He strongly distrusted everyone in the capital, so much so that when he became king, he demurred from staying at the official residence, preferring instead a pretentious new palace centred around a sporting hunting lodge. Many of his nobility prudently decided to relocate from their own provincial manor estates to be close to him. He noticed if individuals were absent from his court and rewarded those who spent their time in his presence.
Courtiers bitterly competed for his attention, and dining at his table was an extraordinary opportunity. The king would appear to listen to those who pitched to him, but would usually inscrutably merely acknowledge. Only days later would the king’s response emerge within some new decree or proclamation. His reign became unpredictable and filled with political turmoil, ultimately leading to a revolution.
While this describes the 18th-century court of the Sun King, Louis XVI of France, some commentators have compared aspects of that court to the atmosphere of Donald Trump’s first presidency.
There are obvious parallels: eschewing the historical Palais de Tuileries and White House for Versailles and Mar-a-Lago, with a sporting focus on hunting and golf respectively; opulence, grandeur and the finest luxuries; an economic focus on protectionism; and rulings that frequently appeared instinctive, reactive and tactical, perhaps driven by the gossip of the day.
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How will the US president-elect’s second term unfold? My impression is that Trump has concluded that the established checks and balances of the American system of governance have led to a nation sunk by federal mediocrity and damaging regulation, and which no longer can rule itself. Nevertheless, the country must still be ruled.
Time to completely dismantle the old creaking federal machinery, and completely replace it by an efficient, direct chief executive-style leadership? “US? That’s me” may now be his internal mantra, echoing the French king’s “L’État? C’est moi”. The rest of the world, especially Beijing, will watch warily.
Silicon Valley historically has disdained Washington and its politics, but that has changed. Elon Musk may be the epitome, but there is a swelling supportive clique of wealthy tech bros. In no specific order and among others, the sycophants include Marc Andreessen (a venture capitalist), Mark Zuckerberg (Meta founder), Jeff Bezos (Amazon founder), Peter Thiel (founder of PayPal and Palantir), Palmer Luckey (founder of Anduril, a defence tech company), Sam Altman (OpenAI founder) and David Marcus (a cryptocurrency proponent).
What are these tech savants likely to petition the new president for?
Altman and Musk are in mutual litigation but both will agree an urgent priority is to dismantle Joe Biden’s guardrails on AI, arguing for national security and global technology leadership.
Biden’s restrictions mirror many of those of the EU, including protections on personal privacy, safety, equity and freedom from bias, and copyright and intellectual property protections on the provenance of AI training data. The AI proponents argue that generative technology, such as ChatGPT, require as much unrestricted data as possible if the technology is to make the leap into true artificial intelligence.
Of course if so facilitated, detailed data on everyone and everything would be harvested, which would not only be commercially invaluable but also a treasure for political authoritative control.
Bitcoin has risen by more than 50 per cent since Trump’s election victory. Marcus and others will advocate a relaxed regime for cryptocurrencies, arguing global leadership but also the potential to create a new taxation source.
[ Trump’s pitch for ‘crypto-president’ is a merger of the bizarreOpens in new window ]
Andreessen and other venture capitalists seek reduced regulation of the tech sector including lower barriers for public offerings, so that investments in start-ups can more rapidly be offloaded on to the stock markets, arguing that more innovation and jobs will result. Likewise demolishing antitrust controls would further strengthen American companies for global competition. Finally reducing capital gains tax for entrepreneurs and their investors would catalyse recycling of capital and new innovation.
Thiel, Bezos, Luckey and others will pursue greater privatisation of government services, especially in the defence sector, including space. Musk is strongly arguing for more automation and robotics to protect American military, especially in the air force.
Trump has pledged to “drill, baby, drill”, to boost domestic oil and gas production and to restore American energy dominance. Nevertheless, Altman will promote Oklo, his company building small modular nuclear reactors at relatively low cost, with the first due to be operational by 2027. While his main target is data centres for AI, the technology clearly has much broader applicability. Ironically the second Trump term could conceivably see a swing towards nuclear energy, mitigating carbon emissions.
How will Trump react to the endless clamour for his attention? The Sun King responded to petitions with “I shall see”, and Trump apparently can be as obscure.
In Beijing, psychology and deception plays as strongly, with roots in the ancient wisdoms of a different solar eponym, Sun Tzu (“Master Sun”). His Art of War from circa 400 BC emphasises that everything is interconnected, that thorough, careful, thoughtful planning is essential, and that advantage results from subtleness. Mar-a-Lago and Beijing will be continuously eyeing each other up.
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