Elon Musk Buys Twitter

[gondrin]

Consider where we are now: razor-thin majorities for the GoP in the House and Senate, with far more Republican Senate seats up for grabs than Democrats seats. The GoP managed to ride the wave of disaffection over the economy (unfairly, but whatever) to this position, but keep in mind that even though they maintained the majority in the House, they actually lost ground in the last election.

Now, we all expect the economy to take an even bigger shit now that Trump is behind the wheel. Where the ruling party was unfairly blame for it in the last administration, the current one is going to be rightly lambasted by anyone who votes with their wallet. And we just had a front-row seat to witness the fact that the number of voters who do that is much larger than we expected.

Conservative simps are falling over themselves to congratulate themselves for "winning" those votes, but they're sorely mistaken about the driving factor behind the shift, which is going to cause them catastrophic heartache in 21 months.

The only way this doesn't happen, as far as I'm concerned, is if free elections just cease to be. Unlike you, I don't think it's a foregone conclusion that Trump gets the blank check you're expecting. I've said it before, but SCOTUS isn't likely to be fine with Trump as dictator. They might have a conservative bias, but they're not beholden to Trump personally. They have lifelong appointments and don't have to worry about reelections.



Historically speaking, that's exceeeeeeedingly unlikely. Midterms generally favor the party not in the White House. And with the economy already going to shit, it's not even like he'll have 2 years of unblemished record to his favor.

And since he's not going to be on the ballot, a large part of the cultists' "hero worship" will work against them.



There's a definitely non-zero chance, which is disturbing, but I think the likelihood is still low.



Hey, look, you can claim it again if I'm wrong. That being said, I still disagree that 2024 was a result of Harris "botching" the election. Voters fucked around in 2024, they're in the process of finding out right now, and I expect the shift will swing the opposite way for 2026 and 2028.



I don't think Elon wields quite the power you're suggesting. Nor do I think voters are predisposed to forgive him or Trump for the chaos they're setting loose on the American people.



Oh, I don't think it'll be normal. At least normal prior to 2016. And I don't think you're in Kokolums territory with your concerns, which I think are disturbingly plausible, even if I disagree with the likely outcome.

I think the main difference is that 1) I don't think Trump really wants to be a dictator. It's more about money and ego for him, and his ego is certainly fed more by winning an election than having to put down widespread unrest, which is what it would come to if he went too far off the rails (though "too far" is a goalpost that has seemed to get pushed further back, ngl). And 2) I think there are plenty of people with power in the government who go along with Trump when it helps them, but would balk at supporting an outright grasp of power, if for no other reason than self-preservation on their part. Congresspeople and judges hold more power under the current system than they would under a dictatorship.

Oh, I have no doubt there will be a hard swing towards democrats in the midterm. The issue I have, like Musk right now getting access to stuff he should not be, is fuckery happening with the elections. Not that there will be any but Musk trying to have his minions infiltrate multiple state election boards to basically "remake" the election results before they are announced is something I could actually see happening. Like what is happening now with him accessing systems without any authority to do so.

[Kaleredar]

Oh, I have no doubt there will be a hard swing towards democrats in the midterm. The issue I have, like Musk right now getting access to stuff he should not be, is fuckery happening with the elections. Not that there will be any but Musk trying to have his minions infiltrate multiple state election boards to basically "remake" the election results before they are announced is something I could actually see happening. Like what is happening now with him accessing systems without any authority to do so.

There’s still a separation of state and federal elections; Trump has no real ability to install musk at state levels to muck around with state-level elections. That doesn’t mean they won’t try, but it’s far from a done deal.

Frankly I’m not even sure that the “Trump-musk honeymoon” will last until 2026. Trump is going to need a scapegoat, musk makes an easy target, and moreover if musk starts bragging about how he’s the real man in charge and not Trump, or if the media starts spinning it that way, that could easily get under Trump’s exceptionally thin skin.

[gondrin]

There’s still a separation of state and federal elections; Trump has no real ability to install musk at state levels to muck around with state-level elections. That doesn’t mean they won’t try, but it’s far from a done deal.

Frankly I’m not even sure that the “Trump-musk honeymoon” will last until 2026. Trump is going to need a scapegoat, musk makes an easy target, and moreover if musk starts bragging about how he’s the real man in charge and not Trump, or if the media starts spinning it that way, that could easily get under Trump’s exceptionally thin skin.

The big thing is, it isn't Trump installing him, it is Musk doing it of his own will and hiring people to go basically do these things.

However, Trump hates people taking the spotlight. And if Musk starts to become a problem for that, he most definitely will have no issue basically throwing him to the wolves. He has done it with everyone else.

And since he cannot run for re-election legally, he also doesn't need Musk's money.

[PhaelixWW]

Oh, I have no doubt there will be a hard swing towards democrats in the midterm. The issue I have, like Musk right now getting access to stuff he should not be, is fuckery happening with the elections. Not that there will be any but Musk trying to have his minions infiltrate multiple state election boards to basically "remake" the election results before they are announced is something I could actually see happening. Like what is happening now with him accessing systems without any authority to do so.

Well, yeah, but like you said, elections happen at the state level. And any state with enough of a GoP blank check to engage in fuckery would hardly need Musk's support to do so.

And chances are, they were already engaging in some form of election fuckery before now, too.

[gondrin]

Well, yeah, but like you said, elections happen at the state level. And any state with enough of a GoP blank check to engage in fuckery would hardly need Musk's support to do so.

And chances are, they were already engaging in some form of election fuckery before now, too.

I am hoping that enough election boards see this coming and basically tell them to go fuck off. I am hoping that it is a good 10 vote swing in the Democrat favor. Hopefully more in the Senate. Only because they can outright remove a lot of Trump's power quickly.

Yes, I know it won't happen but one can dream.

[PhaelixWW]

I am hoping that enough election boards see this coming and basically tell them to go fuck off. I am hoping that it is a good 10 vote swing in the Democrat favor. Hopefully more in the Senate. Only because they can outright remove a lot of Trump's power quickly.

Yes, I know it won't happen but one can dream.

Well, the American voting public likes to punish the ruling party; it's practically in our DNA.

It worked against Democrats in 2024. It's not unreasonable to hope that it works against the GoP in 2026/2028.

[Draco-Onis]

Well, the American voting public likes to punish the ruling party; it's practically in our DNA.

It worked against Democrats in 2024. It's not unreasonable to hope that it works against the GoP in 2026/2028.

Maybe but democrats are running around like chickens with their head cut off, there doesn't seem to be any cohesion or leadership like republicans when Obama won.

[Timester]

Maybe but democrats are running around like chickens with their head cut off, there doesn't seem to be any cohesion or leadership like republicans when Obama won.

Honestly, this is precisely the best phase for the democrats to lay low, to let things to self-implode and they will self-implode for the cult side.

[Mekh]

Honestly, this is precisely the best phase for the democrats to lay low, to let things to self-implode and they will self-implode for the cult side.

Agreed. Try to intervene through normal channels right now and they will get tainted by whatever they tried to stop. And then Republicans won't miss a beat to blame Dems for the state of affairs because "it would have worked without your meddling!"

[Gabriel]

Honestly, this is precisely the best phase for the democrats to lay low, to let things to self-implode and they will self-implode for the cult side.

Yes. Absolutely. Let the cult consolidate all the power in the hands of Trump and his inner circle without opposing it. Why didn't I think of that?

[PhaelixWW]

Yes. Absolutely. Let the cult consolidate all the power in the hands of Trump and his inner circle without opposing it. Why didn't I think of that?

What, precisely, do you think can be done that isn't being done?

[Timester]

Yes. Absolutely. Let the cult consolidate all the power in the hands of Trump and his inner circle without opposing it. Why didn't I think of that?

Short of a civil war, what else can be done? They won the elections, the cult will always blame the other side if anything goes wrong. They will start eating each other way sooner that anyone think.

Everything else is up to the courts, it's how checks and balances work.

[Ivanstone]

Maybe but democrats are running around like chickens with their head cut off, there doesn't seem to be any cohesion or leadership like republicans when Obama won.

And by running around with their cuts off you mean they just elected a new person to lead the DNC and they'll start the rebuilding phase now.

- - - Updated - - -

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toron...link-1.7448763

"Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford is "ripping up" Ontario's nearly $100 million contract with Elon Musk's Starlink in the wake of U.S. tariffs on virtually all Canadian goods, he said in a statement Monday."

[Twdft]

What, precisely, do you think can be done that isn't being done?

I don't really know what they do since any news that come to mainstream media in Germany look like they've gone through 30 kids playing Chinese whispers.

What I would expect from Democrats if I were a US citizen would at the very least be to make public records of any illegal and unconstitutional thing the Trump admin does.

Make a giant wiki with a page for every Executive Order, detailing what exactly is wrong with it. How, when and who tried to resist this order including who got fired over it and documentation of any legal action taken etc. A place you can direct people to if anyone asks you "and what's wrong with XYZ?"

[Endus]

What, precisely, do you think can be done that isn't being done?

1> That there's "nothing to be done" is just the most recent example of how deeply broken and fragile the American system of government has always been. The Founding Fathers were mostly amoral idiots who built the country wrong and you've idolized them all so emptily that you can't bring yourself to question what an abusive slave-rapist's opinion was.

2> There's plenty to be done, just not through official channels. Dragging out discussions pointlessly and ensuring everything takes as long as possible to happen, screwing with internal systems like filing and such so that nothing's ever where it's supposed to be, "losing" important things like keys and passes so they have to get replaced, etc. When fascists take over, that's not time to give up, that's when it's time to Oskar Schindler some shit. Government is a massively complex set of bureaucratic machinery. Start setting bits of it on fire and jamming sticks into the gears. No one action will bring everything down, but the cumulative effect can devastate things.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Consider where we are now: razor-thin majorities for the GoP in the House and Senate, with far more Republican Senate seats up for grabs than Democrats seats. The GoP managed to ride the wave of disaffection over the economy (unfairly, but whatever) to this position, but keep in mind that even though they maintained the majority in the House, they actually lost ground in the last election.

Now, we all expect the economy to take an even bigger shit now that Trump is behind the wheel. Where the ruling party was unfairly blame for it in the last administration, the current one is going to be rightly lambasted by anyone who votes with their wallet. And we just had a front-row seat to witness the fact that the number of voters who do that is much larger than we expected.

Conservative simps are falling over themselves to congratulate themselves for "winning" those votes, but they're sorely mistaken about the driving factor behind the shift, which is going to cause them catastrophic heartache in 21 months.

The only way this doesn't happen, as far as I'm concerned, is if free elections just cease to be. Unlike you, I don't think it's a foregone conclusion that Trump gets the blank check you're expecting. I've said it before, but SCOTUS isn't likely to be fine with Trump as dictator. They might have a conservative bias, but they're not beholden to Trump personally. They have lifelong appointments and don't have to worry about reelections.



Historically speaking, that's exceeeeeeedingly unlikely. Midterms generally favor the party not in the White House. And with the economy already going to shit, it's not even like he'll have 2 years of unblemished record to his favor.

And since he's not going to be on the ballot, a large part of the cultists' "hero worship" will work against them.



There's a definitely non-zero chance, which is disturbing, but I think the likelihood is still low.



Hey, look, you can claim it again if I'm wrong. That being said, I still disagree that 2024 was a result of Harris "botching" the election. Voters fucked around in 2024, they're in the process of finding out right now, and I expect the shift will swing the opposite way for 2026 and 2028.



I don't think Elon wields quite the power you're suggesting. Nor do I think voters are predisposed to forgive him or Trump for the chaos they're setting loose on the American people.



Oh, I don't think it'll be normal. At least normal prior to 2016. And I don't think you're in Kokolums territory with your concerns, which I think are disturbingly plausible, even if I disagree with the likely outcome.

I think the main difference is that 1) I don't think Trump really wants to be a dictator. It's more about money and ego for him, and his ego is certainly fed more by winning an election than having to put down widespread unrest, which is what it would come to if he went too far off the rails (though "too far" is a goalpost that has seemed to get pushed further back, ngl). And 2) I think there are plenty of people with power in the government who go along with Trump when it helps them, but would balk at supporting an outright grasp of power, if for no other reason than self-preservation on their part. Congresspeople and judges hold more power under the current system than they would under a dictatorship.

I appreciate your optimism, but I don't think Democracy is going to save us at all and I definitely believe that Musk will ensure the election goes the way he wants. Again, I could be and I hope I'm wrong, but Elon clearly wants to be "That guy pulling the strings of the world governments" seeing as how he has Trump's ear, and is trying to weasel his way into the far right in every other country, as well as fomenting right wing movements using twitter. And what are these other countries doing about it? Sternly worded letters? Even threats of arrest won't work because I doubt his security detail would let any force detain him, and that's even if he visited those countries.

But we all know who's pulling the strings behind the curtain, Putin has been salivating at the idea of a US collapse for a long long time now, he's a master at election rigging, he's surely passed on his knowledge to his stooges Trump and Elon. In Trump's last term he was surrounded by the "old guard", Republicans who were interested in what Trump was selling, but who quickly turned on him when they realized he was both inept and going to throw them under the bus at the first chance he could.

Now Trump is gutting entire agencies, gutted the entire executive branch and filled it with MAGA loyalists. On top of that Elon Musk is on his side, and while the guy is a Nazi piece of shit who can't do anything himself, he does have one thing going for him and that's being able to identify talented and smart individuals to do work for him. I don't believe Democracy is going to save us, but again I could be wrong. I think we're looking at a Republican (MAGA) super majority in 2026, which would allow them to do whatever they wanted, up to and including suspending the constitution, declaring a state of emergency, even Trump himself said that if he won you'd "Never need to vote again", and he's said it multiple times. Does that sound like someone who'd be willing to give up his reigns of power? Who knows he's going to prison the second Democrats are elected again?

That said, Democrats are being awfully flacid in their response to all of this. There should be daily hearings, press conferences, they should be fighting back against everything going on. We're way beyond a constitutional crisis with Elon and the treasury, and you saw that banned poster in that last thread. There's a lot of Nazis and fascists who have been wearing a very thick mask, and they want nothing less than the fourth reich to come and purge all of the Jews, degenerates, communists, socialists, etc.

But even if we do wrest control back somehow, there's permanent damage being done. Our allies are no longer going to trust us if every 4 years we could just elect another fascist fuck who starts pointless trade wars and threatens invasions. We need a really strong anti fascist movement, and the current opposition party is so limp wristed it's a disappointment to see.

Democracy won't save us.

- - - Updated - - -

1> That there's "nothing to be done" is just the most recent example of how deeply broken and fragile the American system of government has always been. The Founding Fathers were mostly amoral idiots who built the country wrong and you've idolized them all so emptily that you can't bring yourself to question what an abusive slave-rapist's opinion was.

2> There's plenty to be done, just not through official channels. Dragging out discussions pointlessly and ensuring everything takes as long as possible to happen, screwing with internal systems like filing and such so that nothing's ever where it's supposed to be, "losing" important things like keys and passes so they have to get replaced, etc. When fascists take over, that's not time to give up, that's when it's time to Oskar Schindler some shit. Government is a massively complex set of bureaucratic machinery. Start setting bits of it on fire and jamming sticks into the gears. No one action will bring everything down, but the cumulative effect can devastate things.

Immediate, organized resistance. Elon Musk needs to have a flash raid done on him and arrested. He's not elected, he's not vetted, he's been talking with Putin for AT LEAST 2 years, he's accessing things in government no citizen should have access to without rigorous background checks, which he'd likely fail.

He's broken the law. MAGA doesn't care about the law. They're breaking through the red tape of the law like it doesn't exist while Democrats are busy floundering with "procedure" and "process". If MAGA isn't going to play by the rules, why are Democrats still trying to? Some will say because if we stoop to their level then the law means nothing, but the law already means nothing, and just doing nothing means we all roll over and take it.

People might worry about the "Rule of law" breaking down if Democrats fight back in the same way that MAGA is, but the reality is that if the rule of law worked, Trump would be in prison right now for things done before, during and after his first term. He'd be rotting in a jail cell with no opportunity to poison this country. But the law and justice has failed. Most people have already lost faith in the rule of law. For MAGA it's "Rules for thee and not for me" and it's time to change that.

[Endus]

Democracy won't save us.

People seem to have forgotten that the Weimar Republic was a democracy. Not only did that not prevent the Nazi Reich from happening, a solid argument can be made that it paved the way, Fascism is a natural evolution from a failed/failing democracy. Democracy is not just not a protection against fascism, it's fascism's natural breeding ground.

[Cthulhu 2020]

People seem to have forgotten that the Weimar Republic was a democracy. Not only did that not prevent the Nazi Reich from happening, a solid argument can be made that it paved the way, Fascism is a natural evolution from a failed/failing democracy. Democracy is not just not a protection against fascism, it's fascism's natural breeding ground.

And anyone who knows anything about history knows that history is repeating itself right now. The Nazis rapidly swept through government, replacing everyone in it with loyalists. They took over the most key institutions like media correspondence, treasury, military, police, etc. Exactly like what's happening right now. Anything short of immediate action is the road to ruin.

But apparently turning Guantanamo Bay into a concentration camp for immigrants that can't be deported isn't ring enough alarm bells for some people. They seem to forget, or perhaps never learned in the first place, that the Nazis started by loading Jews onto trucks to deport them to surrounding countries. When those countries stopped accepting the waves of Jews (and other "undesirables"), they built camps to detain them. To help the war effort, factories were built in those camps and the people put in those camps served as slave labor to build German munitions. When the camps got too full and there was nowhere left for the Nazis to put people, when they couldn't wring any more labor out of starved people, that's when the gas chambers started up.



I've been ringing the alarm bells since fucking 2016 that Trump sounded terrifyingly like Hitler in his speeches, but everyone told me I was just being hysterical, and after his incompetent first term and a Biden win I thought maybe I had been hysterical. But it's happening exactly like in Weimar. Trump was briefly removed from power and faced down numerous lawsuits, where he claimed political persecution. Things are happening exactly like they happened in the 1920's and 1930's, and I don't think people are nearly worried enough about the direction we're going.

[Malkiah]

and I don't think people are nearly worried enough about the direction we're going.

and there ultimately is the biggest issue, not just of the current moment but of most of human history and that includes germany in the 20s and 30s:
what exactly are the nameless masses supposed to do here?

it would be incredible if everyone who objected to this behavior spontaneously self-organized into a people's militia and we rode into DC on horseback to take our country back, but the truth is that's not really how anything actually works.
99.999999% of humans are insignificant, and though we may all post online about our thoughts on the matter none of us are a fulcrum of history. not a single one of us will ever be the tip of the spear that is the forefront of radical social change.

humans are humans, sadly... as a species we have never tended towards what could be defined as "goodness" on a civilization level - the pattern has been to be horrendously shitty until a breaking points hits, then we pretend to be less shitty for about 8 minutes until it turns out that we didn't want anything to change, we just wanted different people to be at the top of the pile of shit.

if the US goes full nazi in the next 10 years there's literally nothing i could have done to stop it or change it, same of you and every other poster here, same of everyone really except for maybe like 8 people.
what makes you say people aren't worried enough? seems to me by these threads and what i see on other sites that lots of people are plenty worried.

[Gabriel]

and there ultimately is the biggest issue, not just of the current moment but of most of human history and that includes germany in the 20s and 30s:
what exactly are the nameless masses supposed to do here?

it would be incredible if everyone who objected to this behavior spontaneously self-organized into a people's militia and we rode into DC on horseback to take our country back, but the truth is that's not really how anything actually works.
99.999999% of humans are insignificant, and though we may all post online about our thoughts on the matter none of us are a fulcrum of history. not a single one of us will ever be the tip of the spear that is the forefront of radical social change.

humans are humans, sadly... as a species we have never tended towards what could be defined as "goodness" on a civilization level - the pattern has been to be horrendously shitty until a breaking points hits, then we pretend to be less shitty for about 8 minutes until it turns out that we didn't want anything to change, we just wanted different people to be at the top of the pile of shit.

if the US goes full nazi in the next 10 years there's literally nothing i could have done to stop it or change it, same of you and every other poster here, same of everyone really except for maybe like 8 people.
what makes you say people aren't worried enough? seems to me by these threads and what i see on other sites that lots of people are plenty worried.

So true. There is nothing any of us can do if the Nazis want to take over everything. There's just nothing we can do if they start throwing the undersirables in ovens again.