JOEL KOTKIN: Trump Damaged Democracy, Silicon Valley Will Finish It Off: Donald Trump’s rise is, in a sense, just one symptom of the damage the tech oligarchs are doing to America. I think the latter formulation is more accurate.

Plus: “The Silicon Valley and its Puget Sound annex dominated by Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft increasingly resemble the pre-gas crisis Detroit of the Big Three. Tech’s Big Five all enjoy overwhelming market shares—for example Google controls upwards of 80 percent of global search—and the capital to either acquire or crush any newcomers. They are bringing us a hardly gilded age of prosperity but depressed competition, economic stagnation, and, increasingly, a chilling desire to control the national conversation.”