4 ms·

> Musk’s public alignment with Trump I'm sorry, what? This claim is laughable. Musk claims he hasn't ever voted for him, and they have publicly fueded frequent

> Musk’s public alignment with Trump I'm sorry, what? This claim is laughable. Musk claims he hasn't ever voted for him, and they have publicly fueded frequently. You can argue his politics have moved right. You can't credibly argue he's a Trump supporter. I guess to some people these two things are equivalent, but it's simply incorrect, and reveals a certain political naivete in those making such claims.

KerrAvon 4y ago
Alignment doesn’t mean support. It means that, like Trump, he’s joined the QAnon brigade, which is unarguably true. Sure, you can say he’s only doing it for eyeballs/lulz, in which case I will refer you to Popehat’s Rule of Goats.
- chitowneats 4y ago
  Ah I see. So he votes against the man, but is "aligned", because of agreement on a single issue? Even if I bought into your claim that Elon thinks favorably of "QAnon", that is in no meaningful sense Trump alignment. Good luck making your argument to anyone who isn't a partisan hack.
  - philistine 4y ago
    The guy has continually lied for years. Why do you even believe what votes he said he cast?
    - chitowneats 4y ago
      I don't. Their differences of opinion on many issues, not to mention the obvious personal animosity between the two men, is enough to convince me.
      - trog 4y ago
        Judging serial liars on their opinions seems like a waste of time to me. Looking at their actions and the results is probably safer given they both do very public things that impact large numbers of people with generally visible results.
throwaway82388 4y ago
There are only two sides in the culture war. Any free-thinking criticism of one side places you in or aligns you with the opposition. “If you’re not with us, you’re against us.” Intelligent commentators mocked the famous George W. Bush line when he uttered it. But a decade and a half later and it’s the prevailing sentiment among many of the same people who ridiculed it. Paul Krugman wrote recently that Elon Musk has “gone full MAGA.” The press will tell you what they can get away with. And right-thinking readers will uncritically accept it, for the most part. Trump was good for news traffic. My guess is that Musk is similarly good for business, judging on how many journalists seem to be on the Elon beat. I expect to read and hear a lot more of this for as long as that remains true.
- Apocryphon 4y ago
  Musk, of course, is a typical Californian ideology tech libertarian industrialist who has now hitched his course to anti-woke culture war baiting and social media free speech pearl-clutching. But there is something to be said about a Trumpian style to public behavior. Maybe it’s just social media demagoguery. Tactical trolling. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkvvAQxxo_0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkvvAQxxo_0 Musk, like other celebrity public figures on social media who make a lot of vapid grandiose statements and then flame out when challenged, are simply operating in the same style. It’s funny you mentioned Bush, because growing up during his presidency, when terms like “reality-based community” and “truthiness” were coined, I never felt that Trump was a radically new phenomenon. He was Bush except louder - with less subtext.
  - throwaway82388 4y ago
    I’d describe Trump and Musk as similarly adapted to the attention economy. But it is a similarity of style, as you said, and not necessarily politics. While Bush II was far from the inventor of executive dissimulation, his administration did have a uniquely dysfunctional relationship with the truth. But truthiness was coined by Colbert, a brilliant critic of that administration, to describe things that aren’t true but feel true. It’s regrettable, but increasingly over the last five or six years, that term could be applied with similar frequency to claims made on either side of the aisle.
lukev 4y ago
Musk has engaged in a ton of tribal signaling recently. Does it suck that we have such clearly delineated tribes? Yes. But Musk is also smart enough to realize that that's the case, and he's knowingly chosen to repeat and engage with the shibboleths of the extreme right.
ModernMech 4y ago
Didn't he just throw his support behind the Republican party, the leader of which is Trump? How can you say Musk doesn't align with Trump when he is a supporter of Trump's political machine? It's not like Musk ever found the Republican party attractive before Trump turned it into what it is today. But post-insurrection, the GOP suddenly looks like a party worth supporting for Musk.
- v0idzer0 4y ago
  He resigned from Trump’s appointment in protest and stated many times that he’s a centrist and wants to rid Twitter of the far left and far right. Your description of the world as pro and anti trump is a massive oversimplification of reality. There are so many shades of grey between your black and white.
  - ModernMech 4y ago
    He said that but he also said to vote Republican in the midterms. The Republicans are the party of insurrection, not centrists. And besides, what does being a “centrist” even mean anymore when one party supports and foments a literal coup? When Musk is tweeting “kek”, unbanning insurrectionists, banning left leaning journalists (not even far left!), then it’s clear that he’s not actually about balance. He’s signaling he is part of a particular tribe whose chief is Donald Trump, not that he’s a centrist.

KerrAvon 4y ago

Alignment doesn’t mean support. It means that, like Trump, he’s joined the QAnon brigade, which is unarguably true. Sure, you can say he’s only doing it for eyeballs/lulz, in which case I will refer you to Popehat’s Rule of Goats.

chitowneats 4y ago
Ah I see. So he votes against the man, but is "aligned", because of agreement on a single issue? Even if I bought into your claim that Elon thinks favorably of "QAnon", that is in no meaningful sense Trump alignment. Good luck making your argument to anyone who isn't a partisan hack.
- philistine 4y ago
  The guy has continually lied for years. Why do you even believe what votes he said he cast?
  - chitowneats 4y ago
    I don't. Their differences of opinion on many issues, not to mention the obvious personal animosity between the two men, is enough to convince me.
    - trog 4y ago
      Judging serial liars on their opinions seems like a waste of time to me. Looking at their actions and the results is probably safer given they both do very public things that impact large numbers of people with generally visible results.

throwaway82388 4y ago

There are only two sides in the culture war. Any free-thinking criticism of one side places you in or aligns you with the opposition. “If you’re not with us, you’re against us.” Intelligent commentators mocked the famous George W. Bush line when he uttered it. But a decade and a half later and it’s the prevailing sentiment among many of the same people who ridiculed it. Paul Krugman wrote recently that Elon Musk has “gone full MAGA.” The press will tell you what they can get away with. And right-thinking readers will uncritically accept it, for the most part. Trump was good for news traffic. My guess is that Musk is similarly good for business, judging on how many journalists seem to be on the Elon beat. I expect to read and hear a lot more of this for as long as that remains true.

Apocryphon 4y ago
Musk, of course, is a typical Californian ideology tech libertarian industrialist who has now hitched his course to anti-woke culture war baiting and social media free speech pearl-clutching. But there is something to be said about a Trumpian style to public behavior. Maybe it’s just social media demagoguery. Tactical trolling. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkvvAQxxo_0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkvvAQxxo_0 Musk, like other celebrity public figures on social media who make a lot of vapid grandiose statements and then flame out when challenged, are simply operating in the same style. It’s funny you mentioned Bush, because growing up during his presidency, when terms like “reality-based community” and “truthiness” were coined, I never felt that Trump was a radically new phenomenon. He was Bush except louder - with less subtext.
- throwaway82388 4y ago
  I’d describe Trump and Musk as similarly adapted to the attention economy. But it is a similarity of style, as you said, and not necessarily politics. While Bush II was far from the inventor of executive dissimulation, his administration did have a uniquely dysfunctional relationship with the truth. But truthiness was coined by Colbert, a brilliant critic of that administration, to describe things that aren’t true but feel true. It’s regrettable, but increasingly over the last five or six years, that term could be applied with similar frequency to claims made on either side of the aisle.

lukev 4y ago

Musk has engaged in a ton of tribal signaling recently. Does it suck that we have such clearly delineated tribes? Yes. But Musk is also smart enough to realize that that's the case, and he's knowingly chosen to repeat and engage with the shibboleths of the extreme right.

ModernMech 4y ago

Didn't he just throw his support behind the Republican party, the leader of which is Trump? How can you say Musk doesn't align with Trump when he is a supporter of Trump's political machine? It's not like Musk ever found the Republican party attractive before Trump turned it into what it is today. But post-insurrection, the GOP suddenly looks like a party worth supporting for Musk.

v0idzer0 4y ago
He resigned from Trump’s appointment in protest and stated many times that he’s a centrist and wants to rid Twitter of the far left and far right. Your description of the world as pro and anti trump is a massive oversimplification of reality. There are so many shades of grey between your black and white.
- ModernMech 4y ago
  He said that but he also said to vote Republican in the midterms. The Republicans are the party of insurrection, not centrists. And besides, what does being a “centrist” even mean anymore when one party supports and foments a literal coup? When Musk is tweeting “kek”, unbanning insurrectionists, banning left leaning journalists (not even far left!), then it’s clear that he’s not actually about balance. He’s signaling he is part of a particular tribe whose chief is Donald Trump, not that he’s a centrist.