AMERICA AS ARM CANDY

There is a small but non-zero chance that your only choices for president in the 2020 general election will be billionaire CEOs: Donald Trump (assuming he actually is a billionaire), Mike Bloomberg (in the unlikely event that he wins the Democratic nomination), Howard Schultz (who seems determined to run just to spite left-wing haters) ... and, if that's not enough wealthy white male self-regard, possibly this guy:

Mark Cuban is strongly considering running for President of the United States in 2020 as a third-party candidate....

“I haven’t decided anything yet. We’ll see what happens. It all comes down to how things play out,” Cuban said....

“But it’s something that if circumstances were right I would do.” ...

Cuban said getting on the ballot in all 50 states would not be a problem, and he said he would reject any political contributions that did not come from individual donors. He has not formed a Political Action Committee.

When asked exactly what circumstances would have to take place in order for him to run, he refused to answer.

But his insight into the viability of an independent candidate was something he has clearly thought long and hard about.

The interest of Schultz and Cuban in the presidency suggests that America isn't a country anymore -- it's a trophy wife, something you acquire as a visible signifier of your alpha state. As such, Americans have agency, but only to the extent that rich men's playthings have agency. We get to choose which Master of the Universe treats us as arm candy, like Wendi Deng (ex-wife of Rupert Murdoch who's reportedly been the girlfriend of Tony Blair and Vladimir Putin) or Jerry Hall (ex-wife of Mick Jagger and Murdoch's current wife). That's as much freedom as we have.

In the recent past, we were at least allowed to choose candidates who represented the interests of multiple billionaires, and who made at least a token effort to conceal the puppet strings. That era appears to be over.

Seriously, though: If Schultz and Cuban run, the Democrats shouldn't even bother fielding a candidate -- Trump will win, because his cultists, along with the right-wingers who don't like Trump but would vote for Charles Manson's reanimated corpse if it promised reductions in upper-bracket taxes or corporatist/theocrat judges, will outpoll any of the other candidates in the split anti-Trump field.

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UPDATE: I guess it won't be an all-plutocrat race -- Bloomberg just announced he isn't running.