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Trapped Between Authoritarians, Europe Must Fight, Not Retreat
The E.U. must unite with all like-minded countries against the illiberal nationalists who are challenging universal values and international law.
Apr 01, 2025
The news of Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest surprised me.
It’s not that I doubted the former leader of the Philippines was guilty of the horrific crimes detailed in his International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant. Duterte himself boasted quite openly of the mass killings he’s been accused of. But I always thought that the prospects of bringing that brutal, outspoken politician to justice were remote indeed.
After all, Duterte’s daughter Sara is currently the vice president of the Philippines and that country is no longer a member of the ICC. On top of that, Duterte himself was so sure of his immunity that he was running for mayor of the city of Davao. In mid-March, after returning from campaigning in the Filipino community in Hong Kong, he suffered the indignity of being arrested in his own country.
The International Criminal Court’s arrest of Rodrigo Duterte should be a powerful reminder that justice is possible even in the most unjust of times.
Forgive me for saying this, but I just hadn’t thought the ICC was still truly functioning, given that the leaders of the most powerful countries on this planet—the United States, China, and Russia—don’t give a fig about human rights or international law. Sure, the ICC did issue high-profile arrest warrants for Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on war crimes charges, but no one expects those rogues to be taken into custody anytime soon. And the impunity for the powerful has only become more entrenched now that a convicted felon squats in the White House.
The specialty of the ICC has, of course, been arresting human-rights abusers in truly weak or failed states like Laurent Gbagbo, former president of Côte d’Ivoire, and Hashim Thaçi, former president of Kosovo. With the world’s 31st largest economy, however, the Philippines is no failed state. Still, without nuclear weapons or a huge army, it’s no powerhouse either. Indeed, it was only when the Philippines became ever weaker—because of a feud between President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. and Vice President Sara Duterte (accused of threatening to assassinate him)—that the ICC had a chance to grab its target and spirit him away to The Hague to stand trial.
The arrest of Rodrigo Duterte might, in fact, seem like the exception that proves the (new) rule. After all, the international community and its institutions are currently facing a crisis of global proportions with violations of international law becoming ever more commonplace in this era of ascendant right-wing rogue states.
In 2014, Russia first grabbed Ukrainian territory, launching an all-out invasion in 2022. Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, sent troops into southern Lebanon, and expanded its footprint in Syria. U.S. President Donald Trump has spoken repeatedly of seizing Greenland, absorbing Canada as the 51st state, and retaking the Panama Canal, among other things. Small countries like Taiwan can’t sleep for fear of a late-night visit from jackbooted thugs.
But then there’s Europe.
Transatlantic Divergence
In the wake of Donald Trump’s dramatic return to the stage as a bull in the global china shop, European leaders have hastened to replace the United States as the voice of liberal internationalist institutions like the ICC. Of course, the U.S. was never actually a member of the ICC, which suggests that Europe has always been more connected to the rule of law than most American politicians. After all, if Duterte had been sent to Washington today—not to mention Beijing, Buenos Aires, Cairo, Moscow, or New Delhi—he would undoubtedly have been feted as an exemplary law-and-order politico rather than, as in The Hague, placed behind bars and put on trial.
This transatlantic divergence was only sharpened in mid-February when Vice President JD Vance berated an audience of Europeans at the Munich Security Conference, singling out for criticism Europe’s support of feminism and pro-choice policies, its rejection of Russian election interference (by overturning a Kremlin-manipulated presidential election in Romania), and its refusal to tolerate fascist and neo-fascist parties (shunning, among others, Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland, or AfD). By urging them to worry more about internal challenges to “democracy” in Europe than the challenges presented by either Russia or China, Vance was effectively siding with illiberal adversaries against liberal allies.
In a certain sense, however, he was also eerily on target: Europe does indeed face all-too-many internal challenges to democracy. But they come from his ideological compatriots there like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Slovakia’s Robert Fico, and far-right political parties like Germany’s AfD, as well as ultra-conservative cultural movements that target immigrants, the LGBTQ community, and secular multiculturalists.
Vance opposes mainstream European opinion, which has directly or indirectly challenged Donald Trump’s MAGA proposals and policies, as well as his rejection of the reality of climate change. Europe has, of course, been stepping up its defense of Ukraine, remains committed to promoting human rights, and adheres to democratic principles in the form of regular electoral checks and balances, as well as safeguards for civil society. Above all, unlike the Trump administration, it continues to move forward on the European Green Deal and a program to leave behind fossil fuels.
These were, of course, fairly uncontroversial positions until Trump reentered the White House.
Can Europe sustain that fragile plant of liberalism during this harsh winter of right-wing populism? Much depends on some risky bets. Will U.S. foreign policy swing back in favor of democracy, human rights, and transatlantic relations in four years? Will the weight of a never-ending war, in the end, dislodge Vladimir Putin from the Kremlin? Will Ukraine overcome its own internal divisions to become part of a newly enlarged European Union (EU)? Will Bibi Netanyahu someday become Duterte’s cellmate?
At the moment, unfortunately, it seems more likely that Europe will be the last powerful holdout in a world entering a new political Dark Age. A dismal scenario lurks on the horizon in which democracy and human rights cling to existence somewhere within the walls of the European Union, much as monasteries managed to preserve classical learning a millennium ago.
Europe Steps Forward
After Trump and Vance humiliated Volodymyr Zelenskyy during his White House visit in February, an ideologically diverse range of European leaders raced to support the Ukrainian leader and his country. But defending democracy means all too little if that defense remains largely verbal.
So, no longer being able to count on U.S. power or NATO security guarantees in the age of Trump, European Union leaders have decided to visit the gym and muscle up. Shortly after Zelenskyy’s meeting, the E.U. readied a large military spending bill meant to contribute to the “security of Europe as a whole, in particular as regards the E.U.’s eastern border, considering the threats posed by Russia and Belarus.” About $150 billion more would be invested in the military budgets of member states. The E.U. will also relax debt limits to allow nearly $700 billion in such additional spending over the next four years.
Semi-socialist, DEI-loving, human-rights-supporting, Israel-skeptical, Europe is everything Donald Trump hates. Think of the E.U., in fact, as the global equivalent of his worst nightmare, a giant liberal arts campus.
Of course, in the past, Europe’s vaunted social democracy was largely built on low defense spending and a reliance on Washington’s security umbrella. That “peace dividend” saved E.U. member states a huge chunk of money—nearly $400 billion every year since the end of the Cold War—that could be applied to social welfare and infrastructure expenses. Forcing NATO members to spend a higher percentage of their gross domestic product on their militaries is a dagger that both Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are holding to the throat of Europe’s social democracy. Germany can still afford to engage in deficit spending for both guns and butter, but it presents a distinct problem for countries like Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, and Spain with high levels of government debt.
And when it comes to Europe’s future, it’s not just a military affair. While some European leaders have used intelligence assessments to focus on Putin’s territorial ambitions, others are more anxious about Russia’s assault on their values. Fearful of the way the illiberal values of Putin and Trump seem to overlap, Europeans have cast the fate of Ukraine in the loftiest of terms: the defense of democracy against fascism. However, given the connections between the European far-right and the Kremlin—thanks to Germany’s AfD, the two French far-right parties (National Rally and Reconquest), and Bulgaria’s Revival among others—the fight against fascism is now taking place on the home front as well.
Europe is also defending democratic values in other ways. It has long promoted DEI-like programs, beginning with France’s diversity charter in 2004, while the European Commission is committed to equality for the LGBTQ community. In 2021, to promote universal values, the E.U. even launched a program called Global Europe Human Rights and Democracy, which was meant to support human rights defenders, the rule of law, and election monitors across the planet. Typically, on the controversial topic of Israel-Palestine, European countries have condemned the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza and several have even recognized the (still-to-be-created) state of Palestine.
Semi-socialist, DEI-loving, human-rights-supporting, Israel-skeptical, Europe is everything Donald Trump hates. Think of the E.U., in fact, as the global equivalent of his worst nightmare, a giant liberal arts campus.
No wonder the MAGA crowd has the urge to cut the transatlantic cable as a way of targeting its opponents both at home and abroad.
Europe Divided
But wait: The MAGA crowd doesn’t hate Europe quite as thoroughly as it does Columbia University. After all, not all European leaders are on board with social democracy, DEI, human rights, and Palestine. In fact, in some parts of the continent, Trump and Vance are heroes, not zeros.
Hungary’s leader Viktor Orbán, for instance, has long been a friend and inspiration for Donald Trump. After all, he’s managed to translate the illiberalism of Vladimir Putin—anti-democratic, anti-LGBT, uber-nationalist—into a semi-democratic vernacular of great appeal to an American far-right that must negotiate a significantly more complex political landscape than the one that surrounds the Kremlin.
As Putin’s greatest acolyte, Orbán has worked overtime to undermine a common European approach to Ukraine. He initially opposed aid to Ukraine, a stance ultimately overcome by the pressure tactics of other European leaders. He pushed for a watered-down version of the most recent E.U. statement in support of that country, only to watch the other 26 E.U. members pass it without him. And he’s rejected Ukrainian membership in the E.U. Still, with elections scheduled for 2026 and the opposition now outpolling Orbán’s Fidesz party, the days of one man holding the E.U. hostage may soon be over.
While Orbán does have allies, most of them—like AUR in Romania and the National Alliance in Latvia—are sniping from the sidelines as part of the opposition. Several other far-right parties like the ruling Fratelli d’Italia in Italy don’t share Orbán’s odd affection for Putin. But if the AfD in Germany or the National Rally in France were to win enough votes to take over their respective governments, Europe’s political center of gravity could indeed shift.
Such divisions extend to the question of E.U. expansion. Serbia’s pro-Russian slant makes such a move unlikely in the near term and Turkey is too autocratic to qualify, while both Bosnia and Georgia, like Ukraine, are divided. It’s hard to imagine Ukraine itself overcoming its internal divisions—or its war-ravaged economy—to meet Europe’s membership requirements, no matter the general enthusiasm inside that country and elsewhere in Europe for bringing it in from the cold.
Nonetheless, E.U. expansion is what Putin fears the most: a democratic, prosperous union that expands its border with his country and inspires Russian activists with its proclamations of universal values. No small surprise, then, that he’s tried to undermine the E.U. by supporting far-right and Euroskeptical movements. Yet the combination of the war in Ukraine and the reelection of Donald Trump may be undoing all his efforts.
The experience of feeling trapped between two illiberal superpowers has only solidified popular support for the E.U. and its institutions. In a December 2024 poll, trust in the E.U. was at its highest level in 17 years, particularly in countries that are on the waiting list like Albania and Montenegro. Moreover, around 60% of Europeans support providing military aid to Kyiv and future membership for Ukraine.
For increasing numbers of those outside its borders, Europe seems like a beacon of hope: prosperous democracies pushing back against the onslaught of Trump and Putin. And yet, even if Europe manages to stave off the challenges of its home-grown far-right, it may not, in the end, prove to be quite such a beacon. After all, it has its own anti-migrant policies and uses trade agreements to secure access to critical raw materials and punish countries like Indonesia that have the temerity to employ their own mineral wealth to rise higher in the global value chain. Although, unlike Putin’s Russia and Trump’s America, it’s doing its best to shift to a clean-energy economy, it’s done so all too often by dirtying the nests of other countries to get the materials it needs for that shift.
Whatever its resemblance to a liberal arts college, Europe is anything but a non-profit institution and can sometimes seem more like a fortress than a beacon. As was true of those medieval monasteries that preserved the classical learning of the ages but also owned land and serfs, supplied markets with addictive products like chartreuse, and subjected their members to torture and imprisonment, saving civilization can have a darker side.
Exiting the Dark Age
The International Criminal Court’s arrest of Rodrigo Duterte should be a powerful reminder that justice is possible even in the most unjust of times. Brutal leaders almost always sow the seeds of their own demise. Putin’s risky moves have mobilized virtually all of Europe against him. In antagonizing country after country, Trump is similarly reinforcing liberal sentiment in Canada, in Mexico, and throughout Europe.
If the world had the luxury of time, holing up in the modern equivalent of monasteries and waiting out the barbarians would be a viable strategy. But climate change cares little for extended timelines. And don’t forget the nuclear doomsday clock or the likelihood of another pandemic sweeping across the globe. Meanwhile, Trump and his allies are destroying things at such a pace that the bill for “reconstruction” grows more astronomical by the day.
The gap between the fall of the Roman Empire and the first glimmers of the Renaissance was about 1,000 years. No one has that kind of time anymore. So, while long-term strategies to fight the right are good, those standing up to the bullies also need to act fast and forcefully. The world can’t afford a European retreat into a fortress and the equivalent of monastic solitude. The E.U. must unite with all like-minded countries against the illiberal nationalists who are challenging universal values and international law.
The ICC set a good example with its successful seizure of Duterte. Let’s all hope, for the good of the world, that The Hague will have more global scofflaws in its jail cells—and soon.
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The Far-Right and the Crypto Scam
How Trump and his far-right allies are using these digital currencies as a strategy to rig the rules of the game in their favor.
Mar 16, 2025
Back in 2021, Donald Trump called cryptocurrency “a disaster waiting to happen” and a “scam.” Takes one to know one, right?
As he got closer to regaining the White House, however, Trump changed his mind about this “scam,” probably as a result of the millions of dollars that flowed into his campaign coffers from industry donors. To the delight of these donors, Trump promised to make the United States the cryptocurrency capital of the world. He also talked about creating a strategic reserve of Bitcoin.
After he won the election, Trump received over $11 million in contributions to his inaugural committee from the crypto industry. It’s a hallmark of pyramid scams that only the people at the top reap the benefits, and Trump has put himself at the very apex of the ziggurat in order to rake in millions for his posse and for himself.
Consider the saga of $TRUMP.
When the inmates take over the asylum, the currency becomes a way of consolidating power in the hands of oligarchs.
Three days before his inauguration, the $TRUMP meme coin debuted. Meme coins are usually based on an internet meme and are “typically characterized by their volatile nature.” Well, that sounds like a good fit for Trump! Indeed, after he promoted the coin on his social media accounts, its value surged astronomically.
Some of the biggest winners in this naked money grab were the firms that launched the coin and profited from the transaction fees, which netted them as much as $100 million in the first two weeks. One of those firms was CIC Digital, which is owned by…Trump himself.
Like all financial operations characterized by irrational exuberance, the value of $TRUMP soon plummeted. Indeed, over 800,000 investor accounts lost a total of $2 billion. Of course, they’re not the only Trump supporters who are suffering from buyer’s remorse. Even the stock market, which initially cheered Trump’s election, is having a serious hangover, a swing in mood not very different from $TRUMP’s trajectory.
$TRUMP’s deep dive notwithstanding—or perhaps because of the success of this scam—crypto remains an essential part of Trump’s economic plans. And Trump is not the only far-right leader who has dabbled in scamming the population with crypto. Argentina’s Javier Milei is now dealing with the aftermath of a corruption scandal associated with $LIBRA, a meme coin he initially supported and which left 10,000 investors over $250 million poorer. El Salvador is still reeling from Nayib Bukele’s crypto obsession, which cost his country $60 million when Bitcoin tanked a couple years ago—not to mention all the Salvadoran energy and natural resources that Bitcoin mining has absorbed.
Two years ago, I explained how cryptocurrencies function like pyramid scams. Last year, I discussed the environmental consequences of crypto.
Now I want to dig a little deeper into the politics of crypto: how Trump and his far-right allies are using these digital currencies as a strategy to rig the rules of the game in their favor.
The Mechanisms of Theft
To understand how crypto scams work, you need to know about “sniping” and “rug-pulling.”
When a new crypto product is launched, whether it’s a meme coin or a non-fungible token, a select group of speculators place a big buy to push the value higher. If enough of these “snipers” exit at the same time, the value drops, providing the snipers with short-term profits and leaving a lot of other investors holding the (empty) bag.
Of course, it helps to know in advance about a new product launch so that you can line up your bots and your AI to execute high-volume and high-speed trades—and your coordinated exit from the stage. In another context, you might call this “insider trading.”
The orchestrated sale of the crypto product is known as the “rug pull.” It can be sudden, as was the case with $TRUMP. Or it can take place over a longer period of time in what used to be known as the “long con.”
The rug pull sometimes relies on the services of a celebrity. Let’s take a brief look at the case of Javier Milei in Argentina to understand how this works.
Enter Milei
Argentine President Javier Milei is, to say the least, a heterodox economist. He pledged to cut government spending as a way of reining in inflation. He fired 30,000 government workers, eliminated government subsidies, and halted many public works projects. No surprise that Milei and his infamous chainsaw served as the inspiration for Musk and DOGE.
Inflation in Argentina has indeed fallen, from nearly 300% to around 85% in January. But the costs have been immense to the poor. More than half of Argentines now live below the poverty line, and they are dealing with increased costs for food and basic services. The economy has contracted as a not-very-surprising result of Milei’s chainsaw approach to government.
Among his many economic enthusiasms, Milei has relentlessly attacked the country’s central bank and advocated for the adoption of the U.S. dollar as the national currency. During his first year in office, he didn’t put crypto at the heart of his economic platform. But his efforts to displace the central bank has been accompanied by a push to lift restrictions on currency exchange, which would give cryptocurrencies a big boost. Argentinians are already leading adopters of crypto, largely as a hedge against the volatility of the Argentine peso (frankly, they might as well buy lottery tickets or play slots at the casino).
As for Milei, the real purpose of his economic program has been starkly revealed by this scandal: a transfer of money from the poor to the rich.
But that’s changing as a result of the $LIBRA scandal.
At the instigation of several fast-talking meme coin boosters, Milei endorsed $LIBRA when it was released on Valentine’s Day this year. But the value of the meme coin tanked within mere hours as top investors pulled the rug out from under it. As “Cryptogate” spread, Milei scrambled to deny any connection to the fiasco.
But that was hard to do given the evidence of several tweets showing Milei, with his trademark glower and two thumbs up, posing with those boosters, including an American named Hayden Davis.
Davis runs Kelsier Ventures, which was part of the sniping and rug-pulling around $MELANIA, the spousal counterpart to $TRUMP, which followed a similar trajectory of jumping high off the diving board and then plunging into the empty pool below. Davis did the same thing with $LIBRA, making off with around $100 million. He has promised to refund some of that money to the people who lost big. Don’t hold your breath.
“This is an insider’s game,” Davis has said about these meme coins. “This is like an unregulated casino.”
As for Milei, the real purpose of his economic program has been starkly revealed by this scandal: a transfer of money from the poor to the rich. His popularity was already on a downward trajectory in early February before the scandal, with 53% of the population disapproving of his policies (compared to 43% in favor). Cryptogate could be an anchor that pulls Milei down to the bottom of the sea.
Trump Also Goes Big
It’s no accident that the administration’s government-cutting initiative, DOGE, shares a name with a leading cryptocurrency. Cutting government oversight, eliminating regulations, and empowering the already-powerful private sector all benefit the crypto industry. But Trump is not just cutting government—he is putting his own people into positions of power.
That includes right-wing financier David Sacks, who’s in charge of both crypto and AI in the Trump administration. Sacks comes out of the same political milieu as Elon Musk and Peter Thiel (with whom he led PayPal). As with so many of Trump’s appointees, the opportunities for corruption abound. As MSNBCreported at the end of last year, “Sacks launched an artificial intelligence company called Glue this year and is known to be a major investor in cryptocurrencies, which would seem likely to create some conflicts of interest if he’s steering the administration’s AI and crypto policies.”
Trump is also staffing the Securities and Exchange Commission with crypto loyalists who have already begun to deconstruct the oversight of the crypto sector. As The New York Timesnotes:
Federal officials declared that so-called memecoins would not be subject to strict oversight. A series of investigations into major cryptocurrency firms were halted. And the Securities and Exchange Commission agreed to pause a fraud case against a top crypto entrepreneur. Just over a month since President Trump’s inauguration, U.S. regulators have almost entirely dismantled a yearslong government crackdown on the crypto industry, a volatile sector rife with fraud, scams and theft.
Meme coins, of course, are the $TRUMP and $MELANIA scams that have already bilked thousands of investors. The reduction of oversight on crypto, meanwhile, is likely to increase the pool of victims. Burwick Law is the firm trying to claw back money for those who were scammed by $HAWK (promoted by influencer Haliey Welch) and also 200 clients from various countries who lost money in the $LIBRA scandal. Dubbed the “ambulance chaser of crypto,” Max Burwick is going to face a deregulatory headwind coming from the Trump administration.
But the biggest crypto project of the Trump administration is its crypto strategic reserve, an idea promoted hard by the crypto industry. It’s the culmination of the right-wing’s push for U.S. businesses to invest in crypto and also state governments buy up the currency. A strategic reserve of crypto makes no sense. Such reserves are meant for valuable assets like oil and gold. Why doesn’t Trump consider a strategic reserve of Amway products or Tupperware?
For the time being, the two reserves (one for Bitcoin, the second for other digital assets) will contain only crypto seized in criminal or civil forfeitures. The crypto industry was disappointed that Trump didn’t mandate federal purchases of the currencies. But that will probably happen in the future. The new initiative calls on federal agencies to come up with strategies to buy more Bitcoin. And there’s now a bill in Congress calling on the government to buy a million Bitcoin.
So, basically, such a reserve is just a gift to all the crypto loyalists who have supported Trump. Let’s call it what it is: a first step toward state capture by crypto oligarchs.
Why Does the Far-Right Love Crypto?
Crypto appeals to the far-right for several reasons. It promises to undermine the state’s central authority. It offers a degree of anonymity, which can facilitate tax evasion, asset parking overseas, and plain old money laundering. And its volatility allows for the profiteering that sometimes goes by the name of entrepreneurialism.
Meanwhile, for extremist organizations that need to stay under the radar to evade surveillance, crypto is the monetary equivalent of an encrypted messaging service. According to the Anti-Defamation League, “15 white supremacist and antisemitic groups and individuals, as well as their donors, that collectively moved $142,546 worth of cryptocurrency to and/or from 22 different cryptocurrency service providers.” The European far-right is also beginning to trade in these currencies.
In countries with conventional governance—that is, not lunatics like Trump and locos like Milei—crypto functions as a right-wing weapon against the state. But when the inmates take over the asylum, the currency becomes a way of consolidating power in the hands of oligarchs.
Meme coins like $TRUMP and $LIBRA are just the side hustles by opportunists who want some of the crumbs that fall off the oligarchs’ tables. The real money is in the “legitimate” trade in crypto, the speculation in Bitcoin and Dogecoin. This is where far-right politicians create “positive synergies” between government deregulation on one side and campaign contributions on the other.
This institutional corruption is at the center of the Trump-Milei enterprise: the wholesale looting of the public sector and the grotesque enrichment of the already rich.
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Capitalism’s Free Speech Trap: Bezos Shows How Billionaires Set the Boundaries of Debate
The Washington Post’s shift toward free-market advocacy is not simply an editorial decision; it is a strategic move to reinforce the dominant ideological framework that benefits the billionaire class.
Feb 27, 2025
The recent directive by Jeff Bezos that The Washington Post editorial section should promote “personal liberties and free markets” is a stark reminder of how freedom under capitalism often boils down to the freedom of economic elites to dictate the parameters of public discourse. While Bezos has suggested that social media provides alternative perspectives, thus absolving his newspaper of the responsibility to represent diverse viewpoints, his decision is part of a broader trend of billionaire media ownership shaping acceptable discourse.
This phenomenon is visible across digital platforms as well. Elon Musk’s control over X (formerly Twitter) has demonstrated how ownership can shape public debate—both through direct interventions, such as the alleged suppression of progressive perspectives, and through more subtle changes to platform algorithms. Similarly, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has faced repeated allegations of privileging certain political narratives while suppressing others, including ending its “fact checking” policy that could challenge far-right viewpoints.
Perhaps the most glaring contradiction in Bezos’ advocacy for free markets is the extent to which he, and other billionaires like him, have benefited from state intervention as part of an intentional strategy of “corporate welfare.”
In each case, the rhetoric of “free speech” is selectively applied. While these platforms and newspapers claim to support open debate, their policies ultimately reflect the ideological preferences of their owners. This demonstrates a fundamental truth: In capitalist societies, freedom of expression is often contingent on the interests of those who control the means of communication. The Washington Post’s shift toward free-market advocacy is not simply an editorial decision; it is a strategic move to reinforce the dominant ideological framework that benefits the billionaire class.
The Myth of Meritocracy and the Far-Right’s War on DEI
Bezos’ framing of free markets as inherently linked to personal liberties exposes a deeper ideological assumption—namely, that economic success is the result of individual talent and merit rather than systemic privilege. This assumption is not unique to Bezos but is foundational to the way many economic elites understand their own wealth and influence.
The logic behind Bezos’ editorial direction is similar to the arguments used by the contemporary far-right to attack Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives. The opposition to DEI is rooted in a desire to preserve the myth that success is determined purely by hard work and ability, rather than by racial, gender, or class privilege. By rejecting policies that acknowledge structural inequalities, The far-right seeks to uphold a narrative that justifies existing economic and social hierarchies.
This worldview is deeply intertwined with the ideology of neoliberalism, which insists that markets are neutral mechanisms that reward the most capable individuals. However, history shows that markets are anything but neutral. The barriers faced by marginalized groups are not simply the result of individual shortcomings; they are the product of centuries of systemic exclusion. The far-right’s attack on DEI serves to obscure these realities, just as Bezos’ insistence on free markets seeks to erase the role of privilege and power in determining economic outcomes.
By positioning The Washington Post as a champion of free markets, Bezos is promoting the idea that capitalism functions as a pure meritocracy. This serves not only to legitimize his own position but also to delegitimize calls for policies that challenge structural inequality, whether in the form of DEI programs, labor protections, or wealth redistribution measures.
The Illusion of the Free Market and Its Political Implications
Perhaps the most glaring contradiction in Bezos’ advocacy for free markets is the extent to which he, and other billionaires like him, have benefited from state intervention as part of an intentional strategy of “corporate welfare.” The notion of a truly free market, where economic actors compete on equal footing without government interference, is a fantasy. In reality, corporations like Amazon have thrived not because of unregulated competition, but because of significant government support.
From tax incentives to government contracts, Amazon has received billions in subsidies that have allowed it to dominate the retail and logistics industries. Moreover, the U.S. government plays a critical role in enforcing corporate-friendly trade policies, suppressing labor movements, and protecting the interests of multinational corporations abroad. These interventions are rarely acknowledged in discussions of free markets, yet they are crucial to understanding the power dynamics of contemporary capitalism.
If freedom under capitalism ultimately means the freedom of the wealthy to dictate the terms of discourse, then the very concept of free speech is in jeopardy.
Politically, Bezos’ editorial directive at The Washington Post serves to strengthen a broader ideological alignment between neoliberal economics and far-right nationalism. By framing free-market capitalism as an essential component of personal liberty, Bezos is laying the groundwork for a political agenda that fuses economic libertarianism with nationalist conservatism. This is significant because it provides an ideological foundation for challenging emerging economic policies that deviate from neoliberal orthodoxy—such as the rise of protectionism in response to globalization.
This alignment between free-market ideology and far-right nationalism is not new. Historically, neoliberalism has often coexisted with reactionary politics, as seen in the economic policies of figures like former U.S. President Ronald Reagan and former U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Today, this synthesis is being revived as right-wing populists seek to defend corporate interests while simultaneously appealing to nationalist sentiments. Bezos’ intervention in The Washington Post should be understood within this broader context: It is not just about shaping editorial policy but about consolidating an ideological framework that benefits economic elites while limiting the scope of acceptable political debate.
The Dangers of Billionaire-Controlled Media
Bezos’ decision to impose a free-market ideology on The Washington Post is not an isolated event; it is part of a larger trend in which media ownership is used to shape public discourse in ways that serve elite interests. This phenomenon extends beyond traditional journalism to social media platforms, where billionaires like Musk and Zuckerberg wield immense power over the flow of information.
At its core, this issue is about more than just media bias—it is about the fundamental tension between democracy and concentrated economic power. A truly free and open society requires a diversity of perspectives, yet the dominance of billionaire-controlled media threatens to constrain the range of acceptable debate. If freedom under capitalism ultimately means the freedom of the wealthy to dictate the terms of discourse, then the very concept of free speech is in jeopardy.
The consolidation of media power in the hands of a few ultra-wealthy individuals raises urgent questions about the future of democratic debate. If we are to challenge the ideological hegemony of economic elites, we must first recognize the mechanisms through which they shape public discourse. Bezos’ editorial mandate is not just about The Washington Post—it is a reflection of the broader struggle over who gets to define the boundaries of political and economic debate in the 21st century.
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