Fear

Robert Reich has a good piece (h/t commenter Diogenes) on the truly disgusting cowardice of Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Jamie Dimon, all of whom have endorsed Democratic presidential candidates in recent election years, but who are not doing so now.

Reich points out that this dereliction of civic duty can’t even be explained by some warped allegiance to their fiduciary obligations to their companies/shareholders:

The silence of Dimon, Gates, and Buffett cannot be justified by any notion of fiduciary duty to protect the value of the shares of investors in JPMorgan, Microsoft, or Berkshire Hathaway, respectively.

Quite the opposite. If American democracy is seriously jeopardized because Donald Trump is in the White House — as seems likely — the shareholders of these and every other American corporation will take it on the chin.

Political instability and uncertainty, attacks on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and rejection of the rule of law will impose huge costs on the American economy. As David Firestone, deputy editor of the Times editorial board, says, Dimon would be doing his shareholders “a better service by doing everything possible to prevent Trump’s election.”

Elon Musk has no qualms about endorsing Trump, creating a pro-Trump superPAC to which he donates hundreds of millions of dollars, turning his X platform into a cesspool of disinformation in favor of Trump and against Harris, and giving away a million dollars a day in raffles in battleground states on Trump’s behalf. So why on earth should Dimon, Gates, and Buffett feel that their hands are tied?

The answer, it would seem, is that these incredibly rich and powerful men are genuinely afraid: Afraid of what a fascist regime could to them, personally.

Like Reich, I find this kind of reaction viscerally disgusting. Warren Buffett is 94 years old! Like him, Dimon and Gates have endless resources and connections that insulate them from Trump’s vengeance far more effectively than the typical public critic of Trump can expect to be protected.

What most disturbs me here is not that these plutocrats are trying to play some financial angle, although of course being who they are they are doing this as naturally as they breath air. It’s that this kind of behavior is a sign of genuine fear. And even they should be afraid, given where we are as a nation at this moment.

Courage isn’t the absence of fear; it’s the overcoming of it. The last place to look for that, apparently, is at the top of our increasingly decadent plutocracy.