NO KINGS II TECH TITANS AND TRUST BUSTERS
HOW AMERICA'S GADGET FETISH IS HANDING DEMOCRACY TO THE BILLIONAIRE BOYS CLUB
Ah, America—the land of the free, the home of the brave, and apparently the playground of the ultra-rich who treat democracy like a buggy beta version of their latest app. From the steam-belching factories of the Gilded Age to the algorithm-choked feeds of today, technological wizardry has been our secret sauce for progress. But here's the punchline: every shiny new invention comes with a side of sabotage, letting the sharpest-suited capitalists snatch the reins of power faster than you can say "vertical integration." We've been here before, folks—monopolies strutting around like they own the joint (because they do)—and we busted 'em up with laws sharper than a Teddy Roosevelt mustache. Yet, like a bad sequel nobody asked for, we're rebooting the nightmare, complete with Supreme Court cameos and AI as the villain's henchman. Buckle up; it's time for a witty wake-up call before the oligarchs code us all into oblivion.
The Gilded Glitch: When Steam Power Steamrolled the Little Guy
Picture this: It's the late 1800s, and America's buzzing like a hive of caffeinated bees. The Industrial Revolution hits like a freight train on steroids—railroads snaking across the plains, oil gushers turning wildcatters into wild rich cats, and factories churning out widgets faster than politicians churn out excuses. Sounds peachy, right? Wrong. Tech's golden goose laid a rotten egg on democracy's doorstep. Savvy tycoons like John D. Rockefeller and his Standard Oil syndicate didn't just capitalize on kerosene lamps; they cornered the market so hard they could charge whatever the traffic would bear (spoiler: it bore a lot, until it didn't).
These weren't your friendly neighborhood shops; they were behemoths that squeezed out competitors like toothpaste from a tube. Standard Oil controlled 90% of U.S. oil refining by the 1880s, dictating prices, rail rates, and pretty much anyone's breakfast if it involved a wick. Democracy? What democracy? With politicians in their pockets (hello, campaign "contributions" that make today's Super PACs look like lemonade stands), these trusts turned elections into auctions. The result? A nation of wage slaves toiling in the shadows of smokestacks, while the robber barons built marble mansions and yacht collections that make Elon Musk's Twitter tantrums look modest.
It took a muckraking press and a bull-moose-charging president to cry foul. Enter the trust-busting era, where the government finally remembered it's supposed to referee, not cheerlead. The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 was the opening salvo—a federal law that outlawed contracts or combos restraining trade, basically telling monopolies, "Knock it off, or we'll knock you apart." It was toothless at first (courts interpreted it like a vegan at a steakhouse), but it set the stage. Then came the Progressive punch: The Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914 zeroed in on sneaky practices like price discrimination and mergers that choked competition, while exempting unions from the antitrust crosshairs—because, hey, workers needed a fighting chance. And to enforce it all? The Federal Trade Commission Act birthed the FTC, that plucky watchdog agency still barking at Big Tech today.
By 1911, Standard Oil was sliced into 34 pieces like a Thanksgiving turkey, proving monopolies could bleed. AT&T, the phone-line leviathan, got the chop in the 1980s after decades of dialing up dominance. Lesson learned? Ha! As we'll see, America's memory is shorter than a viral TikTok.
Forgetting the Fine Print: How We Invited the Wolves Back to Wall Street
Fast-forward to the Roaring '20s, crash through the Depression, and tiptoe past WWII—America's antitrust muscle flexed just enough to keep things humming. But by the 1970s and '80s, the tune changed. Reaganomics crooned a siren song of deregulation, whispering that "bigness is beautiful" and efficiency trumps everything. Antitrust enforcers swapped their sledgehammers for spreadsheets, greenlighting mergers that turned industries into oligopoly omelets. Suddenly, "monopoly" wasn't a curse word; it was a TED Talk on shareholder value.
We've forgotten the horrors, alright—and worse, we've incentivized the encore. Take the Supreme Court: Once a trust-buster's buddy, it's now the corporate cheer squad in black robes. The 2010 *Citizens United v. FEC* ruling was the blockbuster bomb— a 5-4 decision declaring that corporations (and unions) have First Amendment rights to flood elections with unlimited cash, all under the guise of "free speech." Because nothing says "uninhibited debate" like ExxonMobil dropping $100 million to shape your vote on climate regs. This gem built on earlier hits like *First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti* (1978), which let corps meddle in ballot fights, and paved the way for *McCutcheon v. FEC* (2014), axing caps on total donations. Result? Super PACs, dark money deluges, and billionaires buying primaries like they're impulse-buying Lambos.
It's not just cash; it's the whole regulatory rollback rodeo. *Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo* (2024) torched Chevron deference, that 40-year rule letting agencies interpret fuzzy laws without courts playing backseat driver. Now, corps can sue over everything from EPA emissions to FDA drug approvals, turning watchdogs into watch-puppies. And don't get me started on shielding multinationals from accountability: *Jesner v. Arab Bank* (2018) and *Nestlé USA v. Doe* (2021) slammed the door on suing foreign ops for human rights atrocities under the Alien Tort Statute. Translation: Pollute abroad, profit at home, and wave at the judge.
Wealth? It's Niagara Falls upward— the top 1% hoover 40% of it, per recent Fed data, while median wages stagnate like a forgotten Netflix queue. Government? An oligarch's oyster bar, with billionaires like the Kochs scripting policy and Musk tweeting tariffs into existence. We've encouraged this circus, cheering "innovation" while the clowns consolidate the tent.
Media Moguls: When News Becomes a Billionaire's Bulletin Board
If tech's bad effects were a family reunion, media privatization would be the drunk uncle spilling secrets—and toxins—everywhere. Remember when journalism was a public square, not a paywalled palace? Now, it's a billionaire boys' club, from Rupert Murdoch's Fox News fever dreams to Elon Musk's X-fueled echo chambers. Murdoch didn't just buy papers; he bought narratives, turning outrage into ratings gold and polarization into profit. Musk? He's the chaotic sequel, gutting Twitter (sorry, X) staff, amplifying conspiracy Kool-Aid, and turning a global town square into his personal meme machine. Both wield media like Excalibur, slicing democracy's trust one click at a time.
Paywalls make it worse—a velvet rope around the truth, pricing out all but the premium-plussed. The New York Times might be "independent," but when Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post, you wonder if headlines bend toward Amazon's warehouse woes. And Larry Ellison? The Oracle oracle is closing in like a Bond villain on steroids. As of September 2025, whispers from The New York Times paint him gobbling CNN, HBO, and even TikTok—yes, *that* TikTok, potentially folding it into his Paramount-CBS empire. This isn't a hobby like Bezos's ink-stained dalliance; it's a power grab that could dwarf Murdoch's Fox empire, scripting culture wars with AI-enhanced scripts. One man controlling news, streaming, and short-form scrolls? That's not vertical integration; that's vertical domination, stacking influence like Jenga blocks on democracy's wobbly base.
These moguls don't just own outlets; they own outcomes. Studies from Pew and others show concentrated media ownership correlates with biased coverage, eroding civic discourse. We've watched wealth flow up while facts flow sideways—into silos where "truth" is whatever keeps the algorithm happy.
AI: The Oligarch's Ultimate Cheat Code
Enter AI, the Frankenstein's monster of our forgetful folly. This isn't Skynet; it's Subsidiarity-Killer, handing oligarchs tools to monopolize minds at lightspeed. Big Tech—Google, Meta, Amazon—already slurps data like vampires at a blood bank, but AI supercharges it: deepfakes doping elections, chatbots churning propaganda, and recommendation engines rigging reality. Musk's xAI, OpenAI's boardroom brawls, Ellison's Oracle oracles— they're not building for us; they're building fortresses. Vertical integration? It's the new black: Amazon peddles products, platforms, and now AI pilots for it all, squeezing rivals into irrelevance.
Economists from the IMF to your corner antitrust prof warn: Corporate concentration has skyrocketed since the '80s, birthing digital fiefdoms that stifle wages, inflate prices, and—cruelest cut—throttle democracy. Local monopolies in beef (four firms control 85%) or beer (AB InBev's grip) are bad; global ones in search (Google's 90% share) are existential. AI amplifies: Imagine personalized psy-ops from the top 0.01%, coding consent like it's Candy Crush. Democracy's endgame? A world where votes are predicted, not cast, and power's privatized code.
Bust 'Em Up, Round Two: Time for Trust-Busting 2.0
We've forgotten, but we can refind our spine. It's high time for a new Progressive pulse—revive Sherman and Clayton with teeth that bite through blockchain. Break up Big Tech's vertical vices: Force Google to unbundle search from ads, Amazon from AWS, Meta from everything. Rein in media mergers (sorry, Larry—no TikTok HBO mashup) and cap political cash with public funding that levels the field. FTC? Supercharge it, pre-Loper style, to preempt AI's antitrust apocalypse.
And on October 18th? The No Kings II protest hits the streets—a people's reboot against the billionaire bash. From D.C. to your doorstep, it's a rally cry: No more oligarch encores. Rise up, rewrite the code, and remind the titans: Democracy's not for sale—it's for smashing monopolies with. Who's in? The revolution will not be paywalled.
Will One Billionaire Own CBS and CNN? https://dianeravitch.net/2025/09/22/will-one-billionaire-own-cbs-and-cnn/ via @dianeravitch
Disney Announces that Jimmy Kimmel Will Return Tomorrow! https://dianeravitch.net/2025/09/22/disney-announces-that-jimmy-kimmel-will-return-tomorrow/ via @dianeravitch
Supreme Court Allows Trump to Fire Last Democrat on Federal Trade Commission---Without Cause https://dianeravitch.net/2025/09/22/supreme-court-allows-trump-to-fire-last-democrat-on-federal-trade-commission-without-cause/ via @dianeravitch
No Kings https://www.nokings.org/
Indivisible https://indivisible.org/
