The Billionaires Have Gone Full Louis XV

[dalton99a]

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/14/opinion/billionaires-politics-money.html

https://archive.ph/SLTrd

The Billionaires Have Gone Full Louis XV
Dec. 14, 2025
By Michael Hirschorn

Billionaires had a great thing going. The ruling in the 2010 Citizens United case, among others, invited the super rich to exert all the influence on policy and politics that their money could buy — and then enjoy all the wealth that influence secured for them in return. Thanks to ever-more-obliging tax policies, the billionaire class grew absurdly rich over the years that followed. In the last five years alone, the wealthiest 20 Americans increased their net worth from $1.3 trillion to $3 trillion, Forbes reported.

And they did it in many cases without the rest of us even having a clue. It took the investigative reporter Jane Mayer five years of relentless digging to figure out how the Koch brothers gained a chokehold on the Republican Party. The title of her 2016 book, “Dark Money,” became synonymous with a particularly effective form of influence that was all but untraceable. The billionaires could have kept on like that forever. All they had to do was keep their mouths closed.

Today, billionaires are still flooding politics with their money and still reaping the benefits, but they won’t stop yapping about it.

Elon Musk bragged about his support for President Trump, to whose campaign and allied groups he donated more than $250 million. He loudly attempted to buy votes in Pennsylvania. Then he leveraged it all into a cruel and chaotic effort to dismantle federal agencies. Marc Andreessen’s tech-heavy venture capital firm publicly pledged $100 million to target lawmakers who attempt to regulate artificial intelligence; Mr. Andreessen then mocked the pope for suggesting some ethical guardrails around the technology. Bill Ackman announced that he and his pals were prepared to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to defeat Zohran Mamdani, and urged Mr. Trump to call in the National Guard if that effort failed and Mr. Mamdani’s mayoralty met his worst expectations.

...

[surfered]

1. Hmmm...

[leftstreet]

2. +1

[dalton99a]

4. Simple and effective - it is still a deterrent

[3Hotdogs]

14. There's supposed to be a basket in front of the machine. I'd like to see the basket, with

an orange toupee sticking out of it.

[jmowreader]

50. A basket won't work in this case

They're going to have to rig up a chute with one end under the guillotine's lunette and the other end over the bed of a dump truck.

[Auggie]

20. They'll just hop on their private jets and fly to New Zealand

[Borogove]

51. Piano wire would also work.

[usonian]

3. Billionaires used magats, and it's their turn to profit (even more) insanely.

When Trump kicks it, the Crypto Bro Troika will control currency, and hence Wall Street and the world.


https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=20543966
"Maga is revolting! Yes, aren't they?"

[2na fisherman]

11. Vance Is A Problem

When Trump kicks off, Vance will not garner enough support from the tech bros and the Maga rubes to be presented as a unified front-running candidate. So this may represent a way to further fragment this party which continues to be burdened with internal power struggles. Even though they have tons of dark money, it may not be spent in ways sufficient to unite the party at the polls. So I say make them fight each other and dilute their assets. So there's hope for a Dem sweep of future ballots but Dems must be able to vote as one with overwhelming numbers.

[duckworth969]

35. Vance is more dangerous than we realize

Guy is about as interesting as a damp sponge.

But he is supported by deep pockets and tech savvy people who know to manipulate polling computers.

I keep thinking if I put a, “Do you really want King Vance?” sign on the side of my Jeep windows, people might scratch their heads and at least ponder that for a second.

Deep red area up in here. Tough to make any dents in the MAGA cult.

[FakeNoose]

30. JD isn't one of them ... he's just a useful toadie

[pwb]

5. Trump has opened our eyes to our Wealth Class.

How can they still want more and more and more money when they already have so much? How are you people possibly angry?

Americans are happy just to make enough money in most cases. Happy.

Our Wealth class are for the most part not nice people. Extreme wealth needs to be Taxed big time. IMO.

[dalton99a]

6. Their greed and thirst for control is insatiable.

[erronis]

8. I wonder if wealth is no longer the goal. Now it's depopulation so they don't have to see us anymore.

Once we're gone, the whole Earth is their playground.

Until they bring out the weapons on each other.

[3Hotdogs]

15. The problem with that plan, it's proletariat taxes that pay for this shit.

[erronis]

18. Don't need no stinking taxes. No populace: no welfare, no DoD, no federal programs.

No publicly-funded road system, air travel, disaster cleanup, etc.

The rich boys will all get along famously and agree to cooperate on their private jets landing on their private airfields.

For some reason I keep thinking of "Lord of the Flies."

[radical noodle]

28. They'll have to have some of the people they so detest

I can't see them mowing their lawns, cleaning their houses, cooking their meals. They'll need mechanics, plumbers, electricians, and construction workers at the very least.

[Justice matters.]

36. See my reply #27 below.

That's their plan and it's going full production right at this moment.

Think about a world of microchips, AI, and only rich white racists.

[Justice matters.]

27. Their plan is to get rid of the poor, the workers, and the non-white:

Robots can work 24/7 with no pay at all, only maintenance. They don't eat, sleep, take breaks, go piss and shit, et al.

[popsdenver]

33. erronis

I think you may be on to something......starting with Covid, it would appear that that is their intent......
no vaccinations, poverty, food shortages, medicine and health care becoming extinct for anyone but the wealthy, exporting foreigners, destroying public schools, getting rid of food stamps and all other public help programs, the let them eat cake mentality, etc etc etc

[Envirogal]

46. Actually, Eloon is a massive pro-natalist

that is alarmed over the declining birth rates (especially for whites). He wants more babies, he says to save humanity and repopulate when we get to Mars, but I really think it is the only way the rich stay rich is to have plenty of rubes and unwashed masses to supply all of the elites needs: to pay the taxes, consume the goods that circulate the economy, and fight our wars. So if we depopulate, then every human increases their own individual worth as far as human capital value. Overpopulation (like we have now) leads to scarcity and desperation and less money and resources for the majority. Desperate people will be less willing to fight in a union but more likely to fight in the military or take what ever low wage/no benefit job they are lucky to get.

Less population leads to every human being being needed so they have choices. That is a huge threat to the elite.

What Billionaire elites want is to be picky about who survives and who doesn’t. So have lots of babies and they’ll get their pick of the litter boxes on those that will be productive and cast off those “lesser” that negatively cost society.

This is very sci-fyi stuff but to be expected from these nerds that still have the mentality of a 14 year old and grew up with these dystopian ideas in entertainment that stuck. As the saying goes, “we’ve seen this movie before…”.

I am glad I didn’t have kids to deal with this

[rampartd]

52. they won't kill is all

but they will require chips allowing total control.

[Uncle Joe]

7. An excellent article, and one thing about human nature: is its' consistency.

(snip)

The historian Robert Darnton described an uncannily similar moment in “The Revolutionary Temper: Paris 1748-1789,” his brilliant 2023 account of the decades leading up to the French Revolution. The preconditions were all there: suffocating top-down control of the media, rapid technological change, let-them-eat-cake behavior among the courtier class, weaponized religious bigotry, mansions with hideously de trop ballrooms. OK, Marjorie Taylor Greene is not quite Voltaire. But there was a pedophilia scandal involving Louis XV: Public obsession with the king’s many mistresses helped give rise to so-called libelles, cheaply printed, semi-factual pamphlets that speculated on, among other matters, the king’s supposed never-ending supply of teenage girls. It would have fit right in on TikTok. Reverence turned to mockery; mockery begot contempt; and then …

(snip)

Thanks for the thread dalton

[erronis]

9. Thanks for that reference. Looks like a fascinating read. The Guardian Review:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/nov/22/the-revolutionary-temper-by-robert-darnton-review-a-nation-at-breaking-point

By the end of this exhilarating book, Darnton has done so much more than provide an account of France during the dying decades of the monarchy. Ever since his breakthrough book of essays, The Great Cat Massacre, in 1984 he has concentrated on combining the forward thrust of narrative, or “event”, history with due concern for the deep structures of the past. Historically, these two distinct methodologies have positioned themselves sternly in opposition to one another, but here Darnton proves that it is possible to have the best of both worlds. The result is deep, rich and enthralling, and gets us as near as we probably ever can be to that elusive thing, the collective consciousness.

[Ol Janx Spirit]

10. And the guillotines in the Place de la Revolution were the other side of the consistency of human nature. NT

[Uncle Joe]

16. I believe that's a possibility, but not a certainty, we have two distinct advantages over the French

1. Being history, we as a people have learned from the French experience.

2. We have nearly two hundred and thirty seven years experience of rule by law, not divinity.

[Ol Janx Spirit]

22. Sorry, yes, I was not suggesting actual guillotines.... I was only saying that...

...history shows that as wealth is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands the masses figure out how to take it back eventually.

Modern democracy actually sprung out of the concept that society needed ways to transfer power that were non-violent. Voting is a metaphorical guillotine.

I trust that our democracy will still see us through those turbulent waters without violence. But that is why the attack on our Capitol on January 6th, 2021, was so anathema--and should have sparked a much larger outrage IMO. It wasn't just an attack on our democracy--but an attack on the very concept of democracy itself.

[Uncle Joe]

23. I hope so as well Ol Janx Spirit

I was thinking about my previous post and there is one potential disadvantage that modern American society has over the French.

That would be the increasing use of AI and killer robots, the French never had to be concerned about that potential threat during their revolution.

[Ol Janx Spirit]

37. That is one thing i actually do not worry about.

Every revolution is fought with the technology of the day against it. AI and killer robots--which have yet to actually emerge in an autonomous form thankfully--are no different; and both can be leveraged against the powers that be just like in previous revolutions.

In the American, French, and Russian revolutions spanning the late 18th to early 20th centuries, the weapons and technology that those in power thought gave them a tactical advantage were all used against them by the victorious revolutionaries.

AI and robotics will not be any different, and may actually be more easily leveraged against those that fancy themselves to be in power than conventional arms were in those earlier conflicts.

[EmmaLee E]

44. The only thing we as a people have learned from history

is that we do not learn from history.

[Uncle Joe]

48. We learn from history, it's just that everyone doesn't learn at once.

That's why the attacks on public education and the diminishment of the humanities.

People will also learn different lessons from history, depending on their moral compass.

[txwhitedove]

19. Thanks. Found book at my library, and now on hold for me.

[lastlib]

12. The new Shakespeare:

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the billionaires."

If not that, tax the ever-lovin' F*CK out of 'em. NOBODY needs that kind of wealth.

[JustAnotherGen]

13. A NY Times writer

Is surprised by this? I mean - his bosses wanted Donold to win. They made it happen.

[3Hotdogs]

17. The difficulty of getting rid of billionaire maggots is that the lower class maggots all believe they

will be in the 1% as soon as their lottery ticket hits.

Not good to regulate or tax billionaires if you're gonna be one of 'em tomorrow.

And even if the lottery doesn't hit for a year or two, no problem. The sooner we get rid of welfare and kick blood suckers and anchor babies out of the country, our taxes will go down. Then we'll all be richer.

[Efilroft Sul]

24. Another problem is that too many people still think the rule of law will save the day.

It won't. The billionaires have gamed the system, used system exploits to shred the Constitution, and have weaponized the law against the rest of us. Our oligarch problem won't end until we end them and MAGA.

[progressoid]

21. Come on small pox. Do your thing!

[ColoringFool]

25. Let Me Know When It's Louis VI.

[Walleye]

26. Elon was such an asshole about the whole thing, now he can't understand why people yell at him in public

Rich people can be so dumb about the ways of the world

[Initech]

29. They bet against the house. They're going to lose.

Fuck all billionaires, especially the four horsemen.

[TygrBright]

31. I guess the rest of us should start building tumbrils... n/t

[IronLionZion]

32. And convinced millions of idiots to blame impoverished immigrants instead

Musk and Thiel are the worst immigrants.

MAGA likes having masked idiots beat up and kidnap people. And they like having uniformed national guard patrolling our cities like some foreign country under military occupation. What were they expecting the national guard to do about NYC mayor election?

[dalton99a]

34. +1

[underpants]

40. It's the same playbook as directing attention to nickels spent on "Welfare" and "Food Stamps"

while corporations back trucks up to the Treasury. That’s based on the fear of free black men.

“Mountainhead” 2025 portrays four tech bros on a retreat where they choose to run the world as they see fit.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt35396529/

[Blue Full Moon]

38. Feeling French?

[orangecrush]

39. K&R

[underpants]

41. It's not too long until they decide what to do with all the "useless eaters"

This millennia saw the realization that’s it’s cheaper to kill a million people than it is to govern them.

Good movie.
Mountainhead” 2025 portrays four tech bros on a retreat where they choose to run the world as they see fit.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt35396529/

[Joinfortmill]

42. This is a must read.

[valleyrogue]

45. A handful of sociopathic greedheads are no match for the masses.

They will lose, and badly.

[RetiredParatrooper]

47. Nick Hanauer had somethings to say about this

Back in 2014:

[snot]

49. Yes. Although it's not just tax policies, or Citizens United;

don't forget (among other things):

The evisceration of labor protections;

The extensive failures w.r.t. Wall St. regulation, e.g. among other things, the repeal of Glass-Steagall, the failure to prohibit speculative credit derivatives, the failure to prohibit high-frequency trading, the failure to require adequate reserves for LBO's, and the repeal of restrictions against naked shorts; and

The negotiation of free trade agreements (NAFTA et al.) that superseded US labor and environmental protections.

[OC375]

53. Torched and Pitchforks

Coming to a town near you!