gloom

A thing that has mildly surprised me about the warm-up to second Trump admin (overall surprisal is low) is the wholesale proactive corporate capitulation to his presumptive agenda. What is often called anticipatory compliance/anticipatory obedience. I expected 80%, we’re seeing 99%.

Not a whisper of an open critical challenge or independent economic thinking, and very little preparation for stealth resistance either. Some of it is due to actual uncritical support but there’s a lot of suspension of dissent (visible and backroom) around obvious points of contention, like tariffs. The level of anticipatory obedience indicates that business imagines Trump will have far more power to punish and reward than he technically should.

The business sector likes to metaphorically larp conflict and competition culture from military and sports but push come to shove is rarely a primary fighting force in political economy. It hangs back, avoids conflict, and lines up behind winners. It solves for survival, not truth.

Delver at contraptions.venkateshrao.com, running summerofprotocols.com, host of /gloom ☀️