UPDATED: Google And The Power Elite

Earlier today in The Power Elite I provided a synopsis of Patrick Deneen's view of the unholy alliance between the cultural and corporate elites. That was background for Sara Carter's important article (reported elsewhere, as well): Google Insider Turns Over 950 Pages Of Docs And Laptop To DOJ. What's important about Carter's article is that she provides quotes from the whistle blower that tie in with the idea of a corporate and cultural Power Elite, and also tie in with the Russia Hoax and its aftermath--the plot to never let another Trump happen again. These are all among Deneen's themes. 

So, with that brief intro, here are key excerpts:

A former Google insider claiming the company created algorithms to hide its political bias within artificial intelligence platforms – in effect targeting particular words, phrases and contexts to promote, alter, reference or manipulate perceptions of Internet content – delivered roughly 950 pages of documents to the Department of Justice’s Antitrust division Friday.

... 

He told this reporter on his recent trip to Washington D.C. that the documents he turned over to the Justice Department will provide proof that Google has been manipulating the algorithms and the evidence of how it was done, the insider said. 

... 

“... People can hear that it is bad but that can be bias. But when they see what Google has actually written with the documents, this will actually be taught in universities of what totalitarian states can do with this type of capability.” 

... 

He said he’s asked himself many times if he’s overreacting “and every time I simply look back at the documents and realize that I am not.” 

“It’s that bad,” he said. “Disclosing Google’s own words to the American public is something I am, must do, if I am to consider myself a good person. The world that google is building is not a place I, or you or our children want to live in.”

UPDATE: American Thinker is reporting that they were blacklisted by Google. The article has good discussion:

 Google blacklists American Thinker

The Power Elite

The Power Elite is an article that Patrick Deneen wrote in June 2015--so, pre-Trump. It's obviously drawing on the C. Wright Mills classic of the same name--which I read as a sophomore in college. It's interesting Deneen's 2015 article with with the results of the 2016 election as well as with what he's writing in 2019. The article was written

As the dust from the recent explosion over Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act begins to settle, ...

Remember that? It was a very big deal in the leadup to the 2016 Presidential elections. Very big.

And Deneen adds, to set the narrative:

Mike Pence, Asa Hutchinson, and the Republican party were not blindsided by opposition to RFRA by gay rights activists. What knocked them back were major corporations, such as Apple, Walmart, and Angie’s List, and organizations such as the NCAA that denounced the law, ..., which was an idiotic miscalculation given the fact that establishment outrage scuttled the Arizona RFRA last year. 

The decision by corporate leaders to take a political stand over a controversial issue is therefore of great interest. Corporations and business leaders almost always avoid political statements and announcements, recognizing that such declarations have the effect of unnecessarily alienating potential customers. Corporations live in constant fear of bad pub­licity that can ruin a brand carefully erected through millions of dollars of advertising and publicity. Why step into a heated political debate and ­unnecessarily turn half of your customers away? Corporations exist to make money, not to advance political and social causes—except for those that help them make money, of course. 

And that’s just the point: The decision by Apple, Walmart, Eli Lilly, Angie’s List, and so on was a business decision—even more, a marketing decision.

But then came the 2016 election. The same companies and cultural groups opposed Trump. And now the GOP looks to be taking a deep dive into the role of Big Tech in attempting to deliver America to a Progressive One Party state. Maybe opposition to RFPA was the beginning of a backfire?

But here's Deneen's reasoning. Understand that what Deneen seems to mean by Republicans is "Libertarians." He also recognizes that Libertarianism is--yes!--ascendant in the Democrat party, as well. As I like to put it, America's default public philosophy is a "mushy libertarianism."