After Donald Trump won this month's election, one of the first things he did was to name two unelected male plutocrats, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, to run a new Department of Government Efficiency. The yet-to-be-created entity's acronym, DOGE, is something of a joke'a reference to a cryptocurrency named for an internet meme involving a Shiba Inu. But its appointed task of reorganizing the federal bureaucracy and slashing its spending heralds a new political arrangement in Washington: a broligarchy, in which tremendous power is flowing to tech and finance magnates, some of whom appear indifferent or even overtly hostile to democratic tradition. The broligarchs' ranks also include the PayPal and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel'Vice President'Elect J. D. Vance's mentor, former employer, and primary financial backer'as well as venture capitalists like Marc Andreessen and David Sacks, both of whom added millions of dollars to Trump's campaign. Musk, to be sure, is the archetype. The...
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