Gibran End Game : Comparing It to Similar Books

Public concern in Indonesia regarding the figure of Gibran Rakabuming Raka cannot fairly be reduced to personal animosity or emotional hostility. Rather, this unease is more accurately understood as a rational anxiety about his limited intellectual grounding and political competence in relation to the weight and complexity of the vice-presidential office. In a democratic system, the position of vice president is not merely ceremonial, but structurally significant, as it bears directly upon state decision-making, policy continuity, and the moral legitimacy of governance. When citizens question the preparedness of a candidate, they are expressing concern for the quality of national leadership, not indulging in personal prejudice.

This anxiety is further intensified by the widespread perception that such limited capacity creates fertile ground for manipulation by a narrow circle of political and economic elites. In this context, Gibran is often perceived not as an autonomous political actor, but as a figure who may be easily directed by more powerful interests operating behind the scenes. Public concern is also inseparable from his relationship with President Joko Widodo, which has fuelled suspicions that the vice-presidency could function as an extension of the former president's influence rather than as a constitutionally equal partner within the executive. For a society increasingly sensitive to oligarchic dynamics, this situation signals a potential erosion of checks and balances within Indonesian governance.

Moreover, the process by which Gibran became eligible for the vice-presidential candidacy has raised serious questions regarding legal legitimacy and democratic ethics. Although formally sanctioned, the judicial decision that enabled his nomination has been widely perceived as a deviation from the spirit of constitutionalism and the principle of equality before the law. When fundamental requirements for high public office can be altered or flexibly interpreted to accommodate a specific individual, it is reasonable for the public to conclude that democratic norms are being subordinated to the imperatives of power. In this sense, criticism directed at Gibran is, at its core, a critique of a dangerous precedent that undermines trust in the legal system and the electoral process.

Furthermore, his elevation is commonly interpreted as a reinforcement of dynastic politics, a long-standing structural weakness in Indonesia’s democratic development. Dynastic politics not only restrict elite circulation and weaken meritocratic principles, but also narrow the space for alternative leadership to emerge through competence, experience, and genuine public legitimacy. Consequently, public apprehension surrounding Gibran reflects a broader democratic concern: that Indonesia may be experiencing democratic regression not through overt authoritarianism, but through the normalisation of familial power, the dilution of institutional standards, and the gradual decline in leadership quality.

Taken together, these concerns suggest that public scrutiny of Gibran is best understood as an expression of democratic vigilance rather than hostility. It reflects an awareness that democracy can be hollowed out from within, not by dramatic ruptures, but by incremental compromises that gradually reshape power in favour of a narrow elite while weakening public accountability.

The book Gibran End Game (the title is in the Indonesian pop culture language) by Dr Rismon Hasiholan Sianipar should be read not merely as an isolated publication, but as part of a broader critical project undertaken by what has come to be known as the RRT trio—Dr Roy Suryo, Dr Rismon Sianipar, and Dr dr Tifa. Together, their works form a coherent line of inquiry that interrogates the intersection of political power, institutional legitimacy, and democratic ethics in contemporary Indonesia. Within this collective framework, Gibran End Game positions itself as a continuation of a sustained critique, raising questions about political succession, dynastic influence, and the boundaries between legal formalism and moral accountability in a democratic system.

Read within a comparative framework, Gibran End Game by Dr Rismon Sianipar occupies a similar critical space to works such as Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right by Jane Mayer (2016, Doubleday) and The Establishment: And How They Get Away with It by Owen Jones (2014, Allen Lane). All three texts are united by a shared concern with how democratic systems can be hollowed out from within, not necessarily through overt authoritarianism, but through the gradual normalisation of elite privilege, opaque networks of influence, and institutional complacency. In this sense, Gibran End Game extends a global conversation about the fragility of democratic ethics under elite capture.

In Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right (2016, Doubleday), Jane Mayer traces the historical origins of immense private wealth in the United States and demonstrates how this wealth has been consciously mobilised for political purposes. The book shows that certain billionaire families, most notably the Kochs, did not treat politics as a peripheral interest, but as a central arena through which their libertarian ideology could be translated into lasting institutional change. Mayer makes clear that economic power in this context was never politically neutral, but deeply intertwined with a vision of society that rejected regulation, taxation, and collective welfare.

A central argument of the book concerns the emergence and consolidation of what Mayer terms “dark money”, referring to political funding channelled through non-profit organisations, foundations, and advocacy groups that are legally permitted to conceal the identities of their donors. Mayer explains how this system allows vast sums of money to influence elections, policy debates, and public opinion without transparency or democratic accountability. Rather than focusing solely on campaign finance violations, she reveals a structural loophole that enables political power to be exercised invisibly while remaining formally within the law.

Beyond electoral politics, Dark Money devotes significant attention to the strategic capture of intellectual and cultural institutions. Mayer documents how elite donors have funded universities, research centres, think tanks, and educational programmes under contractual arrangements that subtly shape research agendas, curricula, and public discourse. Through these mechanisms, the production of knowledge itself becomes politicised, as academic freedom is constrained by donor expectations and ideological commitments. The book thus illustrates how influence over ideas can be as consequential as influence over votes.

Mayer also analyses the long-term effort to reshape the legal and judicial landscape of the United States. She describes how conservative legal organisations, strategic litigation, and targeted support for judicial appointments have been used to advance interpretations of the law that favour corporate interests and limit regulatory oversight. This aspect of the book highlights how legal institutions, while appearing impartial and procedural, can become vehicles for deeply partisan economic agendas when shielded from public scrutiny.

Crucially, Dark Money does not argue that American democracy has collapsed in a formal sense. Elections continue to take place, courts continue to operate, and constitutional processes remain intact. Instead, Mayer advances a more unsettling claim: that democracy can be fundamentally distorted while its outward forms remain unchanged. Public participation is increasingly marginalised, policy outcomes disproportionately favour a small economic elite, and inequality is reproduced through mechanisms that are legal yet ethically corrosive.

Finally, Mayer frames contemporary political developments as the result of a patient, decades-long project rather than short-term political opportunism. The actors at the centre of Dark Money are shown to invest systematically in networks, institutions, and ideological infrastructure, with the explicit aim of reshaping society over time. Politics, in this account, is not merely a contest of competing parties, but a carefully engineered process through which power is accumulated, protected, and normalised beyond the reach of ordinary democratic control.

Jane Mayer’s Dark Money demonstrates how hidden financial flows and unaccountable wealth can reshape political outcomes while remaining largely invisible to the public. Although the Indonesian context differs significantly from that of the United States, Gibran End Game raises parallel questions about transparency, power, and accountability. Rather than focusing on campaign finance alone, Dr Rismon’s analysis foregrounds the symbolic and institutional mechanisms through which political legitimacy is constructed and defended. Both works suggest that democracy can be distorted not only by money, but also by the strategic manipulation of legal norms and public narratives.

Despite their different national contexts and political systems, Dark Money by Jane Mayer and Gibran End Game by Dr Rismon Sianipar convey a shared core message about the vulnerability of democracy to elite manipulation. Both books argue that democratic institutions can be formally preserved while their substantive integrity is gradually eroded by concentrated power operating through legal, procedural, and symbolic mechanisms. In Mayer’s account, this erosion occurs through opaque financial networks that quietly reshape elections, public policy, and judicial outcomes, whereas in Gibran End Game it is articulated through the normalisation of dynastic proximity to state power and the blurring of boundaries between legal permissibility and democratic ethics. In both cases, democracy appears intact on the surface, yet increasingly detached from the principle of equal accountability.

However, the two books diverge significantly in the primary sources of power they scrutinise. Dark Money locates the central threat to democratic equality in extreme private wealth and its capacity to operate invisibly through institutional loopholes. Jane Mayer emphasises how money functions as a long-term political infrastructure, enabling billionaires to influence not only elections but also knowledge production, legal interpretation, and ideological norms. By contrast, Gibran End Game focuses less on financial capital and more on political capital derived from familial association with executive authority. Dr Rismon’s critique focuses on how legitimacy is constructed through proximity to power, symbolic inheritance, and institutional accommodation, even in the absence of direct evidence of illicit financial flows.

Another important difference lies in the tone and methodological orientation of the two works. Dark Money is grounded in investigative journalism, relying heavily on documentary evidence, financial records, court cases, and extensive interviews to expose a hidden political economy. Its authority derives from empirical accumulation and narrative reconstruction. Gibran End Game, on the other hand, operates more overtly as a normative and analytical intervention in a live political moment. Its primary concern is not only what has occurred, but what such developments signify for democratic ethics, constitutional spirit, and public trust in institutions. As a result, its argument is more explicitly moral and interpretive.

Nevertheless, both books ultimately converge on a similar warning. They suggest that democracy does not collapse solely through coups or authoritarian decrees, but can instead be hollowed out through processes that remain legally defensible and socially normalised. Whether through unaccountable wealth or dynastic political succession, the outcome is a democratic system in which power becomes increasingly insulated from public scrutiny. In this sense, Dark Money and Gibran End Game speak to a shared global condition: the transformation of democracy from a mechanism of collective self-rule into a system managed by and for a narrow elite, while retaining the outward rituals of popular sovereignty.

Similarly, Owen Jones’s The Establishment offers a structural critique of how interconnected elites—spanning politics, media, business, and bureaucracy—maintain dominance while presenting their authority as natural or merit-based. This analytical lens resonates strongly with the arguments advanced in Gibran End Game, particularly in its attention to how power reproduces itself through informal networks and familial proximity to the state. The comparison underscores that the problem at hand is not merely individual ambition, but a system that rewards closeness to power while marginalising substantive democratic scrutiny.

In The Establishment: And How They Get Away with It (2014, Allen Lane), Owen Jones examines how power in contemporary Britain is concentrated within a relatively small and interconnected elite that spans politics, media, business, finance, and the civil service. The central argument of the book is that inequality and democratic failure are not accidental outcomes of policy mistakes, but the predictable result of a system designed to protect the interests of those already in power. Jones challenges the popular assumption that Britain is governed primarily through meritocratic competition, arguing instead that access to influence is shaped by networks, social background, and institutional privilege.

A key theme of The Establishment is the normalisation of elite authority. Jones shows how members of the establishment present their dominance as natural, inevitable, and professionally earned, while dissenting voices are marginalised as unrealistic, emotional, or irresponsible. Through detailed examples, he demonstrates how shared educational backgrounds, career pathways, and social circles create a closed ecosystem in which elites circulate power among themselves. This system allows them to shape political agendas and public discourse while maintaining the appearance of pluralism and open debate.

The book also devotes significant attention to the role of the media in sustaining elite power. Jones argues that major media institutions do not merely report political reality but actively frame the boundaries of acceptable opinion. He illustrates how media ownership, editorial culture, and access journalism combine to favour establishment perspectives, while structural critiques of inequality and power concentration are dismissed or caricatured. In this way, the media functions not as a neutral watchdog, but as a stabilising force that protects elite consensus.

Importantly, The Establishment does not claim that democracy in Britain has ceased to exist. Elections are held regularly, formal freedoms remain intact, and political institutions continue to operate. However, Jones contends that democratic choice is severely constrained by the narrow range of policies deemed legitimate within elite discourse. As a result, political outcomes repeatedly favour the same social groups, regardless of electoral turnover. Democracy, in this account, survives as a procedure but is weakened as a vehicle for genuine popular influence.

Ultimately, Owen Jones presents The Establishment as a call to recognise power as a structural phenomenon rather than a series of individual failures. He argues that without confronting the informal networks and institutional norms that shield elites from accountability, reforms will remain superficial. The book thus invites readers to rethink democracy not only in terms of representation and elections, but in terms of who truly sets the limits of political possibility.

In The Establishment: And How They Get Away with It by Owen Jones, the central message is that modern democratic societies are increasingly dominated by a small, interconnected elite that exercises power behind the façade of formal democratic institutions. Jones argues that this establishment is not a single conspiracy, but a dense network of politicians, media owners, corporate executives, lobbyists, and cultural gatekeepers who share interests, social backgrounds, and ideological assumptions. Through this network, power is normalised, inequality is justified, and dissent is marginalised, often without the public being fully aware of how decisions are shaped or whose interests they ultimately serve.

By contrast, Gibran End Game situates its discussion within Indonesia’s contemporary political context, paying particular attention to the dynamics of political manoeuvring, generational transition, and strategic positioning. Rather than treating elite power primarily as a long-standing structural characteristic of modern capitalism and liberal democracy, the book describes how power is articulated through specific political processes and interactions within Indonesia’s current political landscape. It outlines how political succession, image formation, and elite endorsement can interact in ways that shape and accelerate an individual’s political trajectory, often framed as renewal or innovation within the existing political order.

The key similarity between The Establishment and Gibran End Game lies in their shared recognition that political power does not operate transparently or meritocratically. Both works suggest that access, networks, and elite approval matter far more than public rhetoric about opportunity, democracy, or fairness. In both narratives, the public sphere is shown to be shaped by forces that remain largely insulated from popular accountability, whether through media influence, institutional capture, or political branding.

However, the most important difference between the two books lies in their depth of critique and normative stance. The Establishment is explicitly critical and adversarial, seeking to expose elite power as a systemic problem that undermines democracy itself. Jones frames the concentration of power as something that must be challenged, resisted, and reformed if democratic ideals are to retain meaning. The book therefore, carries a strong moral and political argument against elite impunity.

Gibran End Game, meanwhile, presents elite power largely as a practical dimension of contemporary political life. Rather than foregrounding debates about democratic legitimacy, the book focuses on how political engineering, dynastic continuity, and image management operate within existing political arrangements. These elements are described as part of the broader political environment, with attention given to how they shape outcomes and influence trajectories, offering an account of elite consolidation as a process observed within the system rather than as a judgement on the system itself.

In essence, The Establishment asks why societies allow a small group to rule with so little accountability and urges readers to recognise and confront that reality, whereas Gibran End Game focuses on how power is won and maintained within an elite-driven system, without fully interrogating whether that system itself is fundamentally flawed.

Overall, these comparisons place Gibran End Game firmly within an international tradition of critical political writing that challenges procedural definitions of democracy. While elections, courts, and constitutional mechanisms may continue to function, these books collectively warn that democracy loses its moral substance when accountability is selective and equality before the law becomes negotiable. In the Indonesian case, Gibran End Game thus serves not only as a critique of a particular political moment, but as an invitation to reflect on the deeper conditions necessary for democracy to remain both lawful and just.

Taken together, Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right by Jane Mayer, The Establishment: And How They Get Away with It by Owen Jones, and Gibran End Game by Dr Rismon Hasiholan Sianipar reveal a strikingly similar pattern of power consolidation that transcends national boundaries. Although each book is rooted in a distinct political context, all three expose how democratic systems are increasingly shaped not by transparent public deliberation, but by elite networks that operate beyond meaningful accountability. In this sense, the Indonesian case does not stand apart from global trends, but rather reflects a familiar configuration of elite influence adapted to local conditions.

Mayer’s Dark Money demonstrates how immense private wealth quietly restructures democratic politics in the United States, funding ideological movements, capturing institutions, and narrowing the range of acceptable political choices without overtly dismantling democratic procedures. Jones’s The Establishment similarly illustrates how power in Britain is exercised through interconnected elites who normalise inequality and suppress dissent while maintaining the appearance of pluralism and meritocracy. Both works emphasise that democracy can be hollowed out not through dramatic authoritarian rupture, but through gradual, legal, and socially sanctioned mechanisms that entrench elite dominance.

Gibran End Game enters this global conversation by offering an Indonesian articulation of the same underlying phenomenon. Rather than focusing on financial capital or long-established class structures, the book highlights the strategic use of dynastic politics, legal reinterpretation, and image management to accelerate elite continuity within a democratic framework. While its tone and approach differ from its Western counterparts, its core concern resonates strongly with Mayer and Jones: that formal democratic rules can be bent, reinterpreted, or selectively applied to serve concentrated power, while maintaining the outward legitimacy of democratic institutions.

Viewed comparatively, these three books suggest that contemporary democratic erosion is not primarily the result of voter apathy or cultural deficiency, but of systemic elite adaptation. Elites no longer need to openly oppose democracy; instead, they increasingly master its language, procedures, and symbols to neutralise its substantive demands. Whether through dark money networks, establishment gatekeeping, or dynastic succession, the outcome is remarkably consistent: reduced accountability, weakened meritocracy, and a growing disjunction between popular sovereignty and actual decision-making power.

Ultimately, the significance of Gibran End Game lies not merely in what it says about Indonesian politics, but in how clearly it echoes a global democratic dilemma. When placed alongside Dark Money and The Establishment, it reinforces the unsettling conclusion that democratic regression today is often subtle, procedural, and normalised. The danger, therefore, is not that democracy will collapse suddenly, but that it will persist in name while steadily losing its substance.

[Bahasa]