The Artificial Culture

I'll start with a simple premise. If we now have direct evidence that the federal government was funneling millions of dollars into supposedly free market press organs (such as Politico, which has received federal subscription payments from agencies including the Department of Health and Human Services), into universities and para-educational organizations (such as the Department of Education’s discretionary grants to universities, which totaled billions in 2023), into influential political activism in think tanks and third-party media (such as USAID grants that have included funding for policy programs), into startups (such as Small Business Administration grants awarded to tech incubators), into lucrative speechwriting gigs (such as high-paying corporate events featuring former Obama speechwriters), and then into lucrative speaking engagements for dutiful progressives, then we must reckon with the implications of this influence.