Alexander Vindman: America’s Laocoön?
In her book “The March of Folly,” Barbara Tuchman uses the myth of Laocoön as her first example of folly. The Trojans ignored Laocoön’s warning not to admit the Trojan horse. That didn’t end well for the Trojans. Ignoring Laocoön was folly.
In his recent substack essay, The Coming Alliance Between Billionaires, Tech Giants, and MAGA-Ideologues, Vindman is a modern Laocoön, warning us of the WhatsApp group “Off Leash.” Created and managed by Blackwater founder Erik Prince, Off Leash is ca. 400 individuals in government and tech, who with a wider network of right-wing thinkers and pundits are conspiring against the “Biden Regime,” “globalists,” and liberal democracy as a whole. Vindman paints a frightening picture:
“According to [Ken Silverstein, writing in The New Republic], participants in Off Leash view the ideal American society to be one where the “plebs” (average Americans like you and me) are allowed to vote for whatever they please, yet only the policies approved by the elites are enacted (needless to say, the participants of Off Leash consider themselves to be the elites).
“This vision of a controlled un-democracy resembles the “neo-monarchist” vision for society espoused by Curtis Yarvin and the wider neo-reactionary movement. Since the early 2000s, Yarvin has cultivated an audience of aggrieved programmers, founders, and CEOs within Silicon Valley, all of which view democracy to be an obstacle to human progress (and their own personal success) and consider the best society to be one that is managed like a startup. In theory, this would mean doing away with voting, dissolving most functions of the government, and having all authority entrusted to a single executive figure. In practice, Yarvin’s neo-monarchist worldview would mean making voting arbitrarily difficult for most Americans, removing all regulations and restrictions on industry and finance, and eliminating the few remaining vestiges of social welfare. Essentially, Yarvin and the neo-reactionary movement are looking to launder unpopular right-wing ideology by painting democracy as an obstacle and appealing to society’s managerial class.”
The 20th century gave us several examples of government overthrow: Lenin and the Bolsheviks in 1917, Mussolini and the fascists in 1922, Hitler and the Nazis in 1933 and Mao and the Communists in 1949. But in all these cases, the dictators who seized power did it in countries that were largely agrarian and/or had little or no experience with Democracy. I can’t think of a single example of a political coup lead by billionaires. In fact, billionaires have the most at risk from revolution and the most to gain from stability. Vindman waves that off:
“Ultra-rich right-wing radicals like Musk believe they will not be affected by the erosion of democracy and liberalism in the United States. They live their lives untethered to the realities of America, with the ability to use their resources to relocate anywhere and weather any storm (or so they think). With their personal security guaranteed, they begin to view our government as merely a vessel to preserve vast wealth. They are wrong. American democracy is what allowed for their prosperity in the first place, and property rights mean very little in authoritarian regimes. It must be ego that blinds them to the threats to their own interests.”
Maybe. His analysis is compelling, but he’s describing the imagined goals of people who have never run even a small city, let alone an industrialized nation of over 333 million people that has been a functioning democracy for nearly 250 years. Whenever I read dire analyses like this, I have to ask myself what are the historical antecedents. While the Confederacy in the Civil War was driven politically by the slave-owning Southern aristocracy, the fighting was waged mostly by men who didn’t own slaves. And there is no comparable threat to the wealth of the US aristocracy today commensurate with the massive loss of wealth occasioned by the abolition of slavery.
So read the Vindman essay yourself. It’s certainly important and thought-provoking. And don’t get me wrong, I think a second Trump presidency will be dangerous for American democracy. But one of the enduring features of the US form of government is its inertia. That, and a reflection on modern history makes me think (or hope) that Vindman is hyperventilating.
The plot against America?
Russia should offer a good example. The years after the USSR collapsed were a great time for billionaires, but since then, only the properly respectful and appropriately apolitical ones haven’t been crushed by Putin. It’s a common enough historical pattern dating back at least to Roman days and visiting 18th century France and a host of other countries and empires. There’s no reason that the US wouldn’t follow a similar pattern.
Billionaires are creatures of the state. The state can make them and the state can destroy them. They want a powerful, unaccountable leader, but they expect him to be their obedient flunky. As the saying goes, good luck with that.
@Kaleberg,
Good point. Having lots of money doesn’t mean good judgement. If you want to understand Putin, you need to read Stalin’s biography.
Boiled down to ones and zeros it’s all just ones and zeros on a computer
What happens when the lights go out?
Putin is the new billionaire on the block. Billionaires play for money, but don’t expect them to invite the waiter to sit in for a hand. you talk like you think Putin is an example of the triumph of democracy.
well, i see someone figured out who won the Trojan War.
better than being censored.
A better story from the Iliad that makes more sense than whatever Laocoon is supposed to represent here, is the story of Thersites. Here is a hint:
Thersites addresses the assembly without the traditional aristocratic ritual of holding the customary scepter, which Odysseus received when he followed Agamemnon’s speech. Moreover, Thersites’ diction demonstrates a hopeless solicitation to the Achaean rank and file, the demos, due to his already weakened position, as his “bitter irony” toward the king indicates. As Homer testifies, Thersites indulged in similar occasions, where he placed himself in opposition with other great heroes. Nevertheless, Odysseus’ reaction does not deny the arguments of the aspiring revolutionary, rather, Thersites is denied the privilege of speech through brute force. After the suppression of Thersites’ radical speech, the enticing arguments of Nestor and Odysseus had to be presented to the assembly so the war could continue.
When reading anything Vindman writes, you need to keep in mind that he is one of the Ukrainian expats with prominent positions in the national security establishment who have been promoting war. Sure, his concern about billionaires staging a coup is correct. But billionaires have already captured most of the agencies of the federal government. So it makes you wonder if Vindman’s real concern is not about billionaires but instead about one particular billionaire who has been less gung-ho about fighting to the last Ukrainian who has not yet managed to emigrate.
@John,
I’m more interested in the content of his article than his motives for writing it.
Joel:
Me too. You said it better than I could.
but Bill
JohnH knows more about Vindman’s motives than the Supreme Court knows about the Framers’. And a you know a good conspiracy theory about someone’s private motives is better than talking about a vast right wing conspiracy theory that is being played out in front of us in broad daylight.
I had a chance to review the story about Thersities in the Iliad. Homer told it better than the English teacher I quoted in my comment. (not that anyone noticed). You should read it. Might give you a different view of the history of Billionaires vs democrats. (aka “the haves and have nots.)
About like calling 2,000 year old barely noted events ‘history’?
More about Vindman–“Alexander Vindman was three when his family fled Ukraine to build a better life in the United States. In the four decades since then, Vindman has been an officer in the U.S. Army, studied Ukrainian affairs at Harvard, and served as a member of the White House’s National Security Council specializing in Eastern Europe. And it was in that last role that America came to know Vindman’s name.”
Ukraine, not billionaires, is Vindman’s area of expertise, though some of his analysis seems rather quaint in retrospect. But he does know a lot about one particular billionaire. So why should we pay particular attention to his parroting what many have already noted about right wing billionaires? And why does he just limit his concern to just some billionaires? And what about Corporate America?
John:
I am being serious. Enlighten us . . . Can you add a little more to your comment? Ignore coberly
Link: Opinion | Alexander Vindman on Why It’s the ‘Beginning of the End’ for Putin – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
i think it’s fair to point out that most of what I said about this has been censored, which leaves a misleading idea of what I was trying to say.
Not much use in my trying to say anything more here.