IT'S GETTING HARDER AND HARDER TO DEFEND ELON MUSK

 Two days ago marked the one year anniversary of my getting a Tesla.  I was planning to blog about this by saying how much I loved the car, with all its high tech doo dads like auto steering and doggy mode.  And how I was able to easily travel from San Francisco to Los Angeles and Las Vegas  without a problem thanks to the many readily available high speed charging stations there are.  Plus I also wanted to mention how much I don't miss stopping at gas stations.  (I never knew how much I hated the smell of gasoline until I didn't have to inhale it anymore!)

Yes, I was ready to talk about all of that.  And then Tesla CEO Elon Musk responded to a tweet a few days ago.  Now I've already blogged about my feelings about Musk way back in 2021 (you can read that here), but at that time he seemed just another unlikeable billionaire.  But then in October of 2022, just a month before I got the Tesla that I ordered, Musk bought the social media site Twitter and his extreme views started trickling out as the company floundered under his erratic control.  From changing its name to X, to going back and forth on charging for blue verification boxes, his unruly leadership may have reduced the company's value by as much as 90% according to Fortune magazine.

This all came to a head when a November 15th post from some fool named The Artist Formerly Known as Eric said:  "Okay.  Jewish communties(sic.) have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.   I'm deeply disinterested in giving the tiniest shit now about western Jewish populations coming to the disturbing realization that those hordes of minorities that support flooding their country don't exactly like them too much. You want truth said to your face, there it is."  Musk responded the same day with "You have said the actual truth."  With that one simple phrase, Musk is endorsing one of the most insidious anti Semitic conspiracy theories out there, known as The Great Replacement Theory.  It claims that a wealthy Jewish cabal support replacing white people with minorities all over the Western world.  This wasn't the first time that Musk seemed to flirt with anti Semitism, as he has defended the surge in anti Semitic posts that have appeared on X since he took over by criticizing the  human rights group the Anti-Defamation League for mentioning that surge.  He's even threatened to sue them.

But this time he has gone too far, and the fallout out from his offensive endorsement has been swift, with companies like IBM and Apple pulling their advertising from the already reeling X.  But the sad fact of the matter is that, in the long run, none of this will really matter to Musk.  Oh sure, he may be humiliated if X goes bankrupt, as it appears it may, but he will always be one of the richest men on the planet, and his other companies will always generate revenue for him.  Just look at Space X: as the New York Times has pointed out, even as the Joe Biden administration has condemned  Musk's views, the government has just confirmed that they will give over a billion dollars to Space X for launching Pentagon satellites next year.  The sad fact of the  matter is that Space X has a virtual monopoly on valuable satellites and is a privately held company, giving Musk a stranglehold on space exploration that the government won't be able to break anytime soon. So no matter how offensive Musk's views are, he will never face any real fall out from them.

In a way, Musk represents the problem with raw capitalism: here is a man who holds no political office but, through the sheer power of wealth, holds sway over every American citizen (and pretty much everyone in the world).  He's the living embodiment of our need for a wealth tax, but that's a pipe dream.  And shaming him doesn't seem likely to phase him.   Dustin Moskovitz, a co founder of Facebook, has called for him to resign "from everything", a sentiment that I agree with, but what good will it do?

Which brings us back to me and my Tesla. Is it wrong for me to keep it given what Musk has endorsed? Trading my car in for a different model would be a hassle, and I do love it. So I've decided to keep it for now, hoping that the Tesla company, (which unlike Space X is not privately owned) might be able to force Musk out.  (The possible belly flop that the upcoming Tesla Cybertruck could take might also do the trick).  If I could get in a time machine, I'd go back and buy a Polestar instead of a Tesla, but for now, I seem to be stuck  in the odd position of loving my car and hating the leader of the company that makes it.

IS TRUMP GOING FULL ON FASCIST?

                        ver·min

/ˈvərmən/

noun

1. wild animals that are believed to be harmful to crops, farm animals, or game, or that carry disease, e.g., rodents.

   • parasitic worms or insects.

     "his clothes are infested with vermin"
   • people perceived as despicable and as causing problems for the rest of society.

     "the vermin who ransacked her house"

         

Last Saturday,  during a speech that was supposed to be about Veteran's Day, former President Donald Trump said this "In honor of our great Veterans on Veteran’s Day, we pledge to you that we will root out the Communists, Marxists, Fascists, and Radical Left Thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our Country, lie, steal, and cheat on Elections, and will do anything possible, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America, and the American Dream."  He posted the same words later on social media.  This is important in that this was not one of his infamous ad libs, this was a definite message that was crafted  beforehand for him to announce in a holiday speech.  In other words, this is the message he and his advisors wanted to make.  To make matters worse, when his reference to calling political opponents "vermin" clearly seemed to echo the kind of arguments of former fascist dictators like Adolph Hitler and Benito Mussolini,  Trump Campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said, “Those who try to make that ridiculous assertion are clearly snowflakes grasping for anything because they are suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome, and their sad, miserable existence will be crushed when President Trump returns to the White House.”  Not exactly the most reassuring words coming from someone who advises the man who may be the next president.

And he's not just saying these things, his advisors have said that if he wins, he  plans to purge the federal government of any workers that he deems not sufficiently loyal.  Then he wants to use the justice department as his personal hit squad against  any of his political opponents.  He has already pledged to go after the "Biden crime family" even though he won't say what for, or how his administration would somehow find crimes committed by the Bidens that the House of Representatives hasn't been able to find in their own impeachment inquiry into President Biden.  Again, it's not even about successful prosecutions, it's about hurting anyone who disagrees with him, despite political disagreements being one of the cornerstones of any democracy.  But then, he just wants to be a fascist dictator anyway.

And then there's his plans for immigration: Trump's attempt to carry out mass deportations as president was mostly thwarted by courts and lack of enforcement.  But he and his cohorts plan to come out running if he wins, with head immigration advisor (and famously xenophobic bigot) Stephen Miller hoping to have a conservative supreme court allow the Trump administration to use not only  Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents but allow the police and the national guard to conduct raids on businesses hiring undocumented immigrants.  The immigrants would then be placed in camps on the border and then mass deported by the millions.  Trump also wants to end birthright citizenship (which is in the constitution, but he doesn't care) and perhaps even bring back the unpopular child separation  policy  at the border and revive his Muslim ban.  The justification for all this is that the second Trump administration would be doing what President Dwight Eisenhower did back in the 1950's when a mass deportation of undocumented immigrants was public policy.  What the Trump people  leave out is that Operation Wetback (yes, it was really called that!) was infamous for its brutality, with over 80 deportees dying from being left without food or water in staggering heat.

This would all be morally reprehensible, with terrible conditions being enforced, families being torn apart, and inevitably American citizens regularly being targeted by authorities and even being wrongly swept up into the camps.  It would also devastate the economy, with numerous companies losing thousands of workers all at once.   But it would also play into the hatred of immigrants (especially the ones from Mexico) that have driven Trump's base since day one.

None of this is new, Trump has had fascist tendencies since the very beginning, as he has praised undemocratic leaders like Vladimir Putin and Kin Jong Un because he sees them as "strong" instead of brutal dictators that censor unfavorable media and  have their political opponents killed.  The difference was that in his first term Trump tried to be a fascist and was blocked by laws and members of his own administration.  If he gets a second term, the conservative supreme court he created and the sycophants he will surround himself with will remove most of those blockades.   In other words, saying that American democracy is at stake in the next election is not just a campaign slogan, it's the truth.

IS AMERICA REALLY GOING TO ELECT TRUMP AGAIN?

 

All recent polls of the highly likely rematch between Donald Trump and Joe Biden show that President Biden may be in big trouble.  In crucial swing states, Trump is beating Biden, with voters trusting Trump more on the economy and thinking that Biden is too old.  Trump even may be eating away at the usual big lead that Democrats have with minority voters.

Now it's still early, the election is more than a year away, and a lot can happen.  But the idea that Americans may be signing on for 4 more years of Trump's chaos and corruption makes me want to bang my head against a wall.  Has the country suffered from collective amnesia?  Do we not remember that shameful day when Trump fired up an angry mob that beat police officers and stormed the nation's capital?  Have we forgotten how horribly he handled the covid crisis? Does the fact that Trump is currently facing 4 criminal indictments mean nothing to them?  What about howTrump's guilt in the E. Jean Carroll defamation case, which  means that the jury believed that he did sexually assault her?  (We can now take the word "alleged" away we call Trump a sexual predator).

Look, I get it, the country is in the post pandemic doldrums. and while the economy is strong (unemployment is actually lower now than it was under Trump), there has been  heavy inflation that effects the average person more than economic growth does, and the president, rightly or wrongly, is going to get the blame for those high prices  Meanwhile, the crisis on the border continues, with more refugees seeking solace and conservative Governors bussing those refugees to places like New York City or Martha's Vineyard.  Plus there's a lot of terrible things going on in the world today, what with the war in Ukraine grinding on and  Israel invading Gaza in response to cruel terrorists attacks.  

And yes, Biden is old, the oldest president ever, and I do agree that his stepping down and letting someone else run would be a good thing.  But he's determined to run, and I think he's mentally sharp enough to handle the presidency.  And I'm infuriated that Trump's recent verbal stumbles don't seem to hurt him in this regard, and somehow the fact that he's only 3 years younger than Biden doesn't sink in with the public.  (Much of that has to do with the constant media narrative that focuses more on Biden's age issues than Trump's).

So yes, things are stressful both nationally and globally right now.  But the idea that Trump will somehow calm all of that is absurd (he can say that the invasion of Ukraine and the terrorist attacks in Israel would never have happened if he were president, there's certainly no evidence of that).   Hopefully, the recent interest rate increases by the Federal Reserve will slow the rise of inflation without tipping the country into a recession, and a strong economy will finally be felt by the general public next year, helping Biden's chances.  I certainly hope that that's the case, because another Trump term would be nightmarish for this country, from his denial of climate change to his ending aid to Ukraine that would tip the balance of that conflict to Trump's pal Vladimir Putin, to his calls to purge the federal government of any workers who don't share his vision for the country, to so many other horrible things that he would do, another 4 years of Trump is a terrifying prospect.