Bezos Does Venice | The Nation

If final week was the very best of instances for Zohran Mamdani and the working individuals of New York, it was the worst of instances for the billionaires who spent a small fortune making an attempt to cease him from securing town’s Democratic mayoral nomination. Media mogul Barry Diller, to call only one, donated a cool $250,000 to Andrew Cuomo’s marketing campaign, solely to see the disgraced former governor lose by a decisive margin.

However Diller would quickly be capable of drown his disappointment in Great Gatsby–themed cocktails as he joined Tom Brady, Ivanka Trump, and at the very least three Kardashians for the cheeriest occasion on this 12 months’s oligarchic social calendar—the Venetian wedding of journalist Lauren Sánchez and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

It was a juxtaposition that even CNN questioned, because the community cut from an interview with Mamdani to protection of the gilded spectacle. The reportedly $50 million affair booked all nine of Venice’s yacht ports, closed parts of the city to the public, and compelled the relocation of hotel guests to make room for the pleased couple. All of it served as a stark if luxurious reminder that there isn’t a expense the mega-rich received’t pay to safe their very own consolation—besides, after all, the toll their extravagance takes on the communities from whom they extract their wealth.

The lovebirds’ selection of Venice alone demonstrates their carelessness. As a result of town contains more than 100 islands within the Adriatic Sea, it’s uniquely vulnerable to rising sea ranges pushed by warming international temperatures. Although Sánchez claims to be “devoted to combating local weather change,” and Bezos has called the issue “the largest menace to our planet,” their company arrived within the Metropolis of Bridges by way of 96 private jets, the most carbon-intensive mode of transportation. Bezos has additionally made splashy commitments to combating local weather change, like pledging $10 billion to his Bezos Earth Fund, whereas Amazon has promised to turn out to be carbon neutral by 2040. However emissions from Amazon’s supply fleet nearly doubled between 2019 and 2023, and its newest data center will guzzle tens of millions of gallons of water and the vitality equal of 1,000,000 houses yearly.

This disingenuousness is as a lot a enterprise technique for Bezos as Prime’s two-day supply, enabling him to launder his popularity with out hurting his backside line. This sample definitely performed out final 12 months along with his possession of The Washington Submit—the place, as quickly as he felt threatened by an ascendant Donald Trump, journalistic integrity fell overboard extra shortly than an inebriated wedding ceremony visitor on a luxurious gondola.

As I lined in a column earlier this 12 months, Bezos killed the Submit’s endorsement of Kamala Harris, directed the editorial board to publish op-eds that solely assist “private liberties and free markets,” and oversaw the exodus of greater than 20 reporters and editors. Pamela Weymouth, granddaughter of trailblazing Submit writer Katharine Graham, described this capitulation in a recent piece for The Nation as endangering “the very factor that makes America a democracy.”

In equity to Bezos, although, charity-washing is an occupational hazard for billionaires. Mark Zuckerberg initially donated to organizations combating the California housing disaster that he helped exacerbate, earlier than quietly ending his funding this 12 months. The Gates Basis gives 90 percent of its funding to nonprofits in rich nations moderately than the impoverished ones whose GDPs are smaller than its namesake’s internet price. The magnanimity of the über-wealthy tends to provide what journalist Anand Giridharadas has called “pretend change,” or efforts that cease in need of systemic change as a result of these methods underpin the benefactors’ huge wealth.

That’s why any imaginative and prescient of progressive change can’t depend on Bezos or his movie star wedding ceremony company to function in opposition to their self-interest. (No, not even Oprah.) A Inexperienced New Deal is not going to come from oligarchical guilt however from mass actions. Just like the one which deployed almost 30,000 door knockers and pooled funds from 27,000 donors to share Mamdani’s message of real financial empowerment.

His victory on Tuesday added to a rising physique of proof that even billionaires don’t all the time get what they need. Final 12 months, Elon Musk spent over a quarter of a billion dollars electing Republicans, however no amount of cash may save him from Donald Trump’s mercurial mood. Nor did his wealth sway the voters of Wisconsin, the place he contributed $21 million to a state Supreme Courtroom candidate who ended up shedding by 10 factors.

Voters’ rising skepticism of the 1 p.c is little question being stoked by grassroots activism. Like in Venice, the place native protesters threatened to fill canals with inflatable crocodiles, forcing the marriage of the century to relocate to town’s outskirts. Again stateside, progressives Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez proceed to draw record crowds throughout the nation on their Preventing Oligarchy Tour. At a latest cease in Oklahoma—a state Trump won by 33 points—Sanders spoke to a standing-room-only crowd.

May an anti-billionaire backlash be constructing? In that case, it’s simply in time for subsequent 12 months’s midterms.