I feel like I am less inclined these days to write about politics, but that may or may not be true if you tally my stories about politics versus those about everything else. What I do sense is that I want to hold back and not just repeat my shock and awe over every new challenge put forth by the Trump team. I feel like I’m happy to let the system and others more activist than I to rail about this and that and force the Trump hand or not to adjust their endlessly outrageous approach to governance. But today I have a double whammy in my inbox that has me very perplexed as to how to comment or respond. First, there is the ten-year blanket pardon by outgoing President Joe Biden of his son Hunter. That topic alone is a book unto itself ranging from what presidential lies and reversals do to our sense of propriety to a full-blown discourse about which weaponization came first, the chicken’s or the egg’s. Did Hunter get put upon by right wing forces causing him to be unfairly convicted of things that would normally get a slap on the wrist just because he is the president’s son or did Biden just admit that DOJ overreach and politicization have reached intolerable levels and protecting his only remaining son from harm and unjust retribution is a justifiable precaution against a system turned on its ethical head? I really don’t know the answer to any of that, but I do know that the conflation and hypocrisy of the right is raging right now while the guilt and humbling frustration of the left just keeps growing every day since the election.
And now there is a new imponderable to ponder. While Trump occupies the pedestal of political omnipotence, right or wrong, Elon Musk is his commercial counterbalance of excess. Besides his unfathomable wealth and commercial Midas-like popular appeal, he is thrust into the role of poster boy for corporate excess due to the fistfight underway in the Delaware Chancery Court over his $56 billion pay package. And in the same way that the people of America are showing lemming-like approval of Trump’s destructive dismantling of the American state, Musk is seeking and getting the exact same response from his shareholders, who want to shower him with increased wealth presumably endorsing the notion that he and only he can solve every commercial need of the world while Trump does the same for the geopolitical world. The judge in the Delaware court has stood strong in the face of the populist view that Musk deserves this record-breaking compensation package least he divert his attention away from his 13% (versus proposed 20%) holding of Tesla’s market capitalization. This judge is like the senators that are saying that Trump does not have limitless power to do as he wants, regardless of the “mandate” the electorate has supposedly given to him. The stance of both this Delaware Judge and those senators standing strong against the autocracy trying to rule the world is notable and highly contentious.
This is very big stuff by any standard and is anything but business as usual. In the same way that Trump is testing the limits of what a powerful force for good like democracy can deliver to its constituents, Musk is testing the limits of what a powerful force for good corporate governance like Delaware fiduciary obligations can deliver to its constituents. What a strange coincidence that Delaware, the home state of Joe Biden is the exact same venue that is being thrust into this limelight as a potentially anachronistic example of old fashioned conservatism when it comes to what constitutes good governance. I trust that others are finding this coincidence both troubling and telling at a moment in human evolution when we are wrestling with the most serious and existential issues of our lives.
Texas, Nevada and Florida have become the new New York, California and Illinois of American thought leadership when it comes to how to govern ourselves and it is disconcerting to the max that corporations may choose to do like Tesla and Musk’s other companies and favor reorganizing in those locales. I keep getting this visual image of those biblical folks in Sodom and Gomorrah and those who danced around the false idols of gold at Moses’ feet when he threw down the tablets with the Lord’s commandments. It feels like the people of those states are trying to show their disdain for the righteous rules that they feel constrain their pursuit of happiness to whatever extent they deem desireable, and that anyone who bucks that trend is out of step and self-righteous to a fault. But wait, Trump and Musk are only men and men live and die and are not immortal or all-powerful no matter what they might think or want to be the case. Unbound power or wealth are never lasting nor are they revered in history as positive moments of human progress. In fact, they are but temporary setbacks on the path to some modicum of enlightenment. Powerlessness and poverty are not justifications for limitless power or wealth. In fact, I believe history shows that excessive power leads directly to revolution and chaos and excessive wealth leads to far more poverty on average than more balanced and shared productivity.
The question is, does the world need to go through these moments of excess to get to the other side of the equation that leads to more moderation and sustainability? Unfortunately, that seems to be the case. I guess Tolstoy recognized this 150 years ago in his juxtapositioning of War and Peace. It seems less than coincidental that our moments of greatest peace and prosperity as a world should come after the devastation of two world wars. But why are some men compelled to challenge and corrupt that and, more importantly, why do so many people think that path of destruction and anarchy are better for them than the status quo? I guess that the zero sum game mentality and the winner-take-all approach combine to suggest that people either feel that they need to upend the world to get their due and that the only approach that works for them is the Darwinian one that absolves them of all responsibility for those who they upend. Empowering people to ignore their care for others or righteousness itself is a powerful force of nature that is compelling to far more people than one might hope for. The world turns on small margins and the victors and vanquished become far too easily interchangeable. It all tells me that the ebb and flow of things is simply something to be cynically expected and then exhaustingly tolerated. Institutional guardrails can help, but eventually, the waves of history wash over the guardrails and cleanse the field for the next reality.
I feel that Hunter will eventually end up in jail of one sort or another and that Elon will get measurably wealthier through Tesla, SpaceX, StarLink or some AI reconstitution, all at the expense of the little people, while the corporate world abandons the ideals of Delaware and finds some other dark corner to lodge itself and festeringly grow to benefit only those inside the ring of power. This is not a time when righteousness is likely to prevail, so it will go into hiding until this too shall pass. Those of us who dislike and protest this will likely be personas non grata so let me give my global benediction to pardon me for living while the world prefers to be left to its own path of self-destruction.