Lauren Sü¡nchez, Jeff Bezos
Lauren Sánchez and Jeff Bezos at the 2024 Vanity Fair Oscar Party Photo credit: © Crash/imageSPACE via ZUMA Press Wire

It’s tough to say when Americans will finally be sufficiently fed up with the excesses of unrestrained capitalism... but this weekend would be a good time.

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Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is spending about $50 million of his own money this weekend on convincing people across the globe that billionaires like himself deserve to be taxed into oblivion.

While billed as his wedding to Lauren Sánchez, the lavish three-day event is actually just a reminder that the uber-rich are a bunch of self-indulgent jerks who contribute very little useful to society.

To drive home that point, Bezos and his pals are shutting down parts of the historic Italian city of Venice during peak tourism season. In other words, all those peasants hoping to catch a glimpse of its sights will just have to come back another time.

What is especially noteworthy is that this is taking place in the famous “Floating City,” which will one day be engulfed by rising sea levels caused by the excesses that make Bezos and other billionaires wealthy beyond imagination.

How wealthy?

Glad you asked.

If you think that spending $50 million is a lot, keep in mind that Bezos could throw himself this kind of bash every single weekend for the next 100 years.

And, while he and his guests are having a great time at foam and pajama parties, let’s also not forget that congressional Republicans are hard at work to ensure that these people get another hefty tax break that will come at the expense of poor Americans, millions of whom will lose access to health insurance or food assistance programs if the GOP gets its way.

Of course, it is possible that the bill will fail… because it doesn’t take enough from average Americans.

Finally, it also bears mentioning that this is happening at the heels of Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the Democratic primary for New York mayor — an event that caused the rich people of the city to lose their minds because they are worried that they may end up getting taxed a bit more so that the people who serve them can ride the bus for free and afford food.

At some point, those poor Americans will realize that they greatly outnumber billionaires (although 1 out of 24 New Yorkers is a millionaire), and that a lot more unites them than the politicians who protect the wealthy and the media outlets who are owned by them would have them believe.

We are not there yet, but the more Republicans shift wealth to the top, and the more tone-deaf Bezos and his fellow billionaires are, the closer we’ll get.

That’s why we hope that all Americans follow what’s going on in Venice and in Washington, DC, this weekend, and that they connect the dots and understand that, ultimately, they are the ones paying the price for this party — and that it won’t stop until they put an end to it.

  • Klaus Marre is a senior editor for Politics and director of the Mentor Apprentice Program at WhoWhatWhy. Follow him on Bluesky @unravelingpolitics.bsky.social.

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