> Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate. Such ingratitude.

- Elon Musk, June 5 2025 (https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1930667528696828120)

Voters obviously bear ultimate responsibility, but there's a lot more going on than just "voters are responsible." If that were true, corporations and wealthy individuals would have no interest in injecting money into politics, but alas... they do.

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jgeada an hour ago | parent | next [-]

You're supposed to regurgitate the Brandies "“If there be time to expose through discussion, the falsehoods and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.” statement.

You can never blame anything on propaganda and deliberate misinformation and manipulation of the public. And you have to assume all speakers have the same power and reach.

Unrestricted free speech in practice falls under what Anatole characterized : "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread."

Elon can lie and propagandize at scale with impunity. But let's blame voters.

	▲	Zigurd 36 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Looking up and down this thread and there are people you would agree with about our situation being awful, while being extremely reluctant to blame a planned and coordinated influence campaign by an adversary. It amounts to calling our fellow citizens chumps, and that's rude. The private sector, for slightly more benign reasons, and sometimes less benign reasons like keeping cigarettes from being blamed for cancer and emphysema, uses the same mechanisms to sell products. If that didn't work, nobody would pay for advertising and PR.

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esseph 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

He also said after last time he was done putting so much money into politics, and then recently just dropped around another $300 million promoting republican candidates.

	▲	estearum an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Well after demonstrating shaky allegiance to the US and personal meddling in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, his companies are ripe for nationalization. He's got a lot to lose!
	▲	blitzar 25 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> done putting so much money into politics Will be done by the end of the year (tm)