American journalists that is:
Now, we learn of the latest relationship-repair steps: a $40m licensing fee from Amazon for the great honor of producing a documentary on Melania Trump. The behemoth company stated that it is “excited to share this truly unique story”.
So, Amazon – which Bezos does not run any more but how much he influences, well…..- makes a business decision on a documentary. Ho Well.
Sadly, the Amazon-Melania deal has much the same flavor as the rest of these relationship-repairing moves – not just by Bezos but by others of his ilk. Amazon, it turns out, wasn’t the only one in the running for this dubious prize. Paramount and Disney reportedly were outbid.
“The billionaires are all lined up on one side, on the side of billionairedom, begging for the right to throw money at the decadent final years’ potentate,” wrote Josh Marshall in his Talking Points Memo. “It’s the powerful versus everyone who doesn’t want to lick the boot of power.”
The kowtowing, whether by Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk or quite a few others, is not mysterious.
Still, the knee-bending and ring-kissing – intended to stack more billions on to already towering piles – is a dark sight. Darkness that democracy just might die in.
This is the death of democracy.
Jeez, the pomposity of this.
I suppose it wasn’t the death of democracy when Netflix threw millions at the Obamas then?
Jim you took the words right out of my mouth. And the Killary documentaries too. Or the absurd amounts thrown at ex Presidents for book deals which surely never sell in enough volume to cover the enormous advances.
Jim, they didn’t do the big one about the Obamas though, Mike and Barry. Oops, sorry Michelle…
All those billionaires hunkered down when Trump won in 2016 and continued best they could, maybe because they believed in all the progressive stuff and expected Trump and MAGA to be a one-off and they appeared to have been right. So why not this time?
Could it be that they don’t really believe in liberalism (US version) and progressive policies such as DEI and now have an excuse to abandon them? Or is that they do, but detect a sea change and that the Dems aren’t coming back for some time, at least in the progressive form we’ve witnessed in the past decade but which accelerated under Biden?
Either way they’ve signalled that liberalism has run its course and they expect at least 2 terms of MAGA, or for want of a better phrase small c conservatism, and they hope to influence the economic decisions.
sob – Pomposity? This is how we express hurt: those were ourbillionaires.
Thank you TMB!!!
I have noticed that the Left tend to do ludicrously pompous far more frequently than the Right. Murphy, for example, is utterly defined by his (pig-ignorant) ludicrous pomposity. Why’s that, do you think? Might it have something to do with “moral high ground”?
Orange Man Bad is a top troll. It’s great to watch.
The Melania story – Foreign beauty makes career in USA, marries rich businessman (turned TV star, turned president), has kids, stays married to him, etc etc – actually stands up on its own. Far more than some of the other hagiographies mentioned.
Foreign beauty knows what she has, knows what she wants, knows what she’ll have to pay for it, then goes ahead and does it. I’d watch that but I can see why the wimmin don’t want to. Most of them fail at point 1; those who don’t have to pretend so as not to be cast out.
No-one is spending $40m on a documentary about Melania Trump, in the same way that no, Amazon didn’t spend $1bn on a single season of The Rings of Power and Spotify didn’t blow tens of millions on Prince Harry doing a couple of podcast episodes.
These are contracts with optional work in them. It locks the talent into doing more. So, Amazon make a big hit with Melania on a documentary, she can’t just say “I want five times the money or I go elsewhere”. There’s a basic thing and a load of other projects worked out. If she does the lot, she gets $40m.
And the idea that this has anything to do with politics rather than her just being part of that glam Kardashian lipfiller thing, is ridiculous.
…and did people buy Hunter’s paintings for their aesthetic value, or because they knew the big guy would appreciate it?
If it weren’t for double standards, the left would have no standards at all.
Melania has just renegotiated her pre-nup with Donald to make their finances more separate. Now she stands to earn $40m. Maybe the person with the keenest eye for business about to move into the White House is not Donald.