On Monday, Donald Trump is set to take office as the 47th president of the United States
Illustration by Nicola Jennings
It can’t be overstated what a win this is for the country’s far-right, though in hindsight it all feels vaguely predictable. Many of us have spent the last four-plus years fighting for the “working class” that Washington pundits are just now realizing exists on a spectrum. We have fought to protect progressive incumbents who saw their colleagues turn on them in primaries (i.e. Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush). We have run general elections without the support of Congressional leadership, all because our candidates were saying the same thing that led Trump to victory - “this country is not working for us, and we need to fundamentally change it”.
The fact that we disagree on how to change it is, of course, an important distinction.
But as many Democratic members of Congress show their true colors by cozying up to a fascistic government, an even more troubling trend is being shaped by what Marc Andreessen, billionaire and former Democratic donor, calls the “newest faction of conservatism”.
Tech spending in this last election reached $394 million across the political spectrum. But after the November election, it became clear that tax credits and deregulation are a race to the bottom for both political parties, and tech is happy to shift their loyalties to whichever winner does what they want.
The week of the election, philanthropist and long-time Democratic donor ($50 million to Kamala Harris’s campaign) Bill Gates congratulated Donald Trump on his win. Mark Zuckerberg claimed just this week that our workplaces are too feminine, and dozens of large companies are pulling funds from “diversity, equity, and inclusion” initiatives. Marc Andreessen is even helping Donald Trump pick his transition team.
In Andreesen’s interview with Ross Douthat this week, he claims that CEOs are not focused on profits first, but on being good people. However, it seems that went out the window for Andreesen when the Biden administration admitted they wanted to regulate Artificial Intelligence to the fullest extent of their executive powers. And to Biden’s credit, that’s a good thing, considering AI is one of the greatest threats to humanity that we have ever seen.
Crypto, AI, and technological advancements have created unfathomably wealthy people whose foray into politics should be worrying for anyone who works for a living. Their giddy support of a government that has committed itself to stripping people of their rights, is a threat to all democratic norms and all but guarantees an uninhabitable planet within generations. Hopefully, future candidates will understand this and reject the unrelenting influence of Big Tech, Crypto, and AI.
News by Creators
The Supreme Court upheld their ruling on TikTok today and threats of the platform being banned this week led to a massive exodus to the Chinese app Xiaohongshu, colloquially known as Red Note //
&@bbcnews
Hasan Piker interviewed incarcerated individuals who are being forced to act as firefighters and put their lives on the line for sub-minimum wages // @hasanandpiker
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News about Creators
An NPR interview with Vitus Spehar of Under the Desk News questioned the legitimacy of Creators as journalists, a point V eloquently addressed in a response video
While the TikTok ban is dominating Creator news, this analysis of how a TikTok ban will shape the way GenZ gets their news presents an important global view and reveals how deeply out of touch this ban actually is
In a clear nod to how it will cooperate with the Trump administration, Meta has decided to end its fact-checking efforts despite years of assuring us that they were committed to not sharing misinformation
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In solidarity,
Rynn