Media Dance Around the Big Story: How, Under Trump, the Rich Run the Country
Why billionaire influence must be an election issue — now.
One thing I think we can all agree on: Big companies and wealthy individuals hold sway over our country, our system, and our lives as never before.
Sometimes their heft brings good news for the public. Like Costco joining smaller companies in suing the Trump administration over tariffs it has paid, arguing that only Congress is empowered to levy those charges.
Costco is justifiably popular with a lot of people — and this seems the right course both for the company and the general interest.
On the other hand, this kind of behavior is the exception. More typical are shocking acts of genuflection before Donald Trump; some feel like outright bribery or private-public collusion.
Take how the Republican tech billionaire Michael Dell and his wife have donated $6.25 billion to fund investment accounts for at least 25 million American children. Sounds like kindhearted philanthropy, right?
But here’s the background:
As part of Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” the Treasury will put $1,000 into so-called Trump Accounts for every US citizen child born between January 2025 and January 2029. (Both parents and the baby must have Social Security numbers) These are supposed to be investment accounts that parents will manage on behalf of their children.
What’s wrong with it? To begin with, calling them “Trump Accounts” is transparently shameless bribery of the public: Vote for us, and Trump gives you money.
Even worse is when the wealthy, in this case Dell, come to Trump’s rescue by covering an additional group — many born before January 2025, ages 10 and under, who would get $250, depending on their zip code.
The Dells’ net worth is $147 billion, and their gift will cost them only 4 percent of that. Not a lot of skin off their nose. While it’s still a lot of money combined, I suspect that, from the point of view of the individual recipients — it is close to nothing.
If you bought a small bowl of beans for every child in America, it would cost you zillions — but would not likely do that much good for the child. Not even if they planted them.
And who gets the money? “Children in families making under $140,000.” That would include the poor, but also the middle class — the national middle-class income range being from $41,392 to $124,176. Would the Dells’ gift make much of a difference to them?
As for the poverty-stricken people whose needs are so much greater, how far would this $250 go? Oh, wait — It’s supposed to grow. But maybe it won’t get a chance. As Inside Philanthropy put it: “Privately managed savings accounts could be milked for fees that enrich the firms that manage the accounts. Even modest fees can significantly diminish investment returns over an extended period.”
Another interesting note from Inside Philanthrophy: “Only 34 billionaires on the Forbes 400 have given away more than10 percent of their wealth over their lifetimes, even though 100 of America’s billionaires are over 85.” (I guess they plan to take it with them.)
Michael Dell may or may not be “giving” out of the kindness of his heart, but it’s a straight calculation that he’ll make more, probably much more on the back end, by funding Trump’s propaganda ploy.
Dell quietly opposes the kinds of tax reforms that would actually lift all boats. In general, billionaires like Dell prefer personal, agenda-driven charitable giving over political action to implement systemic changes that redistribute opportunity and resources. Such as, say, Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid, which were strenuously opposed by the wealthy when first proposed and are now so popular they are considered politically untouchable.
Dell is hardly alone. Many other billionaires have stepped up to fund Trump and Trump-branded initiatives that benefit Trump politically or even financially.
One example is Jeff Bezos and Amazon. Bezos capitulated to Trump’s relentless attacks on him and Amazon by demonstrating remorse for some earlier political views, through such things as a large donation to Trump’s inaugural fund and changing the editorial page slant of his Washington Post . And now, Amazon is contemplating ending a distribution deal with the US Postal Service that could potentially destroy the latter. Which may be fine with Trump, who has disparaged the postal service and wants to privatize it.
Another example of a titan capitulating to MAGAworld is Alex Karp, head of the data-management firm Palantir, which provides software that enables surveillance capabilities for law enforcement, “national security,” and more. This article does a good job of exposing how Karp has moved to the right and abandoned many of his earlier principles and guard rails — ostensibly seeming reasonable, but clearly benefiting from arming ICE and other repressive entities with the tools to do even more harm.
As good as that article was, I noticed the elephant in the room. The Washington Post framed Karp as a liberal who has for various reasons changed his stripes. But it failed to focus on the Peter Thiel factor. The “libertarian” Thiel — he who argues that anyone who stands in the way of developing AI at breakneck speed is “the anti-Christ” — not only co-founded Palantir, but has since its beginning served as its chairman of the board. How could his far-right, apocalyptic views not influence the company?
Related: The Church of Silicon: Peter Thiel’s Gospel of Unfettered Power
Yet another example of where this is all heading is the ongoing capitulation to Trump by media corporations. As reported by Policyband:
With a major spectrum deal awaiting Trump administration approval, AT&T has dropped its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies and programs under pressure from FCC Chairman Brendan Carr.
You’ll note that Palantir also has abandoned DEI. This is not, as it is often presented, about ridiculous “woke” policies. The wealthy-funded right-wing media reshaped the conversation through frame-control. It hid the fact that DEI, rather than lowering standards across the board, was largely intended to address the expanding advantages of the wealthy class.
In fact — and this is rarely discussed — DEI may have actually helped raise standards in the way it limited the covert upward drift of unqualified, ultra-wealthy insiders and challenged their inherited lock on opportunity. Affirmative action has always existed for the connected. Life starts out great and stays great, thanks to a network of favoritism that often has little to do with qualifications or skills.
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While we’re witnessing so many assaults on a barely functioning democracy, the shameless exchange of money for influence and favors seems about as harmful and odious as anything. Political actors and news organizations must be pressured to cover this aggressively and constantly. As Michael Dell might say, it’s a feature, not a bug, of the Trump ascendancy.
We made a huge mistake by applauding billionaire techbros as visionary geniuses who, because they got so rich so fast, should be treated as role models and wise leaders. Even the highly educated tend to swallow up books about corporate figures whose “lessons” on how to succeed at work and navigate life should be valorized.
We never should have trusted the wealthiest to look after our interests, or to make crucial decisions about the future of our country, such as rushing the development of AI without even a vestige of public oversight. Now, it’s clear how much of a mistake that was.
What to do about it is not at all clear. But one thing is certain: This issue has to be front and center in the coming election. Trump-backed 2026 candidates and those who support him (and other corporate or foreign interests) need to be confronted with the most egregious examples of corporate self-dealing. And the public needs to understand not only that this is wrong on its face, but also how it harms all of us.
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As with Costco and a number of other companies, a handful of billionaires have pushed back. Like George Soros, whose team years ago came up with the idea of funding local candidates, especially for the position of district attorney, whose work can impact underserved elements of the community in so many ways. This of course infuriated the right, which has no problem with rich people spending unlimited sums to elect candidates who will advance their agenda.
But there are few billionaires like Soros. And, despite the fact that his spending constitutes a few arrows against a colossal force, he has faced massive vilification in MAGA-leaning media that have tried to convince the public that he, too, is the anti-Christ. It’s not likely that many other moguls with billions at their disposal — who may share those concerns — will risk the attacks that Soros (and now his son) has endured.
Trump Administration: No, Look Over Here!
With the Trump administration having drummed traditional news organizations out of the Pentagon, and replaced them with a bunch of unqualified right-wing influencers who parrot the official line unquestioningly, it is doubly ironic that the Trump administration professes outrage about media “bias.”
The White House has set up a “Media Bias Offender Tipline” and is urging the public to report any and all promulgators of “Fake News.”Presumably they don’t mean Fox News, OAN, and the like.
It then posts claims of bias, complete with the names of the alleged offending organizations and their reporters — thereby inviting unhinged members of the public to target entities and individuals. You must look at this. It’s yet another example of outrageously inappropriate and dangerously vengeful behavior.
This latest attempt to intimidate, harass, and silence journalists must not become normalized as just one more example of “oh well… that’s what they do.”
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There’s been a lot of talk recently about Trump’s mental state — his staying up late and frenetically posting deranged material on social media, as well as his appearing to fall asleep in high-level government meetings. Somehow, though, this doesn’t seem to rise to the appropriate level of urgency among the legacy media.
This falling asleep reminds us of the media’s failure to tackle such a problem with Joe Biden — until the most powerful man in the world imploded — right in front of the world.
What will it take for this to become an issue now? Is the GOP in the same impossible position vis-a-vis Trump as the Democrats were with Biden? Actually, it seems much worse for them, what with Trump and his big personality critical for turning out their base in the upcoming congressional elections.
How is this not a Red Alert story, with daily coverage?
And what about a related story — the GOP’s growing desperation to meddle in elections that the polls show may overturn their control of at least one house of Congress. The Justice Department has filed not one but six new lawsuits demanding that Democratic-controlled states provide it with sensitive information about every single voter.
That brings to a whopping 14 the number of states in which the most blatantly corrupt and rule-breaking administration in history is seeking to create havoc and suppress the opposition.
While this urgent story gets sporadic media attention, it apparently doesn’t merit the sounding of the klaxons — which is what it takes to rally the public and its representatives to break through the barrage of distractions with which Trump’s lackeys keep “flooding the zone.”
Meanwhile, returning to my original point, the way that wealth-funded right-wing media relentlessly push certain stories to motivate their base — statistical non-issues like voter fraud, trans athletes, tan suits, and pet-eating immigrants — fools the public into thinking these are legitimate issues.
As a result, little bandwidth remains for real and urgent matters related to the misdeeds of the powerful, such as financial fraud, foreign influence, and the kinds of depredations and wrongdoing carried out not just by Jeffrey Epstein and his crew but, daily, by so many others.
Of course, it is Chaos Agent No. 1 Donald Trump himself who picks what controversy will dominate the news feeds. But if the media would do its job, it would publicize what really needs attention. As for the rest of us, we must keep pressuring them to do so.
Our voices have had an impact, and much of the media now is stepping up, but so far, it’s too little — and if the core reality isn’t wholly and candidly discussed — it could soon be too late.
Related: Billionaires Rewrite the News. The Rest of Us Deal With Reality
Well said regarding the influence of big money… but this could have been written about Biden, Obama, Bush, or any other administration going back decades.
It is worse under Trump, but the Dems are not better.
Both wings of the capitalist party are complicit in this, with subtle differences.