Friday Round Up! 10/25/24

Rule #1: Do Not Obey in Advance

Most of the power in authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.

— Timothy Snyder, On Tyrrany

Well, it looks like this has been Billionaires Destroying Democracy week. Where do I even start?

I suppose we can begin with the $1 million voter “sweepstakes” Elon Musk has been running, where he is giving a million dollar Publisher’s Clearing House-type check every day until the election…but only if you are a registered voter who signs a petition in support of the First and Second Amendments. Renato and discuss this more on this week’s podcast, which drops on Monday, but in case you’re wondering, yes, it’s illegal. The question is what can be done about it. DOJ has sent Musk a warning that his actions violated election laws on Wednesday, but Musk appears not to care and, after taking a one-day break, resumed his giveaway on Thursday night. So.

Then we have the Wall Street Journal’s report of Musk’s Pooty calls, in which U.S. intelligence officials revealed that Musk has had several “chats” with Vladimir Putin since 2022. Among other details, the report states that Musk has had conversations with Putin’s deputy chief of staff Sergei Kiriyenko, who currently runs several Internet domains that propagate Russian propaganda (including on X), and that last year Putin asked Musk not to activate Starlink, his satellite company which provides internet services, over Taiwan, as a favor to Putin’s pal, President Xi Jinping. Given that Musk is contracted with the U.S. government to provide Starlink services in Ukraine and has a top secret security clearance, all of these contacts should have been reported. They were not. (And yes, all of this is also illegal, under the Logan Act and, potentially, the Foreign Agent Registration Act and Espionage Act, depending on the nature of the relationship and what was discussed).

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, NYU Professor, Ruth Ben Ghiat, an expert on fascism, was disinvited to speak at the U.S. Naval Academy following pressure from right-wing groups that her personal writings made her too “partisan.” Never mind that her lecture — which was to be given at the invitation of the history department at Annapolis — wasn’t about Trump, but about how militaries have been coopted in authoritarian regimes in Italy, Russia, and Chile. Not really that important of a topic for tomorrow’s military leaders. Of course, personal partisanship didn’t stop the U.S. Military Academy at West Point from having Musk — who has literally campaigned for Trump at his rails — come speak to their cadets at a major keynote event on campus about “leadership.” Yeah.

And THEN, because you can never have too many billionaires screwing things up, Jeff Bezos nixed The Washington Post’s planned editorial endorsement of Kamala Harris, the first time the newspaper has not weighed in on a presidential race since the 1980s. Apparently Bezos wanted to preempt Trump’s wrath in the event that he wins, knowing that he has vowed to retaliate against his enemies.

Democracy dies in darkness, indeed.

Podcast appearances this week:

• I joined Elie Honig on the Cafe Insider podcast this week to discuss the legal and national security issues surrounding the U.S. government’s ban of Tik Tok

Articles worth reading:

Since this is the billionaire edition of the Friday Round Up, two pieces:

• This New York Times reporting of the deep entanglement of Musk’s companies with the federal government, both in contracts and oversight investigations. Musk is angling for a position in Trump’s cabinet, if he is elected, as the head of a new “Department of Government Efficiency” that would cut the bureaucratic red tape.

• This great piece by Brian Klaas on his Substack on the unique characteristics of the billionaire class and why those aren’t so great for society.

  Upcoming events:

• TOMORROW: Wine & Fries Club Workshop: INTEL BRIEF: Who Wants Your Data and Why, Sunday, October 27, 8 p.m. EDT. In light of the seemingly endless parade of DOJ indictments against rogue actors for foreign influence in our political and electoral system, I will be offering founding members a chance to hear my talk that uses the U.S. Intelligence Community’s current Annual Threat Assessment to explain in lay terms how our foreign adversaries and use cybertools – including theft, espionage, and hybrid warfare – to facilitate their geopolitical objectives. I recently gave this talk to the Yale community at the invitation of our IT department and one attendee wrote to say it was “the most interesting talk I have attended at Yale.” (!) Zoom link will be sent to founding members three hours prior to the talk and will be recorded and posted after.

• Guest Speaker Jennifer Mercieca, author of Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump, Wednesday, October 30, 12-1 p.m. EST. Given that Trump’s fascist rhetoric is escalating, I am pushing back our talk with Renee DiResta to November (see below) and instead invited back one of our previous guests for October. (You can check out Professor Mercieca’s earlier talk here.) I’m excited to discuss how Trump’s rhetoric offers his followers ways to resolve their cognitive dissonance through moral disengagement — a topic I’ll be exploring in my next class post, coming up this week.

• Freedom Academy Book Club with Yale Professor Jason Stanley, author of Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future, November 3, 8 p.m. EST. I’m soooooo excited that my friend and colleague Jason Stanley will be joining us to discuss his new book, which was released just last week! We’ll have this book discussion right before the election, to remind us what’s at stake. The Freedom Academy Book Club discussions are open to all paid subscribers and recordings of the talks are posted afterwards in case you can’t make it live.

• Guest Speaker Renee DiResta, author of Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality, November 21, 12-1 p.m. EST. Finally! I have been waiting for someone to unpack how social media and algorithms distort our marketplace of ideas, and am thrilled that Renee has agreed to be a guest speaker for our class! This will dovetail with our upcoming module on Social Media and the Media Ecosystem, where we will look at how social media and “propaganda feedback loops” like Fox News and Elon “invisible hand” Musk have upended some of the basic underpinnings of our democracy. A Zoom link will be sent to paid subscribers three hours before the talk and will be recorded and posted after.

T minus 10 days, y’all — let’s do this.