Why does Trump hate him so much? Because, as Virginia Postrel points out, Bezos is the anti-Trump:
Trump, who likes his staff to have the right “look,” would never cast a wiry guy who doesn’t hide his lack of hair as a big-time businessman. How can someone only five-foot-nine intimidate people into submission? In Trumpworld, intimidation, not value-creation, is what business is all about.
Bezos also has a sense of humor, often at his own expense, and a famously raucous laugh. Trump is humorless. He certainly doesn’t laugh at himself.
Bezos speaks clearly and has amazing message discipline even by the standards of successful CEOs — something that struck me when I first interviewed him way back in 1996. Trump: not so much.
Trump grew up rich, went to private schools, and had an undistinguished college career. Bezos grew up middle-class, went to public schools, and knocked the top out of Princeton, graduating with highest honors and Phi Beta Kappa in electrical engineering and computer science. One had a rich father; the other has brains.
Ouch.
Virginia, your post smacks more of a snide attack on Trump rather than an objective work. As a libertarian, I believe, you are a fan of free markets. If so, then you would understand that Amazon has colluded in the marketplace and is well-known for using H1B visas for cheap labor. The Indian Mafia, as it is known here in Seattle, also hires their own for tribal reasons and for the fact that Indians can intimidate other Indians in the workforce instead of Americans.
That Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post for political reasons and is using it daily to smear Trump has nothing to do with Trump’s animus. That Amazon pays almost no taxes and is under threat of paying them under Trump has nothing to do with it either. Amazon’s p/e ratio is estimated to be 244 in 2017, when any reasonable investor wants a p/e ratio under 15. Why is it so high? Because of ZIRP rates by the Fed and other central banks. That free money has to go somewhere and much goes to the FANGs. (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google) Anybody looking at Amazon stock can see it’s a bubble. Trump is a possible threat to that free money.
Virginia, you used to be editor of Reason, but now you are a Bloomberg columnist. Did your hatred of Trump change when you became a statist like Bloomberg? You are also a columnist for the Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic, the New York Times and Forbes. Those are pretty much leftist rags.
I’m not impressed.
I’d be much more interested to know why Trump hasn’t gone after FANGs for anti-trust, or when the right moment will be, or why he might not do that at all. Instead we get this puff piece about a 21st Century robber baron.
Rand asked me on another thread whether I had gone delusional to equate “pick a side” between the skinhead and Whole Foods-shopping thugs to picking a side in the online feud between Rand and Ken Anthony.
They are the same thing and I am not delusional. Really.
The Third American Revolution (Revolutionary War, Civil War, Civil Rights being the third) is based on two forms of influencing, shaping and directing society. One is the formal-legal — Brown Decision, Voting Rights Act, Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. The other is informal-social. Not only are the legal consequences for not respecting Civil Rights, there are social consequences — shaming, shunning.
In the Second American Revolution, the Civil War, it has been asked what if Robert E Lee hadn’t formerly surrendered, what if he gave his soldiers leave to disappear into the forests and wage an insurgent campaign? Likewise, what if the supporters of Southern segregation had decided to not go quietly, to Resist, to not embrace Civil Rights in the style of the following generation of white Southerners in the fashion of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton?
The notion is that white or other non-minority persons do indeed resist while obeying the laws and maintaining outward appearances of conforming to the new social culture of inclusiveness. If they are working class, they keep their thoughts to themselves and only let their guard down in the form of telling a racial joke or maybe using a racial slur word when among family or what they consider to be a “safe” setting — think of LAPD Detective Mark Furman? If the are the college-educated class, they go to a lot of trouble to live in a “good neighborhood” where their kids go to “good schools.” They don’t shop at Aldi (very diverse where I live); they shop at Whole Foods (Diverse? What are they smoking?)
I never knew why Mao instigated his Cultural Revolution — his Communists won in 1949, that was the Revolution so why did he need another Revolution? What was this business of continuing or ongoing Revolution?
Civil Rights had its Revolution starting with the Brown Decision, but it also has its permanent Revolution that needs to continue, not just until white persons comply with Civil Rights but until there is a new generation who doesn’t even know how to speak the slur words. That Permanent Revolution is Political Correctness. That Permanent Revolution is Affirmative Action. That Permanent Revolution is Section 8 and Title IX. That Permanent Revolution is Corporate Diversity and Implicit Bias training sessions.
Like many revolutions, this Revolution is getting old, long in the tooth as it were. This Revolution has developed contradictions. This Revolution is oppressing people, whether for telling a racial joke or uttering a racial slur because they harbor such sentiments privately while outwardly complying with the law and social dictates or whether genuinely regarding themselves as post-racist but perhaps calling attention upon themselves by the Revolutionaries for voicing the contradictions. This Revolution oppresses people by moving them around like pawns on a chessboard, with resulting “friction” not only between majority and minority communities but within the displaced minority persons themselves.
This Revolution has acquired its cynical Nomenklatura, Party members who recite its Talking Points chapter and verse but live in segregated neighborhoods, send their children to segregated schools and drive Toyota hybrid-electric vehicles. This Revolution has acquired tension among the minority groups it intends to protect, perhaps silently among blacks who are displaced by Hispanics, perhaps among legally immigrated or natural citizens against persons violating the immigration laws, perhaps among Asians and those of Asian heritage, deeply offended that Affirmative Action works against the, but who are guarded in seeing how this all plays out?
Then comes Mr. Trump. His first campaign utterance is about “Mexico not sending their best” that includes migrants who are “rapists.” The full social shame apparatus was brought to bear — I remember if it were the day before yesterday of a triumphant Brooke Baldwin reassuring CNN visitors that the wealthy Mr. Trump will sustain substantial financial loss for saying such a thing.
It didn’t happen. What happened? Glenn Reynolds and others described, the term of art is “preference cascade.” Some Revolutions maintain full control, that is, until they don’t and they collapse. Think of the Ceausecus, what could have happened to the Assads and what may happen to Marshall Kim.
These Revolutions are backed by laws, but for the laws to have meaning they must be written on at least some person’s hearts, and when the social edifice collapses, watch out!
The thing that everyone from Antifa to Faculty Senate to Conservatives, Libertarians and Republicans critical of Mr. Trump is maintaining is the Social Edifice of the Revolution. Yes, the neo-Nazis are a threat because they introduce even a teeny-tiny crack. James Damore is a more serious threat because his reasonableness opens a much, much wider crack. The thought-out nature of his leaked internal memo is much more dangerous than a bunch of goofballs painting racist symbols. The neos are uneducated-white losers whereas Mr. Damore was smart enough to pass Googles legendary tough employment screens.
Maybe you think the Revolution must come down, but the time is not appropriate and Mr. Trump will be successfully Resisted? Maybe you think the Revolution will collapse on its own whereas Mr. Trump is supplying a convenient Enemy of the State to keep it going? Maybe you think the Revolution can mellow into a more pragmatic state of affairs in the manner of China past Mao?
What side are you on? (Don’t answer that, the Social Shame Apparatus is much too powerful as seen just recently.) The sides question, however, is bigger than repealing the Affordable Care Act or enacting Tax Reform or waging or not waging war in Korea or Afghanistan. It is much bigger than your feud with Mr. Anthony, but I hope my remarks offer some insight. The sides question is much bigger than Mr. Trump — he is a mere catalyst.
I saved this tweet from a year ago. Not sure who posted it. May have been Iowahawk:
“Trump is not your failing engine. Trump is the frantically blinking red light telling you to CHECK ENGINE.”
The WaPo recently editorialized against Freedom of Speech. ESPN booted an Asian sportscaster named Robert Lee from broadcasting the play-by-play for a UVA game because his name might trigger the snowflakes.
This is not made up. This is happening. And, this is the environment in which Trump is operating. You can’t decouple them. And, you have to choose a side: perhaps objectionable from your POV, or totally batshit crazy. And, if you choose not to choose, you still have made a choice. That is the reality of the situation.
What was this business of continuing or ongoing Revolution?
I assume you already know but its because it excuses totalitarian actions to suppress the unpersons. Also, to continue tactics that control thought, create cult like behavior, and require demonstrated enthusiasm.
As they say, “read it all”. Good job Paul.
Someone on Watts Up With That (Anthony Watts’ contra-Climate Change blog) brought up the science fiction classic (as a campy bad movie) The Crack in the World. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crack_in_the_World
“Scientists” shoot a nuclear-tipped missile into the Earth to harness clean geo-thermal energy — this movie came up in response to a very real NASA proposal to tap geothermal heat from Yellowstone as a way of mitigating the Yellowstone caldera super volcano (what could go wrong)? Hijinks ensue.
Donald Trump is that missile, the Crack in the World is what is happening right now, and you Rand are arguing that they should have used a Falcon 9 Heavy instead of an Atlas V?
“Trump grew up rich, went to private schools, and had an undistinguished college career. Bezos grew up middle-class, went to public schools, and knocked the top out of Princeton, graduating with highest honors and Phi Beta Kappa in electrical engineering and computer science. One had a rich father; the other has brains.”
Class envy. I would have expected better from Ms. Postrel.
Yet, telling. Just getting accepted into an Ivy League school is a mark of the new elite. Once you win that lottery, you’ve basically been reborn on third base.
I’m not saying Bezos hasn’t earned his rewards. I am simply saying it isn’t all that different from how Trump earned his.
Bezo’s family wasn’t that poor actually. His grandfather had huge tracts of land in Texas. It is true that he went to public schools though.
There are different types of public schools. The kind that people whose grandfathers own huge tracts of land go to is a little different from the kind they go to in the inner city.
How can someone only five-foot-nine intimidate people into submission?
The author hasn’t seen a recent pic of Bezos lol.
I don’t know why people tho think Trump is so stupid and uninformed would hate Bezos because he went to public school. The only thing Trump knows about is what schools people went to as kids? And Trump doesn’t have a sense of humor? He tells jokes all the time.
There is something going on between Trump and Bezos but we wont learn about it unfortunately.
between Trump and Bezos
Other commentors here have already identified it.
Trump wants to bring industry back to America so that people have opportunity. Bezos wants to remove industry from earth to space using legal penalties to encourage the move. This necessarily requires greater class bifurcation since only a minority will be able to work in space even if Bezos is wildly successful.
Bezos is the control freak that Trump is not. Plus Trump intends to lower taxes but Amazon will have to pay more.
It may be something other and/or deeper, but that alone may be sufficient. My memory is nagging me that there’s something else but it escapes me?
There’s also this from 2012.
Trump, who likes his staff to have the right “look,” would never cast a wiry guy who doesn’t hide his lack of hair as a big-time businessman. How can someone only five-foot-nine intimidate people into submission?
Wow. Never thought I’d see her devolve to that level. Stay classy there Ginny.
TDS: Able to reduce even the most reasoned and clear thinker to a quivering mass of goo.
Postrel’s blather is falsified by the fact that Trump appointed the miniscule Jeff Sessions and fired the gargantuan John Comey.
Not to mention Minnie Mouch, Rinse Pubis (a fine form of a man!), Pudgie Sanders, and Kellyanne whose appearance is mocked by the MSM.
We need to do a Kickstarter to develop tech that can rescue Rand from the other side of the great polarization.
Amazon is a racket which to a large degree survives on tax evasion. That’s how they’ve killed a lot of brick and mortar bookstores. They basically pay little to no tax. I’ve known other businesses which predated Amazon with similar business models pre dotcom bubble and they all failed because they didn’t have the same tax evasion mechanisms. The only division they have which one could argue provides an actual service is their AWS cloud services division.
I’ve stopped using Amazon except when I absolutely can’t find what I am looking for at a local retailer. I’d rather support my local businesses and county and state.
I just ordered two books today from Amazon after driving over a hundred miles to find several no longer in business book stores (I had other reasons for the trip, but still.) I tried jet.com first after returning home but they had neither book (as far as I could determine.)
They did charge me tax and shipping raising my order from $76 to $97.
I use Half Price Books when possible. I like ABE Books but they are a subsidary of Amazon.