women rarely play leadership roles within traditional religions? Talk of God, this elusive character who is highly susceptible to having words put into His mouth and has remained scientifically unproven for millennia, is never far from these power seeking groups. Christian Nationalism is a clear example of white skinned Americans twisting the Jesus story out of recognisable shape in their bid to exert control over others and the nation. Jesus of Nazareth did not lobby for political power or bear arms to threaten those in charge, according to the Bible I have read. These Christian Nationalist folk are not content to live by their own rules, no, they want to enforce their interpretation of religious commandments over everybody else. Why is that I wonder?
Billionaires Backing Anti-Democratic Candidates
Billionaire influence: Rich men and their sheep have reached an apogee in America. J.D. Vance, the Trump anointed VP, is a creature of PayPal billionaire Peter Thiel. The public are being sold a strange vision of a backward focused future. Libertarian freedom is championed by people like Thiel and seems to be about having the freedom to abuse democratic rights. White men who want to suppress the rights and independence of women have increased their power within the Republican party. Thiel has been a major donor to the GOP over recent years. Thiel, like Elon Musk, has become more anti-democratic over the decades and thus supports Donald Trump and his authoritarian bid for Presidential power in 2024. Bottom line is that rich people look out primarily for their own interests. The funny thing about having lots of money is that it can make you more paranoid about protecting it. Thiel attacks phantom demonised welfare recipients like single mothers as a blight on America. This has become a popular stance by some billionaires – to express open derision toward poorer people and blame their poverty on perceived character failings of the individual. This, of course, then, makes it more than okay to be exceedingly wealthy in the face of entrenched poverty within your country of residence.
This is the new vision of the GOP and their Project 2025. Rich is good, poor is bad. If you are rich you are doing the right thing but if you are poor it is your own fault and you are doing something wrong. Welcome to America!
Are You A Sheep Or Asleep At The Wheel?
These billionaires and populist politicians like Trump don’t get to positions of power and influence by themselves. No, they are enabled by the sheep beneath their feet. White working class people, who toe the line within their little lives and are full of prejudicial biases against anyone different, make up the majority of enablers. Racists, misogynists, and homophobes are the foot soldiers of populist leaders promulgating hate and intolerance. There are exceptions to this general trend with some outliers supporting Trump from outside the main cohort. There are people of colour who so want to be white they financially exploit their racial identity like Clarence Thomas in swimming against the current. It can be very lucrative to become the poster child of the radical right. In addition, there are the millions merely asleep at the wheel, who pay scant attention to the political circus and vote, if they bother to vote at all, where the loudest voice leads them. Money talks in America. The great irony is that many new immigrants vote for the party that promotes keeping immigrants out. Those last in, often, want to lock the door behind them, it seems.
Icons Of White American History
A look back at some of the super wealthy individuals of America’s 20C past tells us a familiar story. Henry Ford was the entrepreneurial giant of the early motor car industry in the United States. Unfortunately, Ford became more and more intolerant in his views regarding his fellow human beings. Adolf Hitler had a framed picture of Henry Ford on his wall as an icon of antisemitism and what would become Nazism. Henry Ford and his sponsored Dearborn Independent newspaper would spread a poisonous false narrative about Jews and the Elders of Zion right across America. This has sown the seeds of conspiracy theory BS through generations of poorly educated Americans. Thomas Edison is another celebrated white Protestant American entrepreneurial inventor of the 20C who was involved in many of the major technological innovations of his time. History rings a few familiar bells doesn’t it? Edison’s involvement in the early US film industry saw The Birth Of A Nation by DW Griffith laud the Knights of The Ku Klux Klan via groundbreaking cinematography at the time in 1915. It has been described as the most racist film ever made. It traversed the stereotypical trope of its time of the Black male rapist and his deserving lynching by gallant KKK white men. This BS would pervade white American culture for decades to come as justification for the horrendous treatment of African Americans by vile whites.
“The film is credited with reviving the racist KKK, who adopted it as a recruitment tool. “The Ku Klux Klan had been kind of a dead organisation by 1915, but when the film [came out and became a hit] the KKK was refounded, capitalised on [the film’s success] and in the 1920s became a massive organisation at the peak of nativist fervour in the United States,” says Paul McEwan.”
“David Wark Griffith was born in La Grange, Kentucky, in 1875, the son of an ex-Confederate colonel. His father died when he was seven, and he later dropped out of high school to help support his family. After holding various jobs, he began a successful career as a theater actor. He wrote several plays and, on the advice of a colleague, sent some scenarios for one-reel films to the Edison Film Company and the Biograph Company.”
Abraham Lincoln was the last decent Republican President
Stranger Than Fiction?
Today, you can imagine Elon Musk and Peter Thiel defending the rights of such a film to be shown as an expression of free speech. All of these right wing radicals bemoaning cancel culture are blind or actually supportive of the dark messages being promulgated through such mass media presentations. Indeed, the role of fiction and entertainment in the lives and values of modern human beings is vastly under appreciated. I observed how closely we are all bound up with our recreational lives during the global pandemic when access to these was temporarily limited or restricted on the basis of public health policies preventing the spread of the virus. For many of us, our jobs are largely meaningless outside of the necessary income they provide. Instead, we find meaning and purpose in the games we play, entertainments we engage with and such like. Therefore, the messages sent out inside video games, movies, streaming shows, and other fictional mediums are hugely influential to our values in the 21C. Plus, in the secret governmental activities of today, where everything is classified, access to factual truths are restricted and limited for the majority of us. No wonder so many folk believe in batshit crazy stuff in the current era and are so susceptible to disinformation campaigns by nefarious players and populist politicians. Who controls the media? More billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Musk, and the corporations like National Amusements, Disney, Time Warner, Comcast, and News Corp. Every mainstream media thing you view is funnelled through the filters of these influential billionaires.
Who Filters What You Are Watching?
Some people talk about things like human free will and whether it actually exists. If you are one of the billions of sheep grazing in front of your screen the chances of getting any truly independent view of the world is zero. Billionaires are all about making money primarily but they can multitask by feeding you products that fit in with their ideology and charge you a fee at the same time. We live in a rentier economy where ‘user pays’ is the model and we all pay countless subscriptions, fees, and charges for whatever we use. The current cost of living crisis inspired by a high inflationary period following the global pandemic has seen corporations globally achieve record profits. The lack of competition in markets controlled by duopolies and oligopolies allows these dominant corporate players to set the prices without fear of consumer backlash. Companies have sewn up the so called free market by removing competition and governments have been complicit in this – bought off by campaign donations to elected politicians and parties. Meanwhile, we sheep make do on less of everything and direct our ire further down the food chain via downward envy.
“While conservatives like to deride the “politics of envy”, stoking downward envy has become a standard tactic of politicians and some sections of the media.”
It is more attractive for weak people to punch down on those less fortunate than take on the bullies above them. Thus, we get poor white folk condemning poor black people and voting for the party that reduces taxes on the rich and is simultaneously cutting social welfare spending on the poor in areas where more African Americans live. Welcome to America.
Manipulating The Masses
Billionaire influence: Rich men and their sheep. The Musk’s and Thiel’s control their sheep by teasing out ambitions via aspirational politicking. Many Americans aspire to billionaire status, according to what we see and hear on social media. Weak leaders and populists employ the dropping of strategic breadcrumbs promising possibilities of advancement within their networks. Jostling for favour among the hoi poloi disunifies the many and weakens their resolve when it comes to negotiating deals and wages. This is one of the main reasons why billionaires discourage union membership within their workforces. Billionaires and pro-business political parties invariably run PR campaigns against unions accusing their leadership of corruption and standover tactics disproportionately. Blue collar crime is always much more severely punished than any white collar crime within our societies. Rich men want to make ever more money and simultaneously pay their employees as little as possible. Our culture lauds the wealthy individual and neglects the community around them that actually makes their success possible. It is always the Steve Jobs and never the team around and below him. Sheep follow and lack the gumption to step out of line. Of course, the huge imbalance of power sees any rebellious sheep quickly taken out of the picture. Mutton sandwiches anyone?
The Billionaire Disease & Its Roots In History
If you study or read up on some ancient history about the Romans in particular you will come across the fact that extreme wealth was not celebrated at the highest level during the Republican Era. Indeed, it was looked down upon by the more virtuous Roman leaders in the senate. Physical courage within martial settings was regarded as the truly noble characteristic of Roman culture. Being born into a wealthy family or amassing large amounts of wealth was derided to some degree on this basis. This began to change with Julius Caesar buying favour to launch his power grab at the beginning of the Imperial Era and the mixed adventures of Crassus. More Roman governors, like Gaius Verres, would extract and loot as much wealth from their provinces as possible during their tenure. Private property and its tentacles would infect this once proud martial race. We take our laws from the ancient Romans and their culture has a deep association with our Western values. I think it was when our aristocracy stopped risking their lives in martial conflict and stayed at the rear of battles that the rot set in. Overt materialism replaced the virtuousness within our leaders. Billionaires became role models for our young rather than warriors who risked all for glory. I am not suggesting a return to martial valour as the determinate of greatness but merely plotting the rise of greed and materialism as a signifier of laudable behaviour. It has been a slippery slope ever since.
In Conclusion
If you find yourself on the populist bandwagon, somewhere down the back, perhaps ask yourself if you have considered the bigger picture? Will the blowhard up on the hustings really deliver on the many promises he is making? Will he deliver on the promise you heard him utter? The one that has its hooks into you. Populists invariably don’t deliver. That billionaire you admire what is he really going to do for you? Do you really think that you will get to share that stage with him? Billionaire influence is enabled by you. You can give it and you can withdraw it too. Take it from me things are not going to change that much and I can’t see the clock going backwards anytime soon. These billionaires are getting richer and richer. You and I are falling further and further behind. Maybe it is time to stand with us and demand an end to the financial exploitation of the working poor. That really rich guy is not going to do anything for you. Look at the evidence so far and stop listening to the BS. We are all a little old to be believing in fairy tales.
Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump.
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