I entirely agree that the real problem is not that he donated $40k to Republicans, but rather, is that politicians don’t pay attention unless you bribe^H^H^H^H^Hcontribute to them. Unfortunately that’s not what this article, or most of the outrage I see in social media, is about. It’s all “OMG Musk is a liar/hypocrite/whatever he’s supporting the climate-denying fascists!!111” and, well, no.
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That’s exactly what’s happening. Musk gives 10-20 times as much to Democratic causes. But he also pays for access to both parties.
He is impure. Shun! Shun!
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Agreed, I have a lot of issues with Musk but this isn’t one of them.
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I’d like to meet them, because tariff as a form or protectionism rarely works out well. The true believers I casual know from FB seem to think something similar. That he is cutting through red tape and corruption. I guess to be fair he is cutting through red tape and his corruption isn’t taking the form of typical DC corruption.
I don’t think people like Musk are into social agendas, they are into general wealth and influence, and keeping in the favor of politicians is how to do this. Helps with contracts, zoning issues, people who know people for perhaps raw materials for products, consumer laws, etc etc.
The Party isn’t Trump. Trump isn’t even really a Republican. Trump has attacked members of the party time and again. Ignoring half of the political key holders because of Trump would be shooting yourself in the foot, IMO.
FWIW - I am not a huge Musk fan. I mean, I am not really anti-Musk, but I don’t have the sort of cult worship some people have.
Please let me know which country is run by the poor so we can all immigrate there 
(Hint, even poor “shit holes” are run by the rich.)
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Fuck that. There’s no playing both sides here. If you’re donating to Republican causes, you’re the enemy. Full stop.
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Eh, I’ve been on the “fuck Elon” wagon for a while. I don’t understand his fan-boys. It’s not like the guy is some sort of super-genius who invents amazing things. He made some banking software that had the good fortune to take off and make him rich. He convinced rich Silicon Valley nerds that electric cars were luxury items (and he could therefore put really expensive batteries in them). He put money into a rocket company (rocketry at this point being a matter of engineering, not rocket science). He bought some digging tools. He made some highly impractical plans for various things that will never be realized because they’re highly impractical - but that also allows him to make some wild claims about cost and effectiveness. Personally he’s an asshole who treats those around him pretty badly. He mistreats and exploits his workers. Recently he called one of the Thai cave divers a “pedo” because the guy had actually risked his life to help some kids and Musk built a fucking useless kiddie submarine that couldn’t work.
So yeah, fuck Elon Musk. He’s a self-absorbed, moderately smart guy (in some ways) who is great at self-promotion. That’s it.
This should really be the end of Musk-worship. But it won’t.
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Does he realize that the party he supports has moved to eliminate the $7,500 tax credit his customers use to buy his cars? He’s like the farmers who voted for T-rump and can no longer get the cheap labor they need to get in the crops because His Majesty has cut back on immigration–or the ones who can’t get a decent price for their soy beans because HRH Donnie started a trade war with China.
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Sounds like a good description of Don the Dong Trump.
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Not a billionaire, but I think people would listen to him anyway. Maybe not… and if they are listening to him, it doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of difference.
The party as a whole is enabling him. That’s reason enough not to give blanket donations for them to apply who knows where.
If Musk were donating to the few relatively sane Republicans remaining in Congress I’d shrug this off. But that’s not the case.
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That is very interesting and bizarre. Thank you for sharing that objective information.
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News reports I’ve heard go further:
It’s not just that they can’t get cheap labor. At least some have raised their wages, but now can’t get any labor for certain farm jobs. Non-citizens are in short supply and citizens want anything better to do than pick veg in the burning sun all day.
Now there’s talk of moving their farms to Mexico since their reduced U.S. workforce can’t compete.
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Sane or not, they make up over half of the key keepers.
Pragmatically, you can’t really completely shun them.
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I have speculated here and elsewhere that the red line for Trump supporters would be a gay sex scandal.
It is not an unprecented occurance either.
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Fuck Elon Musk. If NASA was funded properly, it could get to Mars quicker and safer than any other nation or any of these private, corporate, for profit entities. I mean look, to this day, the NASA Saturn V is the largest, most powerful rocket and carries the biggest payload of any other rocket in the history of space exploration. It was built in the late 1960’s for fuck sake! All these companies are just taking NASA technology and running with it. Fuck Elon Musk and his god damned sports car in space. It’s absolutely useless. Classic marketing scheme.
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Your friends are idiots. Semi-sentient slime molds know that cinnamon hitler is going to leave this country economically worse off than he found it.
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I love the Culture series, but pointing to a far future sci-fi series as justification for union busting is pretty fucking transparent. For a realistic forecast, you can’t do better than the Desert, the latest must-read text among the green anarchist set.
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That is some super bleak stuff, bro. And dangerously possible.
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I don’t think this is what you’re seeing here. It’s more like this:
He needs government contracts, and even if he’s the best company to fulfill them, he needs to grease palms to avoid getting screwed by corrupt politicians. He found this out by experience, and has obviously learned to play ball since then. It says more about the fact that our system is so corrupt that there’s some industries (especially heavy, capital intensive industries) that you can’t operate in without bribing both sides than it does about Musk.:
Intel also contributes to both sides, and is much less skewed towards Dems than Musk is:
Google, like Musk is highly skewed towards the Dems, but still gave 10x as much to Republicans as Musk did:
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