"Trump is an obvious heir to the robber barons in his obsession with opulence, with kings and queens.

"Trump is an obvious heir to the robber barons in his obsession with opulence, with kings and queens. And those who have found utility in Trump’s political ascent are an odd collection of allies. The Millers and the Hegseths want to return to white-settler rule, to erase the twentieth century. But Trump and the tech billionaires, like the owners of Marble House before them, are revolting against any version of the US bound by democratic ethics and constraints. They want a world apart and for themselves alone.

We’ve been watching The Gilded Age, which presents a fictionalised version of the Vanderbilts, and even shoots in Marble House. Walking through Marble House, you feel gorged on the ostentatious wealth – an affront to the pervasive deprivation of the historical period in which it was constructed. But on the show it just seems like another diverting mansion, a place to eavesdrop on conversations for an hour.

This is in keeping with depictions of the upper class we tend to get from the creator Julian Fellowes, a Conservative peer. His make-believe Vanderbilts have their flaws, but they basically share the same views of twenty-first century Americans – when it comes to race, gender and society more generally. But it’s not just Fellowes. Most period dramas are told from the view of aristocrats and robber barons and the central characters rarely express the actual views that were routinely held within their social class: a belief in eugenics, opposition to allowing the poor to vote, defences of workhouses for the indigent (even children), support for gunning down strikers by private armies, enthusiasm for colonialism, and so forth. We are led to identify with these characters because they seem just like ourselves, despite the wealth. And by extension, we are lulled into a sense that today’s billionaires, many in open revolt against democracy, share our same basic sensibilities."

https://www.equator.org/articles/days-of-complicity-aziz-rana-trump

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