As someone who appreciates democracy, one of the scariest things I've ever seen in my life is Elon Musk (X), Mark Zuckerberg (Meta), Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Sundar Pichai (Google), and Tim Cook (Apple) all buddying up in a church with Trump for his inauguration. Without exaggeration, this might be the most powerful group of men ever assembled in American history. Collectively, they have obscene troves of data on nearly 100% of voting Americans, control what we see when we search the web, control the algorithms that deliver news to our feeds, control the way that we shop, control the security of our communications, and know who we're friends with and what circles we keep. And they're climbing over each other to curry his favor. The potential for abuse here is nearly unprecedented.
You don't want to overreact and say that the country is going to go all Handmaid's Tale, but you look at the protections that Trump is rolling back on day one, and you look at the pardons he's making, and look at some of the unhinged misogynistic shit that Zuckerberg is suddenly and openly saying about Facebook being ruined by feminine energy, and look at the type of behaviors your average vote was willing to overlook or openly endorse in the election - I don't know. Throw in the fact that less than 1% of the population is controlling 35% of the wealth in America, and the fact that the bottom 50% of Americans are fighting for a shocking 1.5% of the wealth - it's not painting a great picture of where we're headed.
