How We Give Narratives Too Much Power

emptywheel:

This is a great example of impotence people adopt when they say **DOJ** is responsible for Trump dodging accountability. 

The entire story is about how Trump repackaged what happened w/Jan6. Entire story is about how by doing so, GOPers jumped on that myth and so refused to hold him accountable. 

So long as you pretend that a guilty verdict would have mattered in the face of this myth, when 1000 other guilty verdicts have been easily spun away, you are misdiagnosing the problem, and absolving the failure to combat THIS MYTH for responsibility.

Or the narrative that Bezos, Cook, Musk, Zuckerberg and Pichai are ALL fascists now. Or, you know, you could follow the money:

"Why are Bezos, Zuckerberg, Musk, Pichai and Tim Cook visiting and giving money to Trump? Because they are in 'The Race' to become the dominant platform in the world," he said. "Amazon/Anthropic vs FB/LLama vs Google/Gemini vs Twitter/Grok, vs IPhones/ChatGpt is the penultimate global power war ever." 

Cuban also claimed that these billionaires "don’t care about Trump." 

"But they can’t let him put his 'thumb on the scale' and push them back, or one of the others forward. Giving millions and kissing a ring when trillions are at stake, is nothing," he said. "The Ring Kissers truly don’t know where AI will take their businesses or the world." 

Cuban went on to explain how their artificial intelligence fight could be impacted by the president elect. 

"They just know they can’t let Trump write an executive order or make a move that changes the balance of AI power. And honestly, despite all the things to despise (and admire) about each, it’s in the interest of national security and our economy for the dominant AI companies to be American," he elaborated. "I think we all wish they were better actors as a group. And the anti trust actions will hopefully clean some things up. Just realize they all look at this as their own version of Survivor. They each know that any of them could be the next IBM. A once dominant company turned into an afterthought."

So long as you pretend that those corporate leaders are all fascists in democratic clothing, Cuban says, you are misdiagnosing the problem. The problem here is Trump. Watch the donut. Don’t give the narrative the power. It’s not reality. Zuckerberg is fading fast (he’s trying to revive his fortunes by reintroducing his VR nobody wanted the first time). Musk is watching Cybertrucks pile up on the factory parking lot as the stock drops. Twitter is not the powerhouse controlling the national narrative so many want to complain it is. BlueSky is on the way to making Twitter into MySpace. Musk has his government contracts, but his place in the marketplace is as tenuous as Zuckerberg’s. 

Google and Apple are better positioned to market their AI. But will one of them be the next IBM?  Can they take that chance with such a mercurial and capricious President? Trump forces them to curry favor. It’s a more reasonable explanation than that they’ve all suddenly become MAGA. I mean, Musk certainly has. But that’s one more reason Tesla sales are off.

And I have to underline this: the idea that Musk controlled the national discussion and got Trump elected is ludicrous. All signs point to the campaigns not really changing minds. Elmo’s efforts started late, even as people were fleeing Twitter (and Twitter never was the tail wagging the national dog). His GOTV efforts were absolutely amateurish (and Harris’ apparently were the success they were promised). He turned Twitter into a white South African’s racist dreamscape, but that’s why Twitter has lost 80% of its value.

Besides, firms who gave Trump money the last time, avoided his tariffs. If it’s a pay-to-play system, the problem is Trump. If you want to argue that companies and corporations have an obligation to be moral and not support corruption, I’ll counter with the reality that individuals can make moral decisions that require sacrifices, but corporate entities (companies, governments, even churches) will make decisions seen to be in the best interests of the group. Tim Cook is not obligated to put Apple out of business in order to appease critics of Trump. And contributions are not bribes (unless they are, and then it’s a legal matter). The tech bros, in Cuban’s analysis, are playing the game in order to stay alive.

The corruption is in the White House. But we, the people, voted to put it there. And unless you can show actual bribery in Trump’s action; and unless Justice Barrett’s opinion prevails (but that would only swing one vote in the Trump v US analysis) 🧐, there’s really nothing the system can do about . For the next four years, anyway.

Dese are de conditions dat prevail.