The big news making its way from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland Friday was George Soros having accused Facebook, yes Facebook, of being in cahoots with Donald Trump to keep the president in the White House.
The Onion? Babylon Bee? Saturday Night Live? Or just plain ordinary fake news?
None of the above. Turns out the multi-billionaire, quasi-Marxist (is that an oxymoron?) did tell the assembled billionaires and multi-millionaires (someone with a mere million need not apply): “Facebook will work together to re-elect Trump, and Trump will work to protect Facebook so that this situation cannot be changed. It makes me very concerned for 2020.”
He and Adam Schiff, apparently. (Among his endless assertions during the impeachment trial, Schiff declared Trump’s removal by the Senate mandatory because the president would cheat in the 2020 election.)
Nevertheless, Soros—last seen funding every social justice warrior he could find with a law degree to run for district attorneys across America—actually has a history of opposition to social media. The financier seems to fear the wide open displays of opinion available on these outlets lest they undermine his many projects (i.e., the truth can impede “the truth”).
Ironically, however, for the last several years Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has been under attack from the right for alleged Facebook bias against conservatives. Indeed, Zuckerberg has made several faltering attempts to manage this problem, consulting what he thought were important conservatives while simultaneously alienating others.
Meanwhile, the bias has continued to grow, as it did even more at the other tech behemoths Google and Twitter, not just because of the policies of their higher-ups, but because their younger staffs, who manage the day-to-day and devise the latest algorithms, leaned determinedly left. The evidence of how far it had gone became clear when Google fired engineer James Damore for daring to waver an inch or two from the politically correct line on females in the sciences.
Zuckerberg, at least, unlike the Google and Twitter founders, acknowledged the problem, recognizing the need for his company, basically a public facility, to be even-handed, although he has not been successful yet in achieving it. He deserves some credit, nonetheless.
Perhaps this is why he is the object of Soros’ opprobrium and why the billionaire thinks he is trying to re-elect Trump. Just attempting ideological equality is enough for that. It’s pretty funny but it’s also, again ironically, an inadvertent favor to Zuckerberg.
Few human beings are regarded as bigger world class villains than George Soros. Some version of Soros has been the fictional Mr. Big of a raft of right-wing thrillers. (Just ask Brad Thor.) And, as we all know, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” If this, the left’s most active and generous global donor, dislikes Zuckerberg, then there must be something to like about the Facebook founder.
But I suspect this won’t last that long or go that deep. The problem of anti-conservative bias in social media is too pervasive. Simultaneously, the power of Big Tech is too great. I wouldn’t doubt, much as he is supposedly on the Trump Train (at least if you believe Soros), Mark Zuckerberg will find himself in the right’s cross hairs soon enough.
But beneath all this is a conundrum that, like the proverbial chicken, may come home to roost as we approach election 2020. Just who will support the Kings and Queens of Silicon Valley, at present the world’s most successful capitalists?
Formerly, the Democratic Party—capitalists masquerading as socialists but only for electoral purposes—was their home. All good but things have changed. Now the Democratic candidate may be a communist masquerading as a socialist. At the best they will be a socialist party.
Will this work for Silicon Valley? Well, they work with China but Xi Jinping may be more capitalist than Bernie. Mark Zuckerberg may not really be a Trump backer, but George Soros and the Democrats may be turning him into one. Sooner than you think Peter Thiel—the entrepreneur/early investor in Facebook and PlayPal— may not be the only Trump supporter in California.
Senior Political Analyst Roger L. Simon’s latest novel is “The GOAT.”
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