At what point does a person’s relentless pursuit of material wealth start raising red flags? Is it pure innocence, wealth being a merely pleasant and well-earned by-product of capitalism or someone’s ambition and know-how and desire to “make a difference”?
I’ve heard people say that the money they make is secondary to the joy and satisfaction they get from doing something they love to do, and I guess I believe some of them, to a certain extent. Still, the skeptic in me is often roused when I hear someone say such a thing. I hear it as something that’s easy to say when one feels safe and secure and money issues appear to be just one less thing they need to worry about.
The hackles are really raised when someone goes on to say that they’d do what they do for nothing.
Anyway, I wonder about people like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel and the Koch brothers and the Ellisons, along with Donald Trump and his teat-suckling offspring, who appear to have crossed the altruism Rubicon a long time ago.
One person’s altruism is another’s greed and deep-seated need for influence and power, and I feel as though what Trump in particular has been engaged in since he took office– and long before– falls in the latter category. I’m sure he or one of his lawyers would argue otherwise, offering up the tired excuse that The Donald is just a boundary-pusher, maybe even a “groundbreaker,” that everything he’s doing is legal, even above-board. But that whole defense is perhaps the most appalling and maddening aspect of this interminable nightmare.
For Trump, bumping up against acceptable norms and crossing lines is his brand, and The Base love him for that. But for the rest of us, we know a crooked, self-absorbed empty soul when we see one. A self-absorbed empty soul who’s building his own bunker, like the rest of his billionaire… pals?
3 Cents' 