161–170 of 656 posts
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As far as things like ending EV tax credits musk noted it would hurt his competitors more than him. It’s all obvious corruption.
EV tax credits under the previous administration applied to almost every EV that wasn't a Tesla. They got Tesla its start, though, so the ladder must be pulled up. Of course, carbon offsets are still a huge cash cow for Tesla, so Musk won't be eager to touch those.
And Tesla?
What's more depressing is this was completely predictable, totally avoidable, but half the country welcomed this wave of oppression with open arms.
> but half the country welcomed this wave of oppression with open arms. And the other half? They seem to welcome this as well, but with crossed arms. Where are the protests? Seems most people end up writing upset messages on Twitter/Bluesky, but also seems there are no grassroots movements to actually protest the borderline coup that is happening?
A bunch of Americans have been taught that protests only "count" if they don't inconvenience anyone. Laws have been changed to make effective protest impossible. It's legal to ram protesters with your car in Florida, for instance. The cops use force to suppress protests and the media tells everyone your protest was invalid because it broke the law.
If we press the point more aggressively, we'll probably start another civil war. The right holds Rittenhouse up as a hero, and that's not an isolated thing. For decades, average, rank-and-file GOP voters have made jokes and jabs about shooting liberals. It used to be a few tasteless blowhards, but it's commonplace now. See also comments from Kevin Roberts about how the "second American Revolution" will be "bloodless if the left allows it."
There are resistance movements extant and forming, but it's a wicked problem. The size and population of the US requires more resources and participants to make an impact. The speed at which the situation is changing makes it hard to find purchase to do so.
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I would just like to point out that Musk is the richest man in the world and is now directing critical areas of the U.S. government. Surely he doesn't have ulterior motives and is looking out for the average person?
If you look back at Germany in the 19th century, nations like Prussia and Austria had this sort of power struggle between the merchant class and the nobility at the advent of steam power. in this case the de-facto US nobility (rank-and-file career politicians) are being usurped by the bourgeouise (billionaires like Musk) at the advent of AI and tech by promising the working class a combination of culture war policy a…
Historically, they are just a bunch of rich morons that got lucky, got power, and decided to stage a coup. This is not some enlightened movement trying to replace the social norms. It's just your run of the mill personal power switch, and the only notable things about it are it's on a country that has been extremely stable before, and those people are stupid enough to willfully destroy it.
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It seems like you're missing something pretty basic here, so here it goes: Government workers going on strike means they're doing what we want them to do, which is nothing. As a Trump voter, I want these federal government workers to stop working so the astronomical waste of our time/money and disturbing of peace stops. The best work the US government does is when it's doing nothing, because it's hardly working prope…
The good news is that as a Trump voter who is a MAGA believer, you’ve established that you’re ignorant and open to emotional manipulation. You’re the political equivalent of the old lady who talks to the scammers. So when your glorious day comes, and your State asserts their rights and levies your bank account to pay for your parents medical bills as your filial responsibility, (or whatever your personal tragedy ends…
This is part of a broader rolling catastrophe. Musk is evidently seizing control of the Office of Personnel Management https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2025-01-31/exclus... Nasa took down their applied sciences page and is evidently scrubbing the data https://www.reddit.com/r/gis/comments/1icqchv/why_is_the_nas... ( https://appliedsciences.nasa.gov/ ) Lots of other data sets are disappearing too: https://ma…
https://old.reddit.com/r/medicine/comments/1iepzln/cdc_has_r... ("CDC has removed the pages with STI treatment and contraceptive guidelines (self.medicine)")
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Protest works when it’s backed by a threat. “Do what we want or we will remove you from power”. What we have now is “do what we want or we’ll be sad”. The pitchforks aren’t just for show!! And I’ve lived in Europe for over a decade now and frankly much of Europe is painfully naive about how much people in power care about protestors waving clever signs.
> And I’ve lived in Europe for over a decade now and frankly much of Europe is painfully naive about how much people in power care about protestors waving clever signs. I guess the same goes the other way, Americans seems painfully unaware how effective the public's will can be, when you act together. But I think that's to be expected, the US is still relatively new and young, compared to other countries, so lessons…
Ideally, of course, you have a functioning democracy, but I don't really think that describes much of the US at this point (the people who'd protest are mostly in blue states anyway where their votes, even if correctly tabulated, count less). Other examples might be Ghandi, who promoted nonviolence but really only got India's freedom when the British empire was in terminal decline, or the civil rights movement, which happened when the US was a much healthier democracy and swaying public opinion was enough to remove people through elections. You might cite the velvet revolution too, but that also was targeting an empire in decline.
I argue that elections in the US _will not matter_ (Trump's cryptic comments about how Elon knows all about these voting machines and they won Pennsylvania thanks to him are telling....) and in that context protest doesn't do anything because the people in power have nothing to fear if they ignore the protestors.
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Can we please stop this bit of misinformation? Trump: 77,168,458 votes (49.9%) https://www.reuters.com/graphics/USA-ELECTION/RESULTS/zjpqne... https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-elections/president-re... https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/11/05/us/elections/... More people voted for Trump, but it wasn't half the country. There were a lot of people that did not vote at all. The most accurate would be to say t…
It's accurate to say more than half let this happen. You can include the people that didn't vote.
If anything it was the 1.6% of votes that went to other candidates that could be seen as a spoiler. You'd have to say that all of that 1.6% would have gone to Harris for it to have been a spoiler though, and I doubt that's the case.
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It seems like you're missing something pretty basic here, so here it goes: Government workers going on strike means they're doing what we want them to do, which is nothing. As a Trump voter, I want these federal government workers to stop working so the astronomical waste of our time/money and disturbing of peace stops. The best work the US government does is when it's doing nothing, because it's hardly working prope…
The good news is that as a Trump voter who is a MAGA believer, you’ve established that you’re ignorant and open to emotional manipulation. You’re the political equivalent of the old lady who talks to the scammers. So when your glorious day comes, and your State asserts their rights and levies your bank account to pay for your parents medical bills as your filial responsibility, (or whatever your personal tragedy ends…
But perhaps they're advocating a return-to-the-Earth philosophy with every person (or family) aiming for self sufficiency in a frontier-style economy. I doubt it (when I try to point out that their truck requires a lot more gas than they can refine as a hobby I get pushback), but maybe.
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> Protest doesn't do anything. Most rights that workers have today have been earned through protesting (and sometimes the bloody consequence of protesting while the state is resisting wanted changes). Protests only "doesn't do anything" when you don't do it enough or give up. Maybe I'm too European to understand, but the "pacifist" approach of the US working class seems to not be working out great.
Protest works when it’s backed by a threat. “Do what we want or we will remove you from power”. What we have now is “do what we want or we’ll be sad”. The pitchforks aren’t just for show!! And I’ve lived in Europe for over a decade now and frankly much of Europe is painfully naive about how much people in power care about protestors waving clever signs.
They immediately got what they wanted.