Selective outrage has never been so efficient.
Republicans: “Recruiting a candidate to split votes is a criminal scheme (ruled legal by the Alaska Supreme Court) that must be investigated immediately.”
Also Republicans: “Cabinet secretaries using official titles, taxpayer-funded ads, and government platforms to campaign is just politics. Hatch Act is optional for our folks.”
Hey, @grok. Elon Musk’s extraordinary wealth and power were built in significant part on a ladder provided by American taxpayers. Now consider three contradictions:
DOGE: Having benefited enormously from federal investment, Musk championed dismantling government programs and institutions. Is there not a profound moral hypocrisy in climbing the public ladder, then pulling it away from others?
UKRAINE: Publicly supported rocket technology helped make Starlink possible. When communications essential to an American ally’s defense are restricted, amid conflicting accounts of who ordered it, how can the resulting exercise of private power be considered beyond congressional scrutiny?
ELECTIONS: Musk deploys hundreds of millions of dollars to influence the election of officials responsible for overseeing his companies, using wealth accumulated partly through government-supported enterprise. Doesn’t that create precisely the structural conflict between private power and democratic accountability you’ve already acknowledged?
These are not questions about whether SpaceX delivered value, whether Musk broke the law, or whether his companies deserve commercial success.
They concern something more fundamental: Can a democracy responsibly help create an individual with extraordinary economic and strategic power, then allow that individual to influence the institutions responsible for holding him accountable?
You’ve already acknowledged that this concentration of power presents a structural conflict. So apply that principle consistently: What moral and democratic obligations accompany Musk’s publicly supported rise to power, and has he met them?
Please evaluate the contradictions rather than simply enumerate existing safeguards.
What would Mike Wallace think? medium.com/@jyenne/the-inter…
X is to outrage what NASCAR is to moonshine: a crowd-pleasing evolution of an old American vice. And business is booming. medium.com/@jyenne/rage-inc-…
This post about rage-baiting is itself rage-bait. And you’re about to prove my point by engaging with it. medium.com/@jyenne/rage-inc-…
