After the banking crash of 2008, there was a brief moment when progressives could hope that the American cult of billionaire worship would end. It's been hard to shake those paternalistic fantasies that the rich are better than the rest of us: Smarter, more industrious, more prudent. Donald Trump, for instance, benefited from this assumption, allowing the millions of viewers of "The Apprentice" to ignore telltale signs that he's a barking moron. But the Great Recession rattled faith in the economic elite, brought on as it was by a bunch of very rich people making very stupid decisions. The popularity of the Occupy Wall Street movement, for instance, suggested that Americans were finally ready to question the stranglehold on our culture enjoyed by the ridiculously wealthy.
Americans may still have no love of bankers, but alas, the myth of the genius billionaire came roaring back, stronger than ever, thanks to the tech industry. For years, Americans have been served up one celebrity tech billionaire after another, complete with reassurances that these titans of the digital industry are too smart to bog down with government regulation. We were told that this new class of pampered white men was different than the old: younger, more down-to-earth and more civic-minded. They wear hoodies! They sometimes give to Democrats! They have a surface-level social liberalism, in that they're fine with gay marriage and abortion! Republicans are always raving about how "woke" they supposedly are! You can trust these guys, right?
