OUR Kind Of Billionaire

In no particular order:

1. J.B. Pritzker. Take 73 seconds to watch.

2. Mark Cuban. His CostPlusDrugs saves consumers a fortune. The “Shark Tank” star and Dallas Mavericks owner has ruled out running, but what a great president he would make.

3-4-5. Oprah Winfrey! Taylor Swift! Judith Faulkner! Self-made but not self-ish.

6. Nick Hanauer, whose must-watch 6-minute TED talk and must-read Pitchforks article I’ve shared here a hundred times.

7. Warren Buffett, whose wisdom, humility, decency, business success, and integrity make him Trump’s polar opposite. No king of debt or master of bankruptcy, he.

Did you know that Buffett’s dad was a super-conservative Nebraska Congressman?

“So why are you a Democrat?” I once asked.

“Well, if you’ve read John Rawls and considered his ‘veil of ignorance,’ how could you be anything else?” was the gist of his reply. (Needless to say, I had not read John Rawls.)

John Rawls’ veil of ignorance: You’re in the womb and somehow have the power to design the world you’re about to be born into. The only thing is: you don’t whether you’ll be born male or female; black or white; straight, gay, or trans; mentally gifted or challenged, great-looking or palatoschistic; with a killer immune system or immuno-compromised; to wealthy parents or a single drug-addicted mom . . . how would you order society?

Aristocracy? Kleptocracy? Communism? Dictatorship? Unregulated, Darwinian, monopolistic capitalism? Voting rights only for white men of property?

If you would want universal health care and a living minimum wage . . . the wealthy paying higher marginal tax rates than their secretaries . . . capitalism with lots of opportunity to get rich but regulated to assure consumer protection, investor protection, safe food, water, drugs, and workplaces, clean air and robust competition . . . an adequate social safety net, sensible gun safety regulation, and collective action to prevent “the tragedy of the commons” (as in, for example, climate change) . . . checks and balances that require compromise . . . respect for the rule of law and for long-established norms of civility . . . if you would want these things, then welcome to the Democratic Party.

I think MAGA Republicans want at least most of those things but have been skillfully misled. That’s what demagogues do: skillful misdirection. Look at Hugo Chavez. How did his demagoguery turn out for the once relatively prosperous, democratic Venezuelans? Or, a lifetime earlier, how did demagoguery turn out for the Italians and the Germans?

Why are we suddenly on the side of the Russians and North Koreans? Did MAGA-ns realize this is what they were voting for? Chaos instead of competence? Higher inflation and interest rates? A Trump cession and lower 401k balances? Shutting down medical research in mid-experiment that might one day save their children’s lives?

I know a lot of good people who voted for Trump.

This is not what they voted for.

Many Republican senators feel the same way but are afraid for their personal safety.

Anne Applebaum: We have become the bad guys. “Trump and Vance Shattered Europe’s Illusions About America.”

If Reagan was a white-hatted cowboy, Trump and Vance are Mafia dons. The chorus of Republican political leaders defending them seems both sinister and surprising to Europeans too.

Worth reading in full: The Rise of the Brutal American.

Or this: U.S. Joins Axis of Evil.