President Jared Kushner, Ayn Rand on Mount Rushmore and Bill Barr cancelling Greta Thunberg's new show: A glimpse of our lives in 2030

A satirical look at the world in 10 years' time, when Amazon, Facebook and Google run whole states and President Kushner adds Ayn Rand to Mount Rushmore

The United States of Amazon is coming (AFP via Getty Images)

It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that Jeff Bezos is a true American hero. After all, his decision to assume all state debt in Oregon and Washington does seem noble — until you consider that he acquired all the land in these states in the process. But paying for Air Force One’s jet fuel so that the federal government has the funds to fly President Jared Kushner to the 2030 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City doesn’t make him a hero, no matter what the many media outlets that he owns might say. His failed attempt to buy Time magazine in 2029 doesn’t change the fact that Bezos has considerable control over Americans’ information diet.

In fact, Bezos’ 65 percent share of US news media (thanks to his acquisitions of AT&T and Comcast over the past decade) has fooled many Americans into thinking that the trillionaire made a large concession when he walked back his requirement to rename the country the United States of Amazon. But the largest concessions actually came from President Kushner, who agreed to add Ayn Rand to Mount Rushmore at Bezos’ request and taxpayer expense.

Sadly, President Kushner’s concessions were inevitable, thanks to the transformation of the lobbying industry that took place in the early 2020s (in particular, the landmark 2023 Citizens Reunited case in which the United States Supreme Court ruled that the government must lobby big business — rather than the other way around — in order to advance public policy.) Although Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell maintains that this decision remains the highlight of his time in Washington, it’s hard not to see this as the moment that precipitated America’s descent into fiefdom.

Nobody took advantage of this ruling more than Amazon (whose CEO Jeff Bezos’ unmatched tax avoidance and aggressive pursuit of subsidies was the subject of the Academy Award-winning Spike Lee documentary Welfare Queen). However, it’s unfair to single out Amazon given that Google, Facebook and Apple also function as a shadow government by providing schooling, housing, transport, policing and judiciary to the 75 percent of Californians now under their employment. But the sad reality is that Californians don’t have much of an alternative after state finances were ravaged by tech firms’ tax avoidance, coronavirus and the high lobbying costs imposed by the 2023 Citizens Reunited ruling.

Clearly Congress should have countered tech firms’ accumulation of massive power and wealth with new antitrust laws to reflect twenty-first century realities, instead of continuing to rely on Robert Bork’s antiquated antitrust methodology. But this may have been an unrealistic expectation of a polarized and dysfunctional Congress. After all, much of Bezos’ testimony before a House Judiciary Committee in the summer of 2020 was spent answering Republican lawmakers’ questions about the validity of Alexa’s birth certificate, rather than focusing on Amazon’s anti-competitive practices. As cringeworthy as this was, it was easier to watch than Republicans asking Google CEO Sundar Pichai about whether he migrated to the United States legally.

As he later admitted to the Larry Summers — dean of the Amazon Independent School District (now the largest school district in the country) — Congressional inaction, combined with the high-profile failure of HBO Max, provided Bezos with the impetus to pursue debt-riddled AT&T. This deal should have been blocked by the William Barr-led Department of Justice, even if it met the criteria for acceptable mergers laid out by Robert Bork’s antitrust methodology. Barr’s argument that Amazon agreeing to cancel Greta Thunberg’s candlelit CNN climate show was a major concession was hardly convincing, even though it was held up as a huge victory by the second Trump administration.

In retrospect, unions and boycotts may have been more effective ways to challenge tech firms, given how ineffective government solutions proved to be. Because once the Department of Justice agreed to Amazon’s acquisition of AT&T, it became next to impossible for them to argue against Facebook’s purchase of Netflix, Apple’s LBO of The Walt Disney Company or Bezos’ later acquisition of Comcast via his Nash Holdings venture (through which he owns The Washington Post).

Although the mist created by Bezos’ many media assets would have you believe that he is the only nominee for Time Person of the Year in 2030, there are other, highly worthy candidates. For example, US Senator Lebron James is more deserving of this honor for passing legislation to prevent Elon Musk from deporting California’s homeless into space. Equally, real estate magnate Barron Trump should be recognized for convincing US Attorney General Ivanka Trump (his half-sister) to limit the punitive real estate taxes that Bezos levies on residents of Washington and Oregon.

Of course, fighting back against fiefdom takes much more than opposing Bezos’ campaign for Person of the Year. It’s past high time to end Bezos' exploitative campaign to crowdfund his property taxes: Americans must reject his claims that this is a legitimate way for them to taste the super-luxury real estate market. More broadly, Americans must realise that despite the awesome power and wealth of trillionaires like Bezos and Zuckerberg, the collective power of the people is greater. If we wield that collective power thoughtfully and responsibly, we can reinstate the American Dream and build a more perfect Union. This starts with us.