As we near Inauguration Day, I feel there are one of two lessons you can take from Trump’s re-election. The first is that his re-election was largely due to economic factors relating to fallout from the pandemic. This is part of a worldwide trend where voters kick out the incumbent. Trump isn’t special; he just didn’t have to face headwinds or any responsibility for his choices during his first term.
The other reading is that there is a real appetite for what Trump represents, which is primarily autocracy, corruption, and deep wells of bigotry for anyone who isn’t a straight white guy. We’ve already seen this play out with a bit of friction in MAGA-land arising between the wealthy white guys who would like workers of color they can exploit and less wealthy white guys who want to shut off all immigration to anyone not deemed white. But in a larger sense, Trump’s definitive victory (not a landslide, but also not losing the popular vote like he did last time) has various power players more than happy to indulge a guy who is still as repulsive as when he was elected in 2016 and they tried to dance around him.
This shift is most apparent in how Meta quickly changed its supposed values to acquiesce to the preferences of the new administration. CEO Mark Zuckerberg trotted out the “free speech” line about why they were spiking fact-checks and killing their DEI initiatives, but what’s notable is how he pre-emptively critiqued anyone who would abandon his crummy products because of these changes. Zuckerberg says anyone who leaves is merely “virtue signaling.”
The implication of “virtue signaling” is that no one believes the things they’re doing; they’re only signaling values they don’t hold to appease their group. Essentially, Zuckerberg argues that people genuinely love Meta’s products, they don’t care about fact-checking, and if you leave over this, you’re doing it through gritted teeth as you desperately seek the approval of your peers. This is from a man who, as one Bluesky user observed, looks like he’s trying to DJ his own bar mitzvah.
It would be all too easy (and fun!) to pick on Zuckerberg, especially as other Silicon Valley titans have lined up to kiss Trump’s ring. Part of this is simple economics—Trump is petty, vengeful, and easily won over by those seeking to ingratiate themselves into his company. Apple and Google aren’t going to sweat tossing $1 million towards Trump’s inauguration fund if it means avoiding the costs of various government investigations or tariffs. It’s much easier to satisfy a striving, easily distracted autocrat like Trump instead of a President who believes in things like (ugh) laws and (bleck) the common good.
But Zuckerberg’s actions, especially as far as his own LGBTQ+ employees are concerned, demonstrate the belief that Trump’s re-election is America’s newfound support for cruelty. The thinking goes that if Americans were clear-eyed on Trump for a second term, then his negative qualities must now be socially acceptable. This is, of course, nonsense as we’ve seen time and again that Trump, due to his wealth and influence in the GOP, avoids consequences that come to others. Tech oligarchs are betting that Trump’s reelection is how Americans want to see business conducted, and that means behaving as poorly as the 47th President.
However, this misses the larger factors at play. To calculate that emulating Trump’s vices is good business misses both the likely reasons for his reelection as well as what people want from tech platforms. Musk can support Trump all day and likely reap some financial benefits from it. But that hasn’t stopped X from steadily losing users or prevented Tesla’s declining sales. If you want to believe that Trump’s re-election means we’re all MAGA now, I think you’re going to be disappointed, and you certainly won’t see an uptick in profits simply because you share the same attitude as a 78-year-old man who spends most of his time on vendettas, watching cable news, and golfing poorly.
The larger question here is who gets thrown over the side in the name of making it through the next four years. For guys like Zuckerberg and the dimwitted commentariat and strategists of the Democratic Party, it means harming minority groups to sate the bottomless culture war appetite of the GOP. But for those making this choice, they should acknowledge that this is not particularly savvy (if nothing else, it assumes Trump will garner some popularity he’s never held as President), but that it likely indulges their desires. They can try to frame cruelty as tough-minded pragmatism, but I don’t see anyone recommending these actions doing it as if it pains them to do so.
I more than understand the feeling of despair looking ahead at the next four years. The Democratic Party feels inadequate to the task, our wealthiest citizens see an opportunity to horde more of our dwindling resources for themselves, and most Americans seem indifferent at best towards maintaining a healthy democracy. But I will also say that while institutions repeatedly balked at holding Trump accountable, he is not special and he is not magic. People who bend the knee to Trump will find, like so many before them, they were left holding the bag for a two-bit grifter. They may think that by emulating Trump they’re projecting strength, but it looks more like pride before the fall. We should be careful we don’t follow them off the cliff.