Trump, Elon Musk, and Billionaire ‘Populists’ Threaten Democracy and Freedom
Japanese meteorologist Sakuhei Fujiwhara in 1921 described a weather phenomenon in which two tropical cyclones begin to interact with each other with the potential to produce an unpredictable megacyclone.
This “Fujiwhara Effect” is an apt metaphor for how the future of our democracy is threatened by the confluence of power wielded by billionaires with the populism stoked by Donald Trump’s fanboy adoration of authoritarians. A potential hookup of these forces could devastate our political landscape.
The ultra-rich trying to control governments is nothing new. We saw it in America’s so-called “Gilded Age”—lasting from the end of the 19th century into the early 20th century—when business tycoons like Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and J.P. Morgan shaped U.S. industry.