Susan Glasser

That would be terrible.

You know, so this revolting scene of full-on embrace of a murderous autocrat in service of what appears to be, you know, personal business interests as much as

national interests in the Oval Office, attacking a journalist in the most crude terms and threatening to withdraw ABC News' license.

Again, saying this out loud in a way that would have been a scandal with any president of our lifetime, Democrat or Republican, and then following it up with this

This dinner at the White House, there's a photograph of the masters of the universe, as you put it, including Elon Musk and other tech tycoons in the White House for the state dinner.

And, you know, is there any more kind of summing up of the grotesque, corrupted oligarchy in which we find ourselves than this?

You know, I feel like it kind of sums it all up.

Well, I mean, grotesque is is a word.

I mean, what I'm struck by in the very, I think, calculated and largely opportunistic embrace by the tech tycoons of Donald Trump this year.

And remember, these are the people who were given prime seats at the inauguration, booting the political leadership of the country from from the stage and relegating them to the cheap seats.

so to speak.

I take your point that geopolitics requires a certain amount of business engagement with unsavory parts of the world, but it doesn't require you embracing the bone saw murderer.

We can stipulate to that.

It doesn't require you embracing Donald Trump in such public ways.

There are ways to keep integrity that do not involve this.

And when you see, I don't know, the

CEO of Apple, whose products you use every day.

You and I and all the people are funding this, right?

He doesn't have this power, this cloud, this agency in the world that prizes high agency individuals like him.

That's, my son informs me, a Silicon Valley term.