Musk did very well indeed under Biden. The IRA subsidized his factories, consumer tax rebates juiced car sales, and satellite launches puffed SpaceX.
And then he put all of his accumulated political capital, and nearly $300 million in cash to propel Trump/GOP to victory...just so they could throw him under the bus and strip him of all the goodies the Dems had showered on him. 20/20 hindsight notwithstanding, how could he have been so fricking stupid?
Nub.....How could 77 million people be that dumb too? Their lives were improving under Biden and then they got mesmerized again by the worlds greatest conman and threw their vote to him.
Why? The mainstream media constantly told the public that inflation was really bad and used the price of eggs to illustrate that “fact”. They kept that narrative up even after inflation was returning to normal levels. I believe the reason the media buried good economic news was that information debunked their strong belief that we would have to have a serious recession to get inflation under control as Larry Summers and other austerity proponents had claimed. This is the same media that has refused for decades to admit that the economy does better under Democrats and that Republicans repeatedly have exploded the deficit/debt with their unproductive tax cuts for the rich. Confirmation bias is powerful.
Post election polls of swing voters showed the vast majority of voters were unaware that the US had the world’s best economy with the best job market in over 50 years and wages outpacing inflation, with the biggest gains going to the lowest incomes. Many told pollsters that although they were personally doing well financially and their regions were too, the national economy was really bad. Exit polls showed that a whopping 67% percent of voters thought the economy was bad. That is the same economy that The Economist had just declared was “the envy of the world” — a story most of the media buried. That mistaken belief is why swing voters chose Trump the “great businessman”:
The media's always been mad, but I've never seen it as bad as it was in the 2020s. They fought a scorched-earth war with the Biden administration for four years straight and pretty much suppressed anything that could spell good news for Biden, to the point that things like Biden capping insulin prices at $35.00 were reported as "insurance companies say they'll cap insulin prices at $35.00!" There's no bigger factor in where we are now than them.
And they continue to ignore him. No Republican US Senator attended the funeral service for the Minnesota lawmaker and her husband who were assassinated. And Trump certainly did not attend. But Joe Biden attended, as did Kamala Harris. There were some moving videos of Biden greeting people and comforting them and stopping to talk to a disabled woman. It brought me to tears. But I saw nothing in the major media outlets; all the videos I saw were from social media accounts.
Maybe because the corporate media are owned and controlled by oligarchs and ruthless conglomerates bent on favoring the monied elites by mass distribution of misinformation and outright lies? Paying the mob boss $16 million for "deceptive editing" that was nothing of the kind is a perfect example of putting profits before principles. That lawsuit was laughably frivolous, but CBS rolled over like there was anything remotely meritorious in the claims. Colbert should denounce it on the air and resign. Who needs to cling to a major network in the age of ubiquitous streaming platforms? He could write his own ticket.
Absolutely. Not to mention the incessant coverage of Biden's age, his gait, his voice, etc while giving Trump and his insane ramblings a pass. When Trump lied about not knowing anything about Project 2025 or being involved with it, the credulous media took him at his word, despite how many of his former staffers worked on it.
While saying zero about Donny Dementia’s word salad:
Mr. President, is there an expected timeframe detainees will spend here? days, weeks, months? and does that have anything to do with the immigration judges you just spoke about, being trained and staffed here?”
Donny: “what was the first part of your question?”
reporter: “is there a specific timeframe you expect the detainees to stay here? days, weeks, months?”
Donny: “in Florida?”
reporter: “yes.”
Donny: “I’m gonna spend a lot. look, this is my home state. I love it. I love your government. I love all the people around— these are all friends of mine. and they know I’m— very well. I’m not surprised that they do so well. they’re great— people. uh, Ron has been a friend of mine for a long time. I feel very comfortable in this state. I’ll spend a lot of time here.”
in the space of one second, Donny forgets what question he’s been asked, and starts improvising a nonsensical answer.
Yes. And is the media beating that economic drum now that the economy is about to hit a recession and many people will suffer? We know because we read Substack, but the corporate/billionaire media is now silent.
Also, it helps that the electorate is completely ignorant. The most common search on election day was “did Joe Biden drop out of the presidential race” you cannot govern an electorate in a democracy that is this ignorant. 48% of people don’t even know what the BBB is and only 8% understand that it’s going to cut their medical care.
But the Dems didn't understand that the media had sold out and expected it to function as a truth teller. Media organization publicly being humiliated and bending the knee to Krasnov may finally break through to them. Admittedly I am looking for the pony in a pile of horseshit.
The media would have silenced it as well. We dropped our WaPo subscription the day both Biden and Trump were in the front page. Biden was president but the American flag was behind Trump.
The mainstream media also didn’t explain that the $8.7 trillion of debt. Trump added to the economy in his first four-year term, a 40% increase lead to inflation once the economy reopens while supply chains were still screwed up. Stupid people didn’t think about that and that is why they are paying a stupidity tax.
Yes. Racism accounts for all Republican political successes since 1968. Nixon/Atwater learned from George Wallace that racist campaigns succeed all over the country, and Republican politicians have been riding that horse ever since.
Yep, I say that for all 77 million of them. You call it condescension, I call it reaching a logical conclusion based on observed conduct. As someone else posted a short while ago (I've restacked it), we are swimming in a sea of information and drowning in ignorance. We've now squarely entered the "find out" phase of FAFO, and as the very real consequences of "owning the libs" start to hit home for those 77 million (indeed, for all of us) perhaps we'll start to see a change in the voting behavior of the uneducated and the stupid ones. Perhaps. Meanwhile the evil keep running the show because the uneducated and the stupid keep reelecting them.
Undoubtedly a sure way to win people over by calling them stupid, ignorant, etc. With democrats such as yourself GOP will rule for ever. Congrats, smarty.
I think you misunderstand. There is no winning these people over with words. There is nothing you, or I, or anyone can tell them, because they are utterly convinced that they know better. They will learn only through hard, personal experence -- when they lose their medical insurance, their hospitals close, food prices go up, the economy goes into a recession, they or their kids become seriously ill for lack of vaccination, etc. No, there is no reasoning with them. Uneducated, stupid, and evil are just explanations for their behavior.
The carnival barker advertised a great freak show, sort of like the lynchings on Sunday after church. They impressed Adolf and now the Nazi version impresses chump. And around and around we go.
Propaganda is a very powerful weapon. Substandard education and a Media wasteland of Fox "News" produces a voting class happy to shoot itself in the foot.
Their lives were not improving and they thought that country was going in the wrong direction. It is very condescending to call them dumb. And it is also very stupid. Never underestimate others.
“THEY” were flat out wrong. According to the facts, period. So they are either ignorant (misinformed if you are more comfy with that adjective)or willfully ignorant . Fact is the economy was improving and better than any other country on. the. Planet.
I don’t really give a f. I may not be on cloud 9 23 hours a day but I know for a fact I am better off in America than 99% of the people living in the Gaza Strip right now. Those 77 million (and I would love to hear what Elon Musk has to say about THAT NUMBER) were deluded by right wing /corporate media and their own victim complexai. Throw in a little racism and entitlement and you got yourself a nation of whining babies.
“They” deserve everything they are about to be dished up.
Areas like SW PA, rural places are still in decline. They only relate to what they see in the world they live in and it has gone tremendously downhill from its glory days of yesteryear, much like the deep south that thought France would come to their defense again when European manufacturers moved to Egypt and India as suppliers again, I read in Empire of Cotton.
They are not stupid. They correctly perceive that their only hope of preserving the systemic legal, economic, and political advantages of white Americans is to vote for Republicans.
True, but their votes were a small fraction of the votes for Trump. Roughly 60% of white voters, including 70% of white working class voters and 80% of white evangelical voters, voted for Trump. Seems ironic that if one in three white evangelicals were decent human beings (instead if only one in five), Trump would have lost the election.
Because Biden dared try to place some regulations on the tech industry and had an actual antitrust department to go after their constant consolidation.
The media certainly sees Musk as a genius. They also playdown the insanity of his childish belief that we will be colonizing Mars in the near future, as if that goal would be more feasible than saving this planet. The media rarely challenges the assumptions behind that quest which we taxpayers will pay bigly for instead of funding silly things like public schools, health care coverage, etc. Weirdly Musk is OK with cutting scientific research except for space exploration projects that fund his company.
Mass media also built up Trump into something more than a local real estate nepo baby, Reagan into something more than a B movie actor, and generally reinforced politics as entertainment. And this was AFTER the exposure of William Randolph Hearst’s role in manipulating the US into the Spanish American War.
I think Hearst put the screws to a playwright who wrote--was it Citizen Kane?-- about him. That was in a copy of the Smithsonian recently. I hope that an internet search will explain why Hearst manipulated us into that war.
Which is why some of us will be popping corn if anything does happen. When you are so self-serving and insensitive to your fellow creatures, and forget that we are all in it together, you just don't get the supports when your luck runs out.
The idiot should know that the timeline for the sun destroying the Earth is 4 billion years. He is a different stupid than chump but did present better. And he has worked a day or two in his life, even if it was to steal from Tesla’s work.
Good comments. Many Americans think that anyone who claims to have lots of money and acts nutty is a genius. Many of the MAGA base think that Donald is a business genius. We live in a world of misinformation.
just stop the sugar-coating..it isn't misinformation, its bald faced lies..told again and again..TRUMPF IS A LIAR, lies are meant to deceive...which TRUMPF does, i sometimes wonder if he believes his own lies. you kids had better get your heads out of the clouds.. the shit is coming at you, hard and fast.
The right word is "disinformation," meaning lies deliberately told to get a certain response from the recipient of the lies. Misinformation could be a mistake, but disinformation is very, very deliberate. It's what most people think the word "propaganda" means (but propaganda can actually be true - disinformation is NEVER true).
And Musk is finding out what other businessmen who went to China 25 years ago discovered: they’ll initially work with you, learn your business, then make their own version cheaper and undercut you. My state sent an agricultural trade delegation over to China back then. Farmers were excited about the new market until four years later, when Chinese agriculturalists started producing for their own market using the techniques perfected by US farmers. Boy were our farmers mad, but it wasn’t the only instance of this happening and they should have known better. Must certainly should have known better since he is a relative Johnny come lately to China.
Musk is related to a Russian on his mother's side....a cousin of his, I believe. She's part of the new oligarchy over there and they're all neo-feudalists. I think I discovered it in a comment on here and sure enough a published article with pics in social media posts confirmed it. Perhaps the data extracted through DOGE is Musk's insurance policy with Putin if he needs to pull an 'Edward Snowden'.
Because, believe it or not, all of these people lack wisdom. A peaceful society that focused on giving security and dignity to ordinary citizens would tolerate the narcissism of overly wealthy people. But these, mostly men, want their wealth to confer unbridled power over society. The current despicable legislation is not to confer more money on the wealthy. They know they don't need it. That is the smokescreen. It is to take wealth away from the middle and working classes and thereby crush their hopes and their courage. Mitch McConnell summarized it most cogently: "They'll get over it". If the Republic somehow manages to stumble through this disaster, the best way to insure that it never happens again is to put all of this house of deplorables in jail-for a long time-as a warning to future autocratic aspirants.
More than one tech bro's fortune rests on the government's largesse. To borrow Michael Happy's phrase, "these people are malignant narcissists." To that end, each thinks he is a genius deserving of his wealth and adoration.
Has anyone listened to Ross Douthat's interview of Peter Thiel? I make myself read or listen to commentators I think are in the wrong camp and both are worthy of a measure of disagreeable-ness. But it was an engrossing if chilling conversation about how Thiel, and by probable extension his tech bro billionaires, see that the future of the world is to be carved up into fiefdoms run by them with help from AI. They have far too much influence even if they are not in the actual seats of power.
I daresay they're going to wish they had not encouraged every white male (including a lot of mentally ill men) to have one or more assault rifles. It's not going to be fun for the elite class if that group ever wakes up and realizes what their so-called "populists" (greedy bastard billionaires and politicians) have done to them.
Biden was good for Musk financially, but his administration wasn’t into promoting the tech bros as Masters of the Universe. Indeed, antitrust actions and AI regulation were on the horizon. Musk decided Trump was likely to indulge his whims to translate money into control. Musk discovered what Gandalf told Saruman about evil lords who don’t share power.
He likes to think he’s the smartest person in the room, which makes him vulnerable to his own cupidity and mendaciousness. In other words, the fucker got what he deserved. I hope to see the day when he is penniless myself. I will laugh and dance.
As far as how could Musk be so stupid, I think he really does want that Mars mission. Remember during the campaign he was always wearing that "OCCUPY MARS" shirt, and he told his fans early on that humanity would never make it to Mars if Kamala Harris got elected.
Why? The FAA permitting process had been annoying Musk during Starship development. Musk probably imagined this would get drastically worse under Harris, whereas under Trump, it might vanish completely.
Also, Trump is obviously more likely to want an expensive, symbolic Mars mission just for national pride. Kind of like a military parade.
Masked paramilitary thugs roaming the streets. Newly opened concentration camps. Suppression and criminalization of opposing viewpoints. Anyone recognize the pattern?
I DO!!!! I grew up in South Africa in the 60s ---- This is EXACTLY what we saw. Illegal unlimited arrests: no one being allowed to know what happened to that individual; The press was censored in many ways - but also could not REPORT on the illegal arrest; People were BANNED - which meant that they could not be in a 'group' of ore than two; The press again could not report that. People were DEPORTED, and also were killed - thrown out of the windows. Nelson Mandela was 'remanded; to a prison island for 27 years. The ONLY reason he was not killed was the Helen Suzman, the sole member of the Progressive Party would visit him monthly. While it was the blacks who were affected the worst (the brown people in this country) the whites were not exempt from all this (like stripping US citizens of their citizenship) As much as I try to be active and optimistic, and as much as the terrible polling about all of the issues the criminal has advanced ---- it took 40 YEARS in South Africa for real change to happen.
A fellow graduate student at that time, a white South African, was stripped of her passport by her government for her activities opposing apartheid and could not return to her own country.
I actually find some comfort in such stories as this. It was 40 years for real change to happen, and that's been the case in other countries as well. The US will probably be going rapidly down for my lifetime, but it's nice to think that sanity might return. We had a good idea with rule of law and democracy. Ideas are hard to extinguish.
By the time required for sanity to return, global warming will have shrunk the land area capable of supporting life for large mammals by enough to make battles for livable space catastrophic for Homo sapien populations.
We definitely saw it coming. Hansen published the definitive data on global warming in 1980. You and I perhaps did what we could, but the willful ignorance of the American majority ensured the failure to take effective measures against catastrophe. Might be too late now, but will surely be too late when (if ever) US voters understand their plight.
FYI. it probably will never be reported, that GULAG Trumpf visited yesterday has already been flooded, by a normal FLORIDA summer rain,,it doesn't jusr rain in south fFLORIDA..WE get torrential. tropical downpours. DESANTIS knew what florida is like in the summer..hurricanes and water..lots of it..but the s---head went ahead and built this gulag anyway..and FLORIDA TAXPYERS will pay for it and for the manintenance of it....porta toilets for 5, 000 inmates..will be dumped in the GLADES.oh, the water table in the GLADES is just a foot above sea level.
Professor Krugman: this is a real life bonfire of the vanities, except there will be (and already is) FAR MORE collateral damage to the livelihoods, health and lives of we the people.
Musk and all the other oligarchs did just fine under Obama and Biden and would have done just fine under Harris. Musk almost certainly wouldn’t have gone to jail. People with money in this country and around the globe are seldomly held accountable for crimes they commit. He would simply have been heavily fined.
Musk actively joined because of a personal issue with his transgender child. Father of the Year, this guy.
And you said you didn’t see Trumo taking businesses from a rich guy and give it to a loyalist in this country as of yet. I see it happening already.
People need to remember that the agencies and “waste” Musk supposedly “cut” wasn’t cut at all. No money was handed back to ye treasury. It is currently frozen to blackmail and extort first institutions and THEN it will head directly to people. Lawsuits that would have been considered a nuisance and 100% winnable are being settled by major media outlets with a nod to not criticize or even COVER the president in an unfavorable light.
A researcher from Hertiage said and I must paraphrase that “There is nothing special about the water in the Charles that makes people smarter. Top researchers go thee because that’s where the money is. Take the money away and they’ll go there.” Meaning take the money already granted to Harvard, MIt! Columbia, Cornell, BU, Tufts and simply hand it over to universities led by loyalists. Take taxpayer dollars and hand it to friendly religious groups (ie Christian and Catholic) to run schools and teach what you tell them. They are following the playbook of Russia and Hungary to a tee.
And considering the amount of blatant bribery, corruption and STEALING, extortion, and viscous attacks on opponents in just six months, I can’t imagine how much further we will sink. And they won’t assassinate political opponents. They don’t have to. All they need to is put out the hit and wait for some nut job to hear the call to arms. And it is not both sides. It is one violent side who knows the only way they stay in power is to lie, cheat, and use force, threats and smears.
In an interview with his transgender child in NYT, s/he revealed that s/he wasn't the cause of his swerve to the far right--that he had always been so. Quite a mature 19? year old is what I thought. The ones who rose to the top in Silicon Valley no longer have to pretend to be liberal now.
I don't see - although it's a pleasant thought - on what grounds Musk would have gone to jail under an honest regime, based on what he did before 2021. Any suggestions?
I believe it was fraud and not disclosing he was buying shares secretly beyond the limit allowed by law.
He was charged with not disclosing he was buying more tha 5% of shares in Twitter. He bought shares artificially low and basically did what all trumps friends do….screwed over other investors to benefit himself.
He could also have been in hot water for buying votes in PA.
But I guess he doesn’t have to worry now. All it cost him was a rounding error in campaign contributions and completely destroying the tech apparatus of the government and handing over privileged information to Voyght to use as blackmail and extortion for the next…I dunno…forever.
Spot on as usual, Dr Krugman. Nothing good coming from this as it shows just how impotent even the richest oligarchs are when up against even a fledgling oligarchy. This should scare the hell out of anyone given the road we are on.
I think it already has scared the hell out of business leaders. They are being damaged, right left and center with only whispers to be heard. Look how quick big legal firms were to capitulate.
Red Notice and Freezing Order. Browder nails the rise and fall and re-rise of the oligarchs in Russia. One other big takeaway from those books is for citizens to beware of being 'gifted' shares of the country's commons and then being encouraged to sell them cheaply in a 'marketplace' where the shares are snapped up by the favored oligarchs. Goodbye US national lands and resources if that happens.
Yeah, I gave my Soldiers a tour of Gettysburg a few years ago, and as I pointed out to them: essential though Chamberlain's actions were at Gettysburg, and as deserving of the Medal of Honor as they were, they were nowhere near the bravest nor most superhuman things he did in uniform. And wonderful though his deeds in uniform were, they were nowhere near the bravery he showed facing down a mob on the steps of Maine's Capitol. It is a travesty that we didn't rename Bragg for the guy.
That DT missive was far too coherent to have been actually written by Trump. I will bet it was done by Stephen Miller, who has one very serious bone to pick wth Musk.
And, I don't think Musk really realized how bat-shit crazy these people are when he threw in with them. He knows now, so I wonder if that changes any part of the equation.
To some extent, he does. He was able to cut transmissions to Ukraine in the early stages of that war because he didn't want them to use the system to guide their drones.
Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao...they have the ability to make people believe they are on their side and against their enemies. Personal charisma.
The Economist told about interviewing Trump before the 2016 election and they wondered which was the real Trump. The charming man they talked to in his penthouse who seemed so reasonable, or the maniac they heard on the campaign trail.
These terrible villains of history have the ability to make person after person believe in them, even with ample evidence that they aren't to be trusted.
They love their wizard because they share his white supremacist beliefs and deeply appreciate his unabashed willingness to take actions grounded in those beliefs.
This is the inevitable consequence of two people who team up when they are both very weak, insecure people whose only competence is getting people to pay attention.
Amazing how many of the rich forget whose money made them rich. Maybe boycotts of sports, movies, online sellers, and streamers will remind them. Better to sacrifice things we don’t need than have things we need (accessible health care) disrupted or taken away.
Absolutely. The only power we have left may be to refuse to play. Stop buying from any entity who enables Trump. Bezos and Musk and the TechBoys may be individually above boycotts, but the systems they created are dependent on players with money (i.e., the public).
The progression from marches, to boycotts, to one day general strikes, to multi day general strikes, to passive aggressive non-participation in all types of societal activities . . . may be necessary in light of the surrender of the courts, the Congress, American business leaders.
We may be forced to withdraw - our money, our time, our involvement, our commitment.
Nothing would please the right more than violence in the streets - all too many of them are itching to unlimber their assault rifles . . .
I talked to my great grandmother about the battle of Gettysburg. She was there and 9 at the time. She and her brothers hid in the basement during the battle. There was still a cannon ball embedded in the wall of the barn when I last visited. There is much she would not tell me, but she was in her 90s at the time and did cry when she told me she had uncles who died on both sides of the war and that she had to put flowers on both sets of graves. Brother fought brother was true... The one clear statement she made is that the locals spent 9 months burying the dead soldiers and horses and that it stank terribly the whole time.
tRump is a nearly pure state machine in his deal making. He only cares about what he wants and will discard all promises once he has what he wants. He does remember and act on all things that oppose or hurt him. On those he takes revenge without mercy.
Giving tRump what he wants gains you nothing after he has what he wants!!!
All the "negotiation" with universities and law firms are all about tRump gaining control. His only negotiating model is "I win; you lose." All negotiations get forced into that model. He will not honor any promises he makes to get what he wants.
Musk did very well indeed under Biden. The IRA subsidized his factories, consumer tax rebates juiced car sales, and satellite launches puffed SpaceX.
And then he put all of his accumulated political capital, and nearly $300 million in cash to propel Trump/GOP to victory...just so they could throw him under the bus and strip him of all the goodies the Dems had showered on him. 20/20 hindsight notwithstanding, how could he have been so fricking stupid?
Nub.....How could 77 million people be that dumb too? Their lives were improving under Biden and then they got mesmerized again by the worlds greatest conman and threw their vote to him.
Why? The mainstream media constantly told the public that inflation was really bad and used the price of eggs to illustrate that “fact”. They kept that narrative up even after inflation was returning to normal levels. I believe the reason the media buried good economic news was that information debunked their strong belief that we would have to have a serious recession to get inflation under control as Larry Summers and other austerity proponents had claimed. This is the same media that has refused for decades to admit that the economy does better under Democrats and that Republicans repeatedly have exploded the deficit/debt with their unproductive tax cuts for the rich. Confirmation bias is powerful.
Post election polls of swing voters showed the vast majority of voters were unaware that the US had the world’s best economy with the best job market in over 50 years and wages outpacing inflation, with the biggest gains going to the lowest incomes. Many told pollsters that although they were personally doing well financially and their regions were too, the national economy was really bad. Exit polls showed that a whopping 67% percent of voters thought the economy was bad. That is the same economy that The Economist had just declared was “the envy of the world” — a story most of the media buried. That mistaken belief is why swing voters chose Trump the “great businessman”:
“I Blame the Media”
https://criticalread.substack.com/p/i-blame-the-media
Yep.
The media's always been mad, but I've never seen it as bad as it was in the 2020s. They fought a scorched-earth war with the Biden administration for four years straight and pretty much suppressed anything that could spell good news for Biden, to the point that things like Biden capping insulin prices at $35.00 were reported as "insurance companies say they'll cap insulin prices at $35.00!" There's no bigger factor in where we are now than them.
And they continue to ignore him. No Republican US Senator attended the funeral service for the Minnesota lawmaker and her husband who were assassinated. And Trump certainly did not attend. But Joe Biden attended, as did Kamala Harris. There were some moving videos of Biden greeting people and comforting them and stopping to talk to a disabled woman. It brought me to tears. But I saw nothing in the major media outlets; all the videos I saw were from social media accounts.
Maybe because the corporate media are owned and controlled by oligarchs and ruthless conglomerates bent on favoring the monied elites by mass distribution of misinformation and outright lies? Paying the mob boss $16 million for "deceptive editing" that was nothing of the kind is a perfect example of putting profits before principles. That lawsuit was laughably frivolous, but CBS rolled over like there was anything remotely meritorious in the claims. Colbert should denounce it on the air and resign. Who needs to cling to a major network in the age of ubiquitous streaming platforms? He could write his own ticket.
Absolutely. Not to mention the incessant coverage of Biden's age, his gait, his voice, etc while giving Trump and his insane ramblings a pass. When Trump lied about not knowing anything about Project 2025 or being involved with it, the credulous media took him at his word, despite how many of his former staffers worked on it.
While saying zero about Donny Dementia’s word salad:
Mr. President, is there an expected timeframe detainees will spend here? days, weeks, months? and does that have anything to do with the immigration judges you just spoke about, being trained and staffed here?”
Donny: “what was the first part of your question?”
reporter: “is there a specific timeframe you expect the detainees to stay here? days, weeks, months?”
Donny: “in Florida?”
reporter: “yes.”
Donny: “I’m gonna spend a lot. look, this is my home state. I love it. I love your government. I love all the people around— these are all friends of mine. and they know I’m— very well. I’m not surprised that they do so well. they’re great— people. uh, Ron has been a friend of mine for a long time. I feel very comfortable in this state. I’ll spend a lot of time here.”
in the space of one second, Donny forgets what question he’s been asked, and starts improvising a nonsensical answer.
Yes. And is the media beating that economic drum now that the economy is about to hit a recession and many people will suffer? We know because we read Substack, but the corporate/billionaire media is now silent.
Also, it helps that the electorate is completely ignorant. The most common search on election day was “did Joe Biden drop out of the presidential race” you cannot govern an electorate in a democracy that is this ignorant. 48% of people don’t even know what the BBB is and only 8% understand that it’s going to cut their medical care.
That is also the Dems failure to make their case and foolishly expecting the media to do it for them.
Good luck getting anybody to hear your case when the media's determined not to report it.
At a certain point, you have to stop blaming the people that the system is rigged against for not un-rigging it.
But the Dems didn't understand that the media had sold out and expected it to function as a truth teller. Media organization publicly being humiliated and bending the knee to Krasnov may finally break through to them. Admittedly I am looking for the pony in a pile of horseshit.
The major fault is that of a media which claimed to be independent but was not.
The media would have silenced it as well. We dropped our WaPo subscription the day both Biden and Trump were in the front page. Biden was president but the American flag was behind Trump.
The mainstream media also didn’t explain that the $8.7 trillion of debt. Trump added to the economy in his first four-year term, a 40% increase lead to inflation once the economy reopens while supply chains were still screwed up. Stupid people didn’t think about that and that is why they are paying a stupidity tax.
Good analysis. Thanks for the link.
Racism is the elephant in the room. And they'll burn society to the ground to avoid civil rights and equality.
Yes. Racism accounts for all Republican political successes since 1968. Nixon/Atwater learned from George Wallace that racist campaigns succeed all over the country, and Republican politicians have been riding that horse ever since.
They are (1) stupid, (2) uneducated, (3) fundamentally bad people, or (4) some combination of the above.
They are all three at the same time. Particularly fundamentally bad people.
You say that for 77 mill Americans. What does that make you? I would say a condescending … (add the word).
Yep, I say that for all 77 million of them. You call it condescension, I call it reaching a logical conclusion based on observed conduct. As someone else posted a short while ago (I've restacked it), we are swimming in a sea of information and drowning in ignorance. We've now squarely entered the "find out" phase of FAFO, and as the very real consequences of "owning the libs" start to hit home for those 77 million (indeed, for all of us) perhaps we'll start to see a change in the voting behavior of the uneducated and the stupid ones. Perhaps. Meanwhile the evil keep running the show because the uneducated and the stupid keep reelecting them.
Undoubtedly a sure way to win people over by calling them stupid, ignorant, etc. With democrats such as yourself GOP will rule for ever. Congrats, smarty.
I think you misunderstand. There is no winning these people over with words. There is nothing you, or I, or anyone can tell them, because they are utterly convinced that they know better. They will learn only through hard, personal experence -- when they lose their medical insurance, their hospitals close, food prices go up, the economy goes into a recession, they or their kids become seriously ill for lack of vaccination, etc. No, there is no reasoning with them. Uneducated, stupid, and evil are just explanations for their behavior.
Throw in some Evangelicals while you're at it.
The carnival barker advertised a great freak show, sort of like the lynchings on Sunday after church. They impressed Adolf and now the Nazi version impresses chump. And around and around we go.
Propaganda is a very powerful weapon. Substandard education and a Media wasteland of Fox "News" produces a voting class happy to shoot itself in the foot.
Their lives were not improving and they thought that country was going in the wrong direction. It is very condescending to call them dumb. And it is also very stupid. Never underestimate others.
“THEY” were flat out wrong. According to the facts, period. So they are either ignorant (misinformed if you are more comfy with that adjective)or willfully ignorant . Fact is the economy was improving and better than any other country on. the. Planet.
Those are the FACTS.
Have you heard of inequality?
Have you heard of capitalism?
Adam Smith, anyone? Just for a starter.
Not for everyone obviously. You have no idea what the lives of many of those 77 mill looked like.
I don’t really give a f. I may not be on cloud 9 23 hours a day but I know for a fact I am better off in America than 99% of the people living in the Gaza Strip right now. Those 77 million (and I would love to hear what Elon Musk has to say about THAT NUMBER) were deluded by right wing /corporate media and their own victim complexai. Throw in a little racism and entitlement and you got yourself a nation of whining babies.
“They” deserve everything they are about to be dished up.
Areas like SW PA, rural places are still in decline. They only relate to what they see in the world they live in and it has gone tremendously downhill from its glory days of yesteryear, much like the deep south that thought France would come to their defense again when European manufacturers moved to Egypt and India as suppliers again, I read in Empire of Cotton.
lol huh?
They are not stupid. They correctly perceive that their only hope of preserving the systemic legal, economic, and political advantages of white Americans is to vote for Republicans.
That doesn’t explain the Hispanic and black male vote, however.
True, but their votes were a small fraction of the votes for Trump. Roughly 60% of white voters, including 70% of white working class voters and 80% of white evangelical voters, voted for Trump. Seems ironic that if one in three white evangelicals were decent human beings (instead if only one in five), Trump would have lost the election.
Regardless, he made significant progress with both groups.
And after he gave us 15% Trump unemployment and the highest death toll per capita on earth. MAGA TRASH ARE WILLFULLY IGNORANT, AND HAVE AMNESIA.
Because Biden dared try to place some regulations on the tech industry and had an actual antitrust department to go after their constant consolidation.
Because he is, in fact, a very stupid man with money who has been led to believe, by people who needed his money, that he is a genius.
The media certainly sees Musk as a genius. They also playdown the insanity of his childish belief that we will be colonizing Mars in the near future, as if that goal would be more feasible than saving this planet. The media rarely challenges the assumptions behind that quest which we taxpayers will pay bigly for instead of funding silly things like public schools, health care coverage, etc. Weirdly Musk is OK with cutting scientific research except for space exploration projects that fund his company.
Mass media also built up Trump into something more than a local real estate nepo baby, Reagan into something more than a B movie actor, and generally reinforced politics as entertainment. And this was AFTER the exposure of William Randolph Hearst’s role in manipulating the US into the Spanish American War.
I think Hearst put the screws to a playwright who wrote--was it Citizen Kane?-- about him. That was in a copy of the Smithsonian recently. I hope that an internet search will explain why Hearst manipulated us into that war.
Which is why some of us will be popping corn if anything does happen. When you are so self-serving and insensitive to your fellow creatures, and forget that we are all in it together, you just don't get the supports when your luck runs out.
The idiot should know that the timeline for the sun destroying the Earth is 4 billion years. He is a different stupid than chump but did present better. And he has worked a day or two in his life, even if it was to steal from Tesla’s work.
Will anyone hold Walter Isaacson to account for writing a hagiography of Musk, as well as other journalists who helped to sell the myth of Musk?
Do you still believe what media is saying? That would be very naive.
Not to mention all the green tech subsidies that Obama gave him. Without Obama, MuskRat would have slinked back to Swaziland long ago.
To answer your last question: MuskRat isn't the genius he thinks he is, and that he's all too often made out to be. Not even close.
Good comments. Many Americans think that anyone who claims to have lots of money and acts nutty is a genius. Many of the MAGA base think that Donald is a business genius. We live in a world of misinformation.
Have a nice July 4th.
just stop the sugar-coating..it isn't misinformation, its bald faced lies..told again and again..TRUMPF IS A LIAR, lies are meant to deceive...which TRUMPF does, i sometimes wonder if he believes his own lies. you kids had better get your heads out of the clouds.. the shit is coming at you, hard and fast.
The right word is "disinformation," meaning lies deliberately told to get a certain response from the recipient of the lies. Misinformation could be a mistake, but disinformation is very, very deliberate. It's what most people think the word "propaganda" means (but propaganda can actually be true - disinformation is NEVER true).
And Musk is finding out what other businessmen who went to China 25 years ago discovered: they’ll initially work with you, learn your business, then make their own version cheaper and undercut you. My state sent an agricultural trade delegation over to China back then. Farmers were excited about the new market until four years later, when Chinese agriculturalists started producing for their own market using the techniques perfected by US farmers. Boy were our farmers mad, but it wasn’t the only instance of this happening and they should have known better. Must certainly should have known better since he is a relative Johnny come lately to China.
Just for the record, we've done the same thing on occasion. See under Lowell, Power Loom.
Biden should have nationalized Starlink when Musk cut its use by Ukraine in deference to Putin.
Individuals do not take state actions on Foreign policy
Musk is related to a Russian on his mother's side....a cousin of his, I believe. She's part of the new oligarchy over there and they're all neo-feudalists. I think I discovered it in a comment on here and sure enough a published article with pics in social media posts confirmed it. Perhaps the data extracted through DOGE is Musk's insurance policy with Putin if he needs to pull an 'Edward Snowden'.
Because, believe it or not, all of these people lack wisdom. A peaceful society that focused on giving security and dignity to ordinary citizens would tolerate the narcissism of overly wealthy people. But these, mostly men, want their wealth to confer unbridled power over society. The current despicable legislation is not to confer more money on the wealthy. They know they don't need it. That is the smokescreen. It is to take wealth away from the middle and working classes and thereby crush their hopes and their courage. Mitch McConnell summarized it most cogently: "They'll get over it". If the Republic somehow manages to stumble through this disaster, the best way to insure that it never happens again is to put all of this house of deplorables in jail-for a long time-as a warning to future autocratic aspirants.
It's the ketamine. Then and now.
More than one tech bro's fortune rests on the government's largesse. To borrow Michael Happy's phrase, "these people are malignant narcissists." To that end, each thinks he is a genius deserving of his wealth and adoration.
Has anyone listened to Ross Douthat's interview of Peter Thiel? I make myself read or listen to commentators I think are in the wrong camp and both are worthy of a measure of disagreeable-ness. But it was an engrossing if chilling conversation about how Thiel, and by probable extension his tech bro billionaires, see that the future of the world is to be carved up into fiefdoms run by them with help from AI. They have far too much influence even if they are not in the actual seats of power.
I daresay they're going to wish they had not encouraged every white male (including a lot of mentally ill men) to have one or more assault rifles. It's not going to be fun for the elite class if that group ever wakes up and realizes what their so-called "populists" (greedy bastard billionaires and politicians) have done to them.
We may be seeing the dawn of the "New Medieval Period"....one of Tech Kings and serfs, with roving bands of "knights" creating mayhem to keep order.
Pride cometh before the fall.
"how could he have been so fricking stupid?"
Because, aside from being fairly smart (and lucky) at business, Musk is pretty stupid in every other way.
EVERYTHING TRUMP TOUCHES DIES - EVERYTHING
Biden was good for Musk financially, but his administration wasn’t into promoting the tech bros as Masters of the Universe. Indeed, antitrust actions and AI regulation were on the horizon. Musk decided Trump was likely to indulge his whims to translate money into control. Musk discovered what Gandalf told Saruman about evil lords who don’t share power.
Paraphrasing Rick James, ketamine's a helluva drug (and narcissism a helluva personality disorder!)
He likes to think he’s the smartest person in the room, which makes him vulnerable to his own cupidity and mendaciousness. In other words, the fucker got what he deserved. I hope to see the day when he is penniless myself. I will laugh and dance.
As far as how could Musk be so stupid, I think he really does want that Mars mission. Remember during the campaign he was always wearing that "OCCUPY MARS" shirt, and he told his fans early on that humanity would never make it to Mars if Kamala Harris got elected.
Why? The FAA permitting process had been annoying Musk during Starship development. Musk probably imagined this would get drastically worse under Harris, whereas under Trump, it might vanish completely.
Also, Trump is obviously more likely to want an expensive, symbolic Mars mission just for national pride. Kind of like a military parade.
A “genius”, he is not.
Masked paramilitary thugs roaming the streets. Newly opened concentration camps. Suppression and criminalization of opposing viewpoints. Anyone recognize the pattern?
I DO!!!! I grew up in South Africa in the 60s ---- This is EXACTLY what we saw. Illegal unlimited arrests: no one being allowed to know what happened to that individual; The press was censored in many ways - but also could not REPORT on the illegal arrest; People were BANNED - which meant that they could not be in a 'group' of ore than two; The press again could not report that. People were DEPORTED, and also were killed - thrown out of the windows. Nelson Mandela was 'remanded; to a prison island for 27 years. The ONLY reason he was not killed was the Helen Suzman, the sole member of the Progressive Party would visit him monthly. While it was the blacks who were affected the worst (the brown people in this country) the whites were not exempt from all this (like stripping US citizens of their citizenship) As much as I try to be active and optimistic, and as much as the terrible polling about all of the issues the criminal has advanced ---- it took 40 YEARS in South Africa for real change to happen.
A fellow graduate student at that time, a white South African, was stripped of her passport by her government for her activities opposing apartheid and could not return to her own country.
Thanks for your comment. 40 years! Americans don’t have a clue how long it will take For things to change.
I actually find some comfort in such stories as this. It was 40 years for real change to happen, and that's been the case in other countries as well. The US will probably be going rapidly down for my lifetime, but it's nice to think that sanity might return. We had a good idea with rule of law and democracy. Ideas are hard to extinguish.
By the time required for sanity to return, global warming will have shrunk the land area capable of supporting life for large mammals by enough to make battles for livable space catastrophic for Homo sapien populations.
Can't say we didn't see this coming and did nothing about it.
We definitely saw it coming. Hansen published the definitive data on global warming in 1980. You and I perhaps did what we could, but the willful ignorance of the American majority ensured the failure to take effective measures against catastrophe. Might be too late now, but will surely be too late when (if ever) US voters understand their plight.
There is no point waking up I guess. We should all just let the US destroy itself. This country is beyond hope.
And where is our Nelson Mandela?
Things still haven't improved much. South Africa is not your average EU democracy.
FYI. it probably will never be reported, that GULAG Trumpf visited yesterday has already been flooded, by a normal FLORIDA summer rain,,it doesn't jusr rain in south fFLORIDA..WE get torrential. tropical downpours. DESANTIS knew what florida is like in the summer..hurricanes and water..lots of it..but the s---head went ahead and built this gulag anyway..and FLORIDA TAXPYERS will pay for it and for the manintenance of it....porta toilets for 5, 000 inmates..will be dumped in the GLADES.oh, the water table in the GLADES is just a foot above sea level.
Professor Krugman: this is a real life bonfire of the vanities, except there will be (and already is) FAR MORE collateral damage to the livelihoods, health and lives of we the people.
>Beyond that, even great wealth offers little protection from the people in power under an authoritarian regime.<
Yep. Ever hear of Jack Ma?
The smug stupidity of the hyper rich truly is something to behold.
Musk and all the other oligarchs did just fine under Obama and Biden and would have done just fine under Harris. Musk almost certainly wouldn’t have gone to jail. People with money in this country and around the globe are seldomly held accountable for crimes they commit. He would simply have been heavily fined.
Musk actively joined because of a personal issue with his transgender child. Father of the Year, this guy.
And you said you didn’t see Trumo taking businesses from a rich guy and give it to a loyalist in this country as of yet. I see it happening already.
People need to remember that the agencies and “waste” Musk supposedly “cut” wasn’t cut at all. No money was handed back to ye treasury. It is currently frozen to blackmail and extort first institutions and THEN it will head directly to people. Lawsuits that would have been considered a nuisance and 100% winnable are being settled by major media outlets with a nod to not criticize or even COVER the president in an unfavorable light.
A researcher from Hertiage said and I must paraphrase that “There is nothing special about the water in the Charles that makes people smarter. Top researchers go thee because that’s where the money is. Take the money away and they’ll go there.” Meaning take the money already granted to Harvard, MIt! Columbia, Cornell, BU, Tufts and simply hand it over to universities led by loyalists. Take taxpayer dollars and hand it to friendly religious groups (ie Christian and Catholic) to run schools and teach what you tell them. They are following the playbook of Russia and Hungary to a tee.
And considering the amount of blatant bribery, corruption and STEALING, extortion, and viscous attacks on opponents in just six months, I can’t imagine how much further we will sink. And they won’t assassinate political opponents. They don’t have to. All they need to is put out the hit and wait for some nut job to hear the call to arms. And it is not both sides. It is one violent side who knows the only way they stay in power is to lie, cheat, and use force, threats and smears.
In an interview with his transgender child in NYT, s/he revealed that s/he wasn't the cause of his swerve to the far right--that he had always been so. Quite a mature 19? year old is what I thought. The ones who rose to the top in Silicon Valley no longer have to pretend to be liberal now.
I don't see - although it's a pleasant thought - on what grounds Musk would have gone to jail under an honest regime, based on what he did before 2021. Any suggestions?
I believe it was fraud and not disclosing he was buying shares secretly beyond the limit allowed by law.
He was charged with not disclosing he was buying more tha 5% of shares in Twitter. He bought shares artificially low and basically did what all trumps friends do….screwed over other investors to benefit himself.
He could also have been in hot water for buying votes in PA.
But I guess he doesn’t have to worry now. All it cost him was a rounding error in campaign contributions and completely destroying the tech apparatus of the government and handing over privileged information to Voyght to use as blackmail and extortion for the next…I dunno…forever.
Spot on as usual, Dr Krugman. Nothing good coming from this as it shows just how impotent even the richest oligarchs are when up against even a fledgling oligarchy. This should scare the hell out of anyone given the road we are on.
I think it already has scared the hell out of business leaders. They are being damaged, right left and center with only whispers to be heard. Look how quick big legal firms were to capitulate.
Red Notice by Bill Browder is another book about Putin and the oligarchs that helped make him. Lot of lessons for American oligarchs.
Red Notice and Freezing Order. Browder nails the rise and fall and re-rise of the oligarchs in Russia. One other big takeaway from those books is for citizens to beware of being 'gifted' shares of the country's commons and then being encouraged to sell them cheaply in a 'marketplace' where the shares are snapped up by the favored oligarchs. Goodbye US national lands and resources if that happens.
The part of the BBB referencing the selling of public lands was scrapped due to the influence of voter/donors? that like to hunt on public land.
Elon needs to read the book FOR SURE!
Not sure Elum reads books. Definitely not a reader of books.
If he did read it, he should pay close attention to what happened to Mikhael Khordovsky or Boris Berezovsky.
Mush wants to go to Mars.
Can we send him now?
Pity we couldn't have sent him in January.
January 2024.
Yeah, I gave my Soldiers a tour of Gettysburg a few years ago, and as I pointed out to them: essential though Chamberlain's actions were at Gettysburg, and as deserving of the Medal of Honor as they were, they were nowhere near the bravest nor most superhuman things he did in uniform. And wonderful though his deeds in uniform were, they were nowhere near the bravery he showed facing down a mob on the steps of Maine's Capitol. It is a travesty that we didn't rename Bragg for the guy.
Well, the headquarters of the Maine National Guard is named for him. Best one can expect, I guess.
That DT missive was far too coherent to have been actually written by Trump. I will bet it was done by Stephen Miller, who has one very serious bone to pick wth Musk.
And, I don't think Musk really realized how bat-shit crazy these people are when he threw in with them. He knows now, so I wonder if that changes any part of the equation.
My thought, too, that Trump did not write that post.
does MUSK control all those sattelites he put up there?
To some extent, he does. He was able to cut transmissions to Ukraine in the early stages of that war because he didn't want them to use the system to guide their drones.
Trump being Trump. Befriend someone. Use them. Use them up. Blame them. Cast them aside. Destroy them (zealously).
Why his political allies d’jour reuse to see this and pledge their allegiance is amazing. Yet they keep taking jobs ignoring what they have to know.
It is the same for the MAGA true believers. As he literally takes money from their pockets and hands it to fellow billionaires, they refuse to see.
Even though the curtain was pulled back long ago, they refuse to see.
They love their Wizard. Inexplicably.
"Trump being Trump. Befriend someone. Use them. Use them up. Blame them. Cast them aside. Destroy them (zealously)."
You'd think people would catch on and avoid Trump like the plague, but no, they think it won't happen to them.
It does. It happens to all of them.
Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao...they have the ability to make people believe they are on their side and against their enemies. Personal charisma.
The Economist told about interviewing Trump before the 2016 election and they wondered which was the real Trump. The charming man they talked to in his penthouse who seemed so reasonable, or the maniac they heard on the campaign trail.
These terrible villains of history have the ability to make person after person believe in them, even with ample evidence that they aren't to be trusted.
The guy's a sociopath.
They love their wizard because they share his white supremacist beliefs and deeply appreciate his unabashed willingness to take actions grounded in those beliefs.
As long as Donald skates by, I don't know how much schadenfreude I can feel here.
This is the inevitable consequence of two people who team up when they are both very weak, insecure people whose only competence is getting people to pay attention.
Amazing how many of the rich forget whose money made them rich. Maybe boycotts of sports, movies, online sellers, and streamers will remind them. Better to sacrifice things we don’t need than have things we need (accessible health care) disrupted or taken away.
Absolutely. The only power we have left may be to refuse to play. Stop buying from any entity who enables Trump. Bezos and Musk and the TechBoys may be individually above boycotts, but the systems they created are dependent on players with money (i.e., the public).
The progression from marches, to boycotts, to one day general strikes, to multi day general strikes, to passive aggressive non-participation in all types of societal activities . . . may be necessary in light of the surrender of the courts, the Congress, American business leaders.
We may be forced to withdraw - our money, our time, our involvement, our commitment.
Nothing would please the right more than violence in the streets - all too many of them are itching to unlimber their assault rifles . . .
But you can’t shoot passive aggression.
I have stopped using Amazon.
I talked to my great grandmother about the battle of Gettysburg. She was there and 9 at the time. She and her brothers hid in the basement during the battle. There was still a cannon ball embedded in the wall of the barn when I last visited. There is much she would not tell me, but she was in her 90s at the time and did cry when she told me she had uncles who died on both sides of the war and that she had to put flowers on both sets of graves. Brother fought brother was true... The one clear statement she made is that the locals spent 9 months burying the dead soldiers and horses and that it stank terribly the whole time.
Re: Gettysburg and Chamberlain
"Now we'll see how professors fight."
I hope Harvard had its own "Chamberlin Moment" under Trump's attacks.
tRump is a nearly pure state machine in his deal making. He only cares about what he wants and will discard all promises once he has what he wants. He does remember and act on all things that oppose or hurt him. On those he takes revenge without mercy.
Giving tRump what he wants gains you nothing after he has what he wants!!!
All the "negotiation" with universities and law firms are all about tRump gaining control. His only negotiating model is "I win; you lose." All negotiations get forced into that model. He will not honor any promises he makes to get what he wants.