Why there's a difference between power and influence

Influence operates like a currency in a market but power flows from popular misconceptions

- MANU JOSEPH

There is a difference between power and influence. Confusing the two lies at the heart of the gamble of several American billionaires who are covertly or overtly backing Donald Trump's war against Western values. Trump's America is somewhat familiar to people outside the West. For what he has changed about his nation is that he has brought third-world practicality to an unnatural but exquisite ideal—that no one is above the law, not even if most of the nation endorses one man to be above it.

An odd thing about democracy is that its best parts are meant to counter the will of the people in case the collective will turns out to be morally corrupt. This is the role of institutions like the judiciary. Democracy is wary of the fact that voters can come under the sway of popular leaders. And the majority need not always be right, at least not more right than the dead people who founded democracy.

What Trump has done, and what we thought could never happen in America, is that he has made institutions submit to a president. He has done this through threats against those who do not toe his line. Not only Elon Musk, but several American billionaires have backed Trump in the probable hope of benefiting from aligning with an authoritarian. Some may feel his policies are good for them and the country, even if democratic values get battered. But they have no idea what is going to hit them. They risk losing their true power, which may lead them to realize that influence is just a henchman of power.