Donald Trump’s second term comes with the specter of the world’s richest man serving as his political enforcer.
Summary
Elon Musk has emerged as a key enforcer of Donald Trump’s agenda, warning Republicans against opposing Trump’s policies and Cabinet picks.
Musk’s political action committee, America PAC, played a significant role in Trump’s election victory, spending heavily in swing states and funding groups like RBG PAC to broaden voter appeal.
Musk has hinted at funding primary challenges against GOP lawmakers who resist Trump, creating a “naughty and nice list” with ally Vivek Ramaswamy.
With allies in Trump’s administration and influence through his platform X, Musk’s political clout is growing rapidly.
Either we're going to solve the problem of psychopaths with power and wealth warping societies to accommodate their psychopathy, or, at the very least, modern civilization is going to collapse.
I see no third alternative. The Musks and Trumps and Putins and Netanyahus (and so on and on) of the world will, if allowed, destroy us all, because they're quite literally too mentally ill to restrain themselves.
If it helps, history runs in cycles. We used to have kings, we got rid of the kings, then we welcomed the kings back with open arms. But the reign of kings doesn't last forever.
Biggest joke ever is that stupid fucking phrase "learn history or you're doomed to repeat it."
A full third of us baseline will always learn that history and try to repeat it but more effectively. The lessons they learn is how to be better and longer lasting monsters.
All empires collapse, except ours is somehow immortal and humans evolved overnight into a less shitty species?
I mean, 80% of humans think various contradictory deities actually exist with zero evidence. Self described intelligent species still thinks magic and authoritarian abusive sky step-dads exist.
Clearly, people have learned from history. Unfortunately for us, its our oppressors, and they've learned how to avoid the same errors that got them deposed in the past.
You are a fool to disregard the phrase, "learn history or you're doomed to repeat it." An absolute fool.
Joke's on us all, that implies people even learn accurate unbiased history, or learn history at all.
I've spent a lot of my life trying to learn all I can, but since I'm not in any position of power, my knowledge only lets me know just how hard and fast we're all screwed without really being able to do anything on a grand level. (Not meant to sound defeatist, just realist, and the knowledge was still all worth the learn.)
We celebrate these strong men and sociopaths that hoard money at the expense of everybody else. I don't think we'll make it through before we crash hard enough to bounce back.
Our modern day kings have immensely more power than the kings of the past and the power imbalance of the methods of force have only increased as the literal distance between King and peasant has increased. There will be no guillotines, our modern day kings live in castles hundreds and hundreds of miles from the majority of us. Yeah we can pick off the occasional CEO, but I don't see us winning any kind of "revolution."
I think the ownership class know this is an absolutely crucial time as they need to solidify their positions of control for when global society turns to chaos as climate change completely upends how societies function. Food and water acquisition, energy production and distribution, employment and income. They will drive people to violence and the ownership class needs to maintain ownership of the means of violence to keep us suppressed for when that time comes.
I have very very very little hope for the future. I think unchecked greed will be our "great filter." :/
It's not an accident that the US has militarized police granted essentially free reign, the largest prison system in the world and plans in the works for internment camps.
Humanity sure is but the responsibility unfortunately is on Americans.
The rest of us have to start a war to change things and that's gonna suck maybe just as bad as what would happen if we don't... But that limit is slowly approaching.
Seems as though we need a friendly reminder that if you mass deport people based on their nationality or how they look, then it's still ethnic cleansing...
Elon, your dad really should've came in your mom's ass. That way, she could've spat you out and have your dad swallow you. And we all would've been spared from your waste of an existence.
First they came after healthcare CEOs, and I loled. Then they came after people eating oligarchs, and I smiled the grandest smile and grabbed a fork. Then they came for me - to ask me how funny all that was, and I was truthful that it was a blast and we should do this all the time
The one silver lining of our next 4+ years of hell is that musk is inevitably going to piss off trump as more and more people decide that musk won the election for him and musk is the one in charge.
And since musk is hated at ted cruz levels... we might get an Official Act.