Seeing the billionaire Tech Bros, and their $1.5 trillion net worth paying homage to our recycled president on Jan. 20th, 2025, it left little doubt to me that this country is in deep trouble.

All these masters of the universe so readily cooperating with such a famously uncooperative man made clear to me he carried far more power into the position than anyone before him. The fact that this man was reelected despite the deadly riots he incited four years earlier made clear to the Tech Bros he had the political capital, and moral paucity to abuse that power.

It isn’t fear or fealty that earned their allegiance to the man behind the podium that day. It was the 77 million people who voted for him. Not that these billionaires feel any sense of solidarity with the improbable coalition of Christians, country music fans, tile setters, Soccer Moms and Plumber Joes who saw the new president as their hope for the future. Those are not Tech Bro kinda people.

And unlike the smaller contingent of small-government capitalists who held their noses and pulled the same lever, The Tech Bros are capitalists who depend heavily on the government as the services they profit madly from function more like public utilities than businesses. Therein lies the rub.

The Trump regime installed on Nov. 4, 2024, are public servants in name only. Job No. 1 for these guys is tear down the government and mine all the value to be found once the pieces are stripped of all their unprofitable parts. They are the venture capitalists of public resources.

The Tech Bros standing like sentries behind Trump on Inauguration Day was not a show of support for this agenda. It was an act of desperation intended to keep their businesses from being similarly plundered.

Does that make the Tech Bros heartless bastards for circling their wagons around this country’s most corrupt government, one which shows every willingness--and wields the power--to move in on their action. With a few notable exceptions, not entirely.

The fact that Trump got reelected after orchestrating a deadly coup attempt was a wakeup call for the Tech Bros. What they saw, and 77 million voters didn’t, was the US was about to reverse course from that which was set 80 years ago when the last crew of amoral opportunists gained control of a world power.

It was the horrors of WWII that put the US on a path of global cooperation, largely by fixing the devastation of that war and then underwriting development worldwide for the next eight decades. That altruism opened enormous markets beyond the US that allowed the Tech Bros, and many others before them, to amass fortunes as the US became the keepers of what became a New World Order.

On Nov. 4, 2024, the 77 million decided they’d had enough of sending wheat to starving Somalis, and welcoming desperate immigrants who might take their jobs. What they didn’t realize, and still don’t, is how dependent they too have become on the government that has spent the past 80 years doing so much for so many.

Some course correction after such extensive public service spending could be done sensibly and might even be necessary. But these services so many depend on are being slashed at the same time the Tech Bros grow incalculably rich from technology they themselves predict will cause mass unemployment in a few years.

This pecuniary Perfect Storm can only be survived with a global redistribution of wealth starting with the Tech Bros, and they know that. They also know the people running the White House are interested only in profiting from their positions of power and stand poised, willing, and able to take a big cut of their immense profits.

What’s a poor billionaire technologist to do when it sees an electorate at the mercy of volcanic changes they cannot comprehend, believing in a government telling them they don’t need to. All while services the public is soon to become vastly more dependent on are plundered by that government.

The Tech Bros know the future for that electorate would be far more promising if we leverage our government agencies to prepare for it rather than let a select few profit from it. The Tech Bros also know they are dramatically redefining the future for a people who voted for the exact opposite of what’s needed to prepare for it.

Elections have consequences and technology does not suffer fools gladly. So how can we expect those creating it to do so in the land of laissez faire. With the J6 riots still fresh in global perception, the 2024 election sent a dark message to the Tech Bros regarding the electorate in the country their fortunes and ambitions depend on: All's fair in love, war, and now business.

Expecting the Tech Bros to swim against that tide is a tall ask. The question now is: Do the Tech Bros have a choice? Some of them seem to think so.

In Part III of the Death of Decency: Claude versus Chaos.

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