The man for our times

Someday it will all make sense to historians.  There really isn't any person more perfectly suited to have been President during this golden age of grifting.

As Trump is the apotheosis of rank materialism and revanchist nationalism in the political arena, Uber is Silicon Valley’s greatest and most absurd offering to the American public, filling a need we never knew we had with a business model that is nothing short of fantasy. Uber’s power lies in the promise it proffers to multibillion-dollar venture capital firms, a carnival bark that translates into making the unsustainable somehow sustainable. Deeply discounted car rides can turn a profit someday, somehow, because people will like them enough. Make us bigger so we can grow. We won’t let you down because this time is different. This is the nature of capitalism on Uber: the dream doesn’t end when you wake up.

For most of its existence, politicians—Democratic and Republican alike—celebrated Uber’s expansion. To resist such a company was to be perceived as a luddite, against tech and progress and what makes this an allegedly great nation. Jeb Bush, when he was briefly a presidential front-runner, turned Uber into a campaign prop, and Democrats in cities across America welcomed what they believed to be any politician’s fetish object: a thing that makes jobs. Uber had jobs, lots of them, never mind the pay. There wasn’t much critical thinking about the economics and morality of ride-hail apps at this juncture. Coincidentally or not, this was before 2016. Times were simpler. Reality TV hosts could run for president, but they couldn’t win.