It may be hard to believe now, but in 2021, Time magazine named Elon Musk its Person of the Year. Granted, that designation doesn’t necessarily equate to a stamp of approval. But the magazine’s coverage of Musk at the time was very positive, almost flattering, emphasizing his claim that “my career is Mars and cars.”
Many people would now disagree with that declaration. Of course, Tesla and SpaceX are still big companies. But Musk himself is in the minds of many people about how he transformed the site “X,” formerly known as Twitter, into a site for right-wing extremists, including a significant number of pro-Nazi accounts. He is largely defined by his acceptance of anti-Semitism and racism. Conspiracy theory.
Mr. Musk’s shift to the right is neither universal nor typical. According to reports, Silicon Valley remains heavily Democratic, even though several names in bold have moved to the right. In particular, political donations from the internet industry continue to lean strongly toward the Democratic Party. But the right-wing tech fraternity exerts significant, and I would argue malign, influence on the political landscape.
Consider the case of J.D. Vance, a congressman from Ohio and Donald Trump’s running mate.
How did Vance get here? He’s a remarkable campaigner — remarkable, in the sense that he seems incredibly bad at it. I’m not going to rehash the “Cat Lady” backlash, but I’ll just say that it contributed to what will probably go down as one of the worst vice presidential candidates in history. So who chose this guy?
The answer, it seems to me, is a handful of tech tycoons led by billionaire Peter Thiel. Thiel effectively won Vance’s Senate seat by overwhelming his rivals with large amounts of money.
And in doing so, they set a man who, in my view, has morphed into an ugly extremist into a path that could very well take him out of office. Remember, Vance has been at the forefront of spreading the word about Haitian immigration. In Springfield, Ohio, people are stealing and eating their neighbors’ pets and happily continue to perpetuate these claims even though they appear to be completely unfounded.
Then there’s cryptocurrencies, which are quite different from the rest of the technology sector. No matter what you think about Musk, Tesla makes real products that are actually used. PayPal, the original source of Thiel’s vast wealth, is similar in another way. In contrast, cryptography remains a solution that explores a problem.
But a few months ago, Bernie Moreno, the Republican candidate for Ohio’s other Senate seat, said at a Bitcoin convention, “Are you tired of politicians saying Bitcoin is for drug trafficking and money laundering? ” he asked. Actually, it’s not. The most obvious and readily available uses of cryptocurrencies are certainly drug trafficking and money laundering, and we are fed up with the fact that we have tried and failed to find significant legal uses for them.
But since cryptocurrencies have been touted as revolutionary technologies, and some of their biggest proponents include right-leaning tech allies, it’s hard to put cryptocurrencies’ political role in the same basket. Makes sense.
And cryptocurrencies will play a big role in the 2024 elections. According to an August report from Public Citizen, Axios wrote that “the crypto industry will account for nearly half of all corporate donations to political action committees by 2024.” The Washington Post reported that in Ohio, the industry spent more than $38 million supporting Moreno against incumbent Democrat Sherrod Brown.
Why is spending on cryptocurrencies so big? It’s clear the industry fears regulation. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler has argued that crypto assets should be considered securities and regulated accordingly. This could undermine some of the hype and potentially erode or even eliminate the value of crypto assets.
Furthermore, the proportion of stablecoins in crypto assets is increasing. Stablecoins are issued by institutions that peg their value to traditional currencies such as the US dollar. But institutions that issue debt that promises to be exchanged for hard currency on demand have a name: banks. And centuries of experience show that banks need to be regulated to ensure financial stability. Adam Smith also called for banking regulation in The Wealth of Nations.
However, stablecoins are not regulated like banks, and even if they were, it is unclear whether they would be able to compete.
So while political spending on cryptocurrencies clearly appears to be motivated by economic self-interest, the right-wing outbursts of other tech brethren, as Facebook founder Chris Hughes recently wrote in the Times As stated in the paper, this may reflect a sense of common cause with President Trump. , who, like them, believe that you don’t have to play by the rules. (I would also add that millionaires are sometimes more susceptible to conspiracy theories, because they surround themselves with people who tell them what they want to hear and who laugh at their jokes even if they aren’t funny.) Because there are too many things.)
Whatever their motives, political spending by tech cronies could have a major impact on U.S. politics. The election in Ohio could itself determine control of the Senate and could have a profound impact on federal policy on many fronts.
In short, I think the tech fraternity style in American politics is emerging as a major force that is bringing our democracy closer to destruction.
