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Billionaires have always influenced elections. Surreptitiously. Elon Musk is different not just because of the enormous sum, but also because it is in-your-face
by breadwinner 2y ago
Billionaires have always influenced elections. Surreptitiously. Elon Musk is different not just because of the enormous sum, but also because it is in-your-face. Post victory he is not hiding the fact that he expects enormous influence.
- ttyprintk 2y agoSince HN is about innovation and emergent phenomena—-sure, money in politics is not novel. Besides Twitter, two things are politically innovative: - the major lottery, $1m to maybe 40 people who signed a petition in support of the Constitution. Quite cynical, because Trump explicitly prefers to suspend the Constitution. - naming a program after Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Even more cynical because Trump’s people only cared about a Supreme Court that would defy her. So a voter looking for law and order might see Musk and Trump as equally disingenuous on that. Which is not innovative, especially over the past 9 years. But it’s very innovative to rely on a new set of feelings that the richest man in the world will improve the lives of Americans by forcing the government to be more convenient for him.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]