Bezos, Trump, and the Failure of Democracy
We are witnessing a watershed moment. Democracy is failing because the
rule of law has been broken. And everyone is about to realize it. All at once.
Oct 27, 2024
Editor’s note: I’ve been stewing over
the Washington Post story all weekend and felt compelled to
write another bonus Triad about it because people seem to be
both misdiagnosing and underestimating what happened at the Washington
Post. This isn’t about censorship or the media. It’s catastrophic
failure of the rule of law.
This is a watershed moment that
suggests we are in greater danger than we realized.
It’s time to get organized and get
ready. To prepare for what’s to come. That’s what we’re doing at The
Bulwark, every day. I hope you’ll join us. There’s power in community.
Tonight Tim and the gang will go live
after the Trump rally at Madison Square Garden for a Bulwark+ members-only
livestream. If you want to join, become a member now and watch your inbox for a
link shortly.
ON FRIDAY, after the Washington
Post’s publisher announced that the paper was suddenly abandoning the
practice of the editorial page endorsing presidential candidates, news leaked
that—on the very same day—Donald Trump met with executives from Blue Origin.
Blue Origin, of course, is the rocket
company owned by Jeff Bezos, who also owns the Washington Post.
This was neither a coincidence nor a
case of Bezos and Trump being caught doing something they wished to keep
hidden. The entire point of the exercise, at least for Trump, was that it be
public.
What we witnessed on Friday was not a
case of censorship or a failure of the media. It had nothing to do with
journalism or the Washington Post. It was something
much, much more consequential. It was about oligarchy, the
rule of law, and the failure of the democratic order.
When Bezos decreed that the newspaper
he owned could not endorse Trump’s opponent, it was a transparent act of
submission borne of an intuitive understanding of the differences between the
candidates.
Bezos understood that if he
antagonized Kamala Harris and Harris became president, he would face no
consequences. A Harris administration would not target his businesses because
the Harris administration would—like all presidential administrations not headed
by Trump—adhere to the rule of law.
Bezos likewise understood that the
inverse was not true. If he continued to antagonize Trump and Trump became
president, his businesses very much would be targeted.
So bending the knee to Trump was the
smart play. All upside, no downside.
What Trump understood was that Bezos’s
submission would be of limited use if it was kept quiet. Because the point of
dominating Bezos wasn’t just to dominate Bezos. It was to send a message to
every other businessman, entrepreneur, and corporation in America: that these
are the rules of the game. If you are nice to Trump, the government will be
nice to you. If you criticize Trump, the government will be used against you.
Which is why Trump met with Blue
Origin on the same day that Bezos yielded. It was a demonstration—a very public
demonstration.
But as bad as that sounds, it isn’t
the worst part.
The worst part is the underlying
failures that made this arrangement possible.
My friend Kristofer Harrison is a
Russia expert who runs the Dekleptocracy Project. This morning he
emailed,
America’s oligarch moment makes us
more like 1990s Russia than we want to believe. Political scientists can and
will debate what comes first: oligarchs or flaccid politicians. 1990s Russia
had that in spades. So do we. That combination corroded the rule of law there,
and it’s doing so here.
Russian democracy died because their
institutions and politicians were not strong enough to enforce the law. Sound
familiar? I could identify half a dozen laws that Elon Musk has already broken
without enforcement. Bezos censored the Post because he knows
that nobody will enforce the law and keep Trump from seeking political
retribution. And on and on. The corrosive effect on the rule of law is
cumulative.
The Bezos surrender is our warning
bell about entering early-stage 1990s Russia. No legal system is able to
survive when it there’s a class not subject to it because politicians are too
cowardly to enforce the law.
And that’s the foundational point. The
Bezos surrender isn’t just a demonstration. It’s a
consequence. It’s a signal that the rule of law has already eroded to such a
point that even a person as powerful as Jeff Bezos no longer believes it can
protect him.
So he has sought shelter in the
embrace of the strongman.
Bezos made his decision because he
calculated that Trump has already won—not the election, but his struggle to
break the rule of law
Yesterday, Timothy Snyder issued a
call to Americans to not obey in advance. He is correct, of course. We should
continue to resist fascism as best we can. The stakes have not changed.
What should change is our
understanding of where our democracy currently sits on the continuum. We are
not teetering at the precipice of a slide into autocracy. We are already
partway down the slope. And that’s even if Harris wins.
If Trump wins? Well, I suppose we’ll
burn that bridge when we come to it.
But Bezos and Trump have just taught
America’s remaining small-d democratic leaders: The time for normal politics,
where you try to win bipartisan majorities by focusing on “kitchen-table”
issues is past. The task in front of us will require aggressive, systemic
changes if we are to escape terminal decline.
The hour is later than we think.