Elon Musk: Hero or Villian?

[selmaborntidefan]

Simple fact is if the BBB adds 3T to the national debt over the next 10 years then letting the 2017 tax cuts expire we likely would have had a balanced 10 year budget. That would have been a true win.

You know, I'm for everyone paying as little as possible in taxes (few things are more "American" than opposing taxes with firearms, but that 2017 debacle was so bad that even some normally conservative Republican consultants and businessmen saw it as a colossal windfall for the richest of the rich.

 

[DzynKingRTR]

We've had six Presidents since Reagan left office.

Amazing how not one of them is to blame for anything since then.

Personally I blame John Adams for everything.

 

[Crimson1967]

He’s in for disappointment. Americans have been screaming for a legitimate threat to the two party system, but when the time comes to put their money where their mouths are, they will always respond like the brainwashed peons they’ve always been.

Just like people who say they want term limits but reelect incumbents at a 90% clip

he may be able to crack the nut of getting a viable 3rd party going, but i imagine he will again get bored pretty quickly

Very likely. A third party is usually started by a loudmouth populist with a vendetta against one person in power but it doesn’t last long.

In 1912 Teddy Roosevelt wanted his old job back and started the Bull Moose Party. He then returned to the GOP and his party quickly faded.

In 1948 Strom Thurmond started the Dixiecrats. It died soon after Dewey defeated Truman.

In 1968 George Wallace joined the American Independent Party. Apparently remnants of it are still around and has since nominated Lester Maddox and Alan Keyes.

In 1992 Ross Perot ran as an independent and later formed the Reform Party. The current HHS Secretary was their 2024 presidential nominee.

So Musk might put up a bunch of money and find some big name to run in 2028 but he’ll move on soon after that.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

Personally I blame John Adams for everything.

Well, George Will did note, "If you don't like gridlock, your problem isn't with me, it's with James Madison."

 

[JDCrimson]

No dictator solves problems, they just club people in the head to keep them quiet.

Even if one (some?) did, the idea of sacrifice is so 20th century.

The problem is simply the problem of human nature, and I don't see that going anywhere any time soon. People are jealous of what other people make or have and elective politics is built upon the concept of making them fear what the "other" person is going to do to you OR being envious of a break someone else got that you didn't.

I don't care what any chest thumper says, nobody is going to "buy American" if it costs three times what an import does. Nobody who professes to believe in affirmative action is going to resign their job and say, "Give my job to this (fill in the blank with oppressed group of your choice)." Nobody who professes to believe in "free healthcare" (a hilarious term for "government funded healthcare") is going to pay over half of his/her salary in taxes just so some poor person gets a free pill and ambulance ride. I don't care what they say, they're not going to do it.

And the politicians know this, of course, so they appeal to us at our own level of selfishness, always lathered with just enough of how "this" idea helps a lot of people but always in the future and always a promise.

What's funny, though, is a dictatorship won't work for the precise same reason(s) - and others - even though putting all the decisions in the hands of one presumably smart person would cut out all the varied opinions.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

Just like people who say they want term limits but reelect incumbents at a 90% clip

We are Fenno's paradox people.

We hate Congress as a whole, but we like our own representative.

Consider the 1994 wipeout of the Democrats in the House. Going into the election, they had 258 seats. They lost 54 and came out with 204.

But 34 of those 54 were races involving INCUMBENTS, and the most vulnerable a Congresscritter ever is is in their first attempt at re-election, and they lost 16 of them. Three more involved Democrats who lost to other Democrats in the primary, two of whom won the fall election (one was Sheila Jackson Lee, speaking of people we wanted out of office). And one more involved a GOP rep who lost his primary.

Republicans won 22 open seats, Democrats won 4, a net gain of 18 for the GOP. So that basically means that in 405 seats there was an incumbent running for reelection (435 minus 26 open seats minus four incumbents who lost in the primary). Not a single Republican incumbent lost in the general election, and the Democrats still won 204 seats despite losing 34 incumbents.

Basically - even in the worst wipeout year of our lifetimes in the House - 83.9% of the incumbents STILL won.

The Senate, of course, is much smaller so the percentage can be higher. There were 33 seats up for election, but NINE incumbents retired (6 D, 3 R), and the GOP picked up 6 of their 8 Senate seats DUE TO RETIREMENTS, not winning against the incumbent.

That means there were 24 races that featured an incumbent, and the incumbent won 22 of those 24 (91.6%). The only two "incumbent" losses were Harris Wofford, a Democrat who had been appointed to John Heinz's seat when he was killed in a plane crash and won a shocking upset against Richard Thornburgh in 1991, and Jim Sasser of Tennessee. The GOP then picked up two more seats when Shelby and Campbell jumped parties after the midterm.


My point, evidentially speaking, is that even in the biggest wipeouts we see nowadays, at or near 90% of the incumbents still win.


And yet Congress more often than not has an approval rating below 20% regardless of which party runs things.

 

[Bamaro]

We are Fenno's paradox people.

We hate Congress as a whole, but we like our own representative.

Well, since mine is Andy Harris who voted 'present' the 1st time on OBBB, then voted 'Yea' the second time, that doesn't apply to me. But yes, Im the exception to that.

 

[some_al_fan]

My point, evidentially speaking, is that even in the biggest wipeouts we see nowadays, at or near 90% of the incumbents still win.

And yet Congress more often than not has an approval rating below 20% regardless of which party runs things.

The question here is whether people truly vote for the incumbents because they like them or because they often run unopposed in primaries or even in general elections.
Examples would be Biden last year. Or Congressman Dale Strong in North Alabama (single candidate in the general election).

 

[TIDE-HSV]

We are Fenno's paradox people.

We hate Congress as a whole, but we like our own representative.

Consider the 1994 wipeout of the Democrats in the House. Going into the election, they had 258 seats. They lost 54 and came out with 204.

But 34 of those 54 were races involving INCUMBENTS, and the most vulnerable a Congresscritter ever is is in their first attempt at re-election, and they lost 16 of them. Three more involved Democrats who lost to other Democrats in the primary, two of whom won the fall election (one was Sheila Jackson Lee, speaking of people we wanted out of office). And one more involved a GOP rep who lost his primary.

Republicans won 22 open seats, Democrats won 4, a net gain of 18 for the GOP. So that basically means that in 405 seats there was an incumbent running for reelection (435 minus 26 open seats minus four incumbents who lost in the primary). Not a single Republican incumbent lost in the general election, and the Democrats still won 204 seats despite losing 34 incumbents.

Basically - even in the worst wipeout year of our lifetimes in the House - 83.9% of the incumbents STILL won.

The Senate, of course, is much smaller so the percentage can be higher. There were 33 seats up for election, but NINE incumbents retired (6 D, 3 R), and the GOP picked up 6 of their 8 Senate seats DUE TO RETIREMENTS, not winning against the incumbent.

That means there were 24 races that featured an incumbent, and the incumbent won 22 of those 24 (91.6%). The only two "incumbent" losses were Harris Wofford, a Democrat who had been appointed to John Heinz's seat when he was killed in a plane crash and won a shocking upset against Richard Thornburgh in 1991, and Jim Sasser of Tennessee. The GOP then picked up two more seats when Shelby and Campbell jumped parties after the midterm.


My point, evidentially speaking, is that even in the biggest wipeouts we see nowadays, at or near 90% of the incumbents still win.


And yet Congress more often than not has an approval rating below 20% regardless of which party runs things.

In our district, Mo Brooks lost in the Republican primary to Dale Strong, whom I thought might be marginally better. He's turned out to be a Trump disciple...

 

[TIDE-HSV]

The question here is whether people truly vote for the incumbents because they like them or because they often run unopposed in primaries or even in general elections.
Examples would be Biden last year. Or Congressman Dale Strong in North Alabama (single candidate in the general election).

I pointed out he beat the incumbent in the primary before...

 

[some_al_fan]

In our district, Mo Brooks lost in the Republican primary to Dale Strong, whom I thought might be marginally better. He's turned out to be a Trump disciple...

When did it happen? Brooks has vacated the seat and tried to run for Senate and lost the primary to Britt:


Above is a republican primary ballot for 2022

 

[selmaborntidefan]

The question here is whether people truly vote for the incumbents because they like them or because they often run unopposed in primaries or even in general elections.
Examples would be Biden last year. Or Congressman Dale Strong in North Alabama (single candidate in the general election).

What usually happens is that the incumbent has all the money and the name recognition. Of course, there are a lot of them who are in non-competitive districts or “Congress person for life“. And each case is different but the outcome is almost always going to be the same.

Consider 1984, when Reagan smashed Mondale to pieces, 49-1. You then look and say that the Democrats lost 16 seats in the house and people say, “It was a bad year for the Democrats.” But it wasn’t; it was a good year for incumbents. 22 reps retired, 3 lost primaries so there 410 incumbents running. 16 incumbents lost (13 D, 3 R), so 96% of incumbents won. The Dems gained 2 Senate seats. Four retired so there were 29 seats up for reelection. Three incumbents lost but even in that small sample size, 89% of incumbents won.

Even in a wipeout year the number rarely goes below 90% by much. And one of the three who lost was a freshman.

No journalist will ever frame it that way but that’s what happens. And there is always an assumption of coattails or that the midterms is about the President….despite the fact over 1/2 of the voters couldn’t tell you which party the incumbent belonged to without it being on the ballot.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

You gotta admit something here is funny:

Republicans were terrified of opposing Trump because Elon Musk might finance a primary against them. Wouldn't it be hilarious if a bunch of Republicans lost their seats to a Musk financed primary candidate......because they DID go along with Trump?

This is why you do what you can accept. These "let me finance this guy" candidacies RARELY work. Even candidates who use their own money, it strikes fear in the hearts of a lot of folks but rich guys like Michael Bloomberg and Ross Perot and Michael Huffington lose more often than they win, too.

 

[Bamaro]

I dont think this was posted before. Its a new story I just saw about a Sept 2022 event

Musk ordered shutdown of Starlink satellite service as Ukraine retook territory from Russia
Soldiers panicked, drones surveilling Russian forces went dark, and long-range artillery units struggled to hit targets.

KYIV - During a pivotal push by Ukraine to retake territory from Russia in late September 2022, Elon Musk gave an order that disrupted the counteroffensive and dented Kyiv’s trust in Starlink, the satellite internet service the billionaire provided early in the war to help Ukraine’s military maintain battlefield connectivity.
According to three people familiar with the command, Musk told a senior engineer at the California offices of SpaceX, the Musk venture that controls Starlink, to cut coverage in areas including Kherson, a strategic region north of the Black Sea that Ukraine was trying to reclaim.
“We have to do this,” Michael Nicolls, the Starlink engineer, told colleagues upon receiving the order, one of these people said. Staffers complied, the three people told Reuters, deactivating at least a hundred Starlink terminals, their hexagon-shaped cells going dark on an internal map of the company’s coverage. The move also affected other areas seized by Russia, including some of Donetsk province further east.
Musk ordered shutdown of Starlink satellite service as Ukraine retook territory from Russia | Reuters

 

[TIDE-HSV]

I dont think this was posted before. Its a new story I just saw about a Sept 2022 event

Just came out. I saw it this morning. That kind of power over international affairs should never be given, and it was "given," to a private individual outside government...

 

[92tide]

i remember reading reports that he was screwing around with the starlink stuff

 

[92tide]

Musk's AI chatbot faces global backlash over sexualized images of women and children

Elon Musk's AI chatbot Grok is under fire for generating sexualized images of women and children without consent.

apnews.com