Donald Trump owes his election victory to the likes of Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos. That's far from a hot take.
These men came out of the shadows to support Trump, knowing that they were aiding the polarizing candidate in irrevocably destroying the polity.
These select group of individuals put their needs and concerns above those of their fellow compatriots and this was evinced by the Facebook owner’s decision to remove fact checking on his platform.
Twitter has undergone a complete makeover under Musk from being anti-fascist and racist space to becoming an all-out far right platform.
Bill Ackman was extremely happy to attack those who dared to protest the livestreamed genocide in Gaza, forcing the Harvard President to resign from her position.
With unchecked power in the hands of Trump, we are witnessing the destruction of the American economy in real-time.
The imposition of tariffs has had the effect of not only picking the pockets of the middle-class, but also the wiping out of the wealth of those whose fortunes are tied to the stock markets.
Elon Musk’s confidence has been blown to smithereens. No longer is he the same talkative bloke whom we have come to loathe and Ackman is busy tweeting every second for the president whose campaign he actively supported to pause the tariffs.
So the question stands: are tech bros and oligarchs responsible for America’s precipitous decline?
Short answer: Yes.
While we knew that we were never going to get sound economics from the man who’s racked up a number of bankruptcies and fail businesses, what we have seen thus far is threatening to upend hundreds of years of history.
Now let’s be clear: America’s previous economic successes were built off enslaved Africans and the extreme exploitation of other countries.
The likes of China, Japan and South Korea have learned the painful lessons of history to not only diversify their portfolio but to also build polities with strong internal cohesion.
And this is precisely why the People’s Republic of China can stare down its closest rival by imposing 104 percent tariffs on its goods — a decision which will be felt by everyone in the world’s largest economy, including the 1 percenters.
With cheap labour and goods ripped away from their daily existence, millions of Americans' lives will be significantly worse off under Trump than it would be under Xi Jingping, Bukele, Maduro or dare I say. Vladimir Putin.
Well maybe not Putin.
Foreign Exchange are op-eds from writers who do not live in the U.S. They have thoughts but don't have a dog in the race.
This post originally appeared on Medium and is edited and republished with author's permission. Read more of Jeffrey Kass' work on Medium.