The Return of Trump

Zephyr Teachout >>

A few years back, I was a fellow at a think tank in Washington, D.C. The antimonopoly subgroup I was a part of put out a short statement applauding the European Union for taking action to stop Google from giving its own products preference in its search engine. The eight people working in the group were promptly fired or let go. I was a law professor, so losing a fellowship was not a major event for me. But it was for the others, one of whom was pregnant. As The New York Times reported during the rupture, the head of the group alleged that Eric Schmidt of Google—who had also chaired the think tank’s board—influenced the decision. (The company’s representatives denied any such thing.) The message for other nonprofits was clear.

Later I talked to a friend about making a video about it. “I would,” she said. “But my sister [a freelancer] has some grants with Google, and so….” “It’s fine,” I said, “all fine.”

Was she being cowardly or loyal to her family? It’s hard to say. Power has a way of narrowing down the subjects we are willing to openly discuss. Farmers I talk to say they don’t dare to speak up against distributors, even if there’s no clear proof that punishment will follow: it is enough that it could. As Big Tech and Wall Street gradually put their gloved fist over progressive nonprofits and civic campaigns, political possibilities have narrowed. And then came Musk, who didn’t bother putting his fist in a glove, simply turning over his platform to serve a president’s campaign.

So many of Trump’s policies are cruel; so many of his operations are corrupt. But for me, what’s most chilling about his rise is that he is willing to take latent power and make it blatant, to gleefully punish those who speak against him. When he said he would put Mark Zuckerberg in jail if he challenged his power, the other tech titans took notice. They are used to groveling with the Chinese government; it didn’t take long for the CEOs of Google, Apple, and Amazon—and Mark Zuckerberg—to call up Trump and flatter him, nor for Jeff Bezos to override The Washington Post’s editorial page and insist that the paper not endorse Harris.

There are plenty of big, difficult questions to be asked about rebuilding the Democratic Party from the ashes of this election. How are we going to stop the slaughter, block the threatened expulsions of immigrants, protect a shred of climate policy, keep up the tax fights? But in the first few days we would do well to steel our courage and support those who are singled out, even if we despise them. We must, as Martin Luther King Jr. taught in the letter from the Birmingham jail, “self-purify,” not in the sense of thinking highly of ourselves, or refusing to engage with those with whom we disagree, but by practicing the necessary disciplines that will prepare us to speak out when we are tested.