En 2016, during his first presidential campaign, Donald Trump used a slogan that struck a chord with the popular American electorate: « Drain the swamp ! » (“drain the swamp”). The idea was to denounce the elites and lobbies, who, in the shadows, ruled the country in the interests of a few, to the detriment of the rest of the population.
While the president-elect will be inaugurated on January 20, the expression has almost disappeared from the Trumpian vocabulary. Legitimized by a solid electoral base, the billionaire no longer even pretends to present himself as the herald of an America free of corruption and cliques. The worrying hold of tech moguls on political power is an illustration of this. The transition period with Joe Biden was marked by the multiplication of cases of potential conflicts of interest and the distribution of prebends for the benefit of a handful of Silicon Valley leaders.
Among them, two categories can be distinguished. Those who bet on Trump by supporting his campaign and who expect to receive the dividends thanks to policies favorable to their business.
And then there are the rallies of the twenty-fifth hour, those who, seeing that the tide is turning, pledge allegiance to the new “boss” of the United States to buy his indulgence. Ready to deny the few principles they had displayed until then, they shamelessly joined the winning camp. Among them, Mark Zuckerberg: the boss of Meta (Facebook, Instagram) has just announced a substantial relaxation of moderation rules on his social networks, thus satisfying Donald Trump. Zuckerberg opens a boulevard to post-truth at the worst time, that of the arrival in power of a man who has made it his trademark.
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As for Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and owner of Washington Post, he multiplies the gestures towards the new tenant of the White House to attract his favors. Meta and Amazon each contributed more than $1 million (970,000 euros) to finance the presidential inauguration ceremony. Business is business.
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