Is it a coincidence that Donald Trump is picking fights with the likes of Google and Amazon?
It should be obvious what the president is up to here. You’d almost think he has Vladimir Putin in his ear directing him.
Because it’s straight Putin Power Play. Remember how Putin consolidated his power in Russia in the Aughts. He rose to power through the democratic process, promising to be a reformer, then when he got his hands on the keys to the Russian political machine, he started going after the billionaires, throwing them into prison, exile or worse, if you count death as being worse than years being tortured in a Russian prison.
Track that to Trump: rose to power through the democratic process, promising the drain the swamp, and now that he has his hands on our political machine, he’s going after the billionaires.
Google and Amazon are the biggest moneymakers in the history of history, on an order that even the deepest-pocketed Russian oligarch could only dream of.
Throw Facebook into this mix as well, because Trump has also been targeting the social-media giant.
His most recent threat, lobbed at Google, has him publicly musing some sort of “regulation” of the Internet search behemoth.
Is “regulation” another term for “nationalization,” a process that Putin used to defrock his billionaire rivals as he consolidated power?
From what Trump seems to be hinting here, he envisions having the ability to essentially run Google the way he sees fit.
As long as Republicans control Congress, there’s no telling how much closer we’ll get to these once-unthinkable ideas becoming codified as public policy.
Column by Chris Graham
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