Turns out "playing 4D chess" is just MAGA politikese for "broadcasting our corruption loudly and assuming enough people are also either too corrupt, ignorant, or disaffected to do anything about it."
I can't decide whether this pic or the photo of George W. Bush literally holding hands with the king of Saudi Arabia is worse. I mean, at least Goya doesn't have people cut up with bone saws and they definitely had nothing to do with 9/11.
Nah. Imo, this is him telling oil company that they need to step up and fully fund his requests for money "or else". Didn't he recently ask the oil industry for an insane amount of money at the beginning of his campaign or something?
Dude's made a living selling his stupid face every opportunity he can to get attention, why would he let a little thing like presidential integrity get in the way? It certainly didn't when he was actually president!
I thought you were supposed to not admit to the bribe.
The argument has always been, “No, we just give to candidates who support our cause.” Of course everyone knows that’s BS, because the support always follows the cash. But then here comes this dumbass and just- up and admits to corruption.
Trump says the quiet part ("I am totally bribe-able") out loud, all the time because he's a complete freaking idiot. There is no filter between his mouth and what's left of his brain.
This is the real Trump. The moron. This isn't "off the cuff","exaggeration" or "locker room talk" Believe people when they show you what they really are.
The scary part is nobody's listening. I can scream at the top of my lungs the fact that vaccines are harmless but measles outbreaks are increasing. People out there hunting immigrants while the 1% pockets their surplus value.
People aren't thinking, they are just reacting on emotions.
The problem is lots of folks have been more or less made that way through decades of action by the right. Seriously the more or less complete collapse of leftist action back in the 70s and 80s fucked us, it meant that the right was able to hog wild and build up massive institutions like talk radio and fox. Theres one thing we have going for us and thats the fact these institutions are finally going up against actual resistance, and that has only been rebuilt over the last 14 years or so.
At least he should have gone with the talk of "I was skeptical of them and like those iconic petrol cars like every American patriot, but I've talked to this great man, and after consideration I've decided to support electric cars. I bet soon they will be just as iconic as those muscle cars with their V8 engines.".
And funnily enough, if Trump were to be elected, then suddenly Trump would forget about how much Elon helped him. Trump has a terrible record for keeping contracts, so I don't think he's good with returning favors.
God damnit, yesterday I explained to someone in another thread what Trump meant when he said he could get Elon to kneel and beg, that Trump as President could revoke EV subsidies and/or heavily influence or defund NASA such that they stop funding SpaceX.
I did not expect this goddamned moron to just actually say as much, directly, out loud, 12 hours later.
"Opposite" would necessarily suggest a different outcome (i.e. Musk not beholden to Trump).
(Haven't had a logic course in literal decades, so maybe someone can correct me if I'm misremembering. I forget how to draw those logic square thingies...)
Just waiting for MAGA idiots to start buying EVs to "own the libs". I mean, I'd rather people shift to EVs because it's less damaging to the environment; but, a win is a win, I guess.
OK, LGBTQ organizations, Librarians, Pro-Choice organizations, and Satanic Temple - you know what to do now. He'll have no choice but to support you and then what will his base do? Checkmate magas!! ;)
There's an anecdote I've seen a few times on the Internet about a newspaper in the 80s sending rich people checks for tiny amounts of money, like $.15, just to see who'd cash 'em. Trump was the only one who did.
It's funny to see the aesthetic transformation of Tesla's vehicles overlaid with the timeline of Musk's weirdification. I mean he was always a shitheel fuck, but in the past he was a lot more confused about who to game and how to game them.
I imagine they're referring to the difference between a car that looks like a normal sedan, vs something Christopher Nolan would have used to build the Batmobile around for The Dark Knight.
Edit: I realize that sounds too complimentary. I assure you it wasn't meant that way.
There are no EV mandates. The article presents Trump's statements about repealing an EV mandate that doesn't exist without ever noting that no such mandate exists.
Without seeing video of the statements it's hard to say how much that was Trump selling policy for donations and saying the quiet part out loud vs just making a joke. But either way, I'm pretty sure it's based on a flawed premise because at this point I don't think Elon gives a shit about electric cars either.
And finally, the talk about the cost of charging infrastructure is framing the issue in the stupidest way possible. How much did it cost to build infrastructure for ICE vehicles, to have gas stations all over the place and a supply chain to keep them running? A hell of lot more than it will take to add charging infrastructure, that's for sure. But we don't talk about that cost because no single entity paid for it all, and those that did mostly did so as an investment, which generally paid off. People will pay for public chargers. We don't need public funds to cover everything, they just help get the investments rolling in faster.
What we do need is a rule forcing apartments to add charging of some kind to all residential parking. Even a standard wall outlet for each space would be enough to solve the majority of the charging problem.
But Musk has more recently embraced conservative politics, especially the issue of free speech. Musk bought Twitter in 2022, rebranded it to X, and has dismantled many of the checks and balances meant to limit hateful speech and misinformation on the platform.
Why is free speech a conservative cause nowadays? It should not be.
Because what it actually means is the freedom for them to spew their hate speech without consequences. Freedom of their speech, not others'. They hate being "punished" for their hateful ideologies and view it as censorship. Being able to spread their hateful beliefs to large groups is extremely important in propagating it to other people. Conservative created platforms are inherently limited by the fact that their audience is not only quite small but also everyone there already believes their bullshit. They want and need to place their hate in mainstream places where others will see it and hopefully come to believe it
There's also the bonus effect of reducing both the amount and proportion of non-conservative voices.
Seems nobody has mentioned how NHTSA has been looking very closely at Tesla autopilot and FSD. Its no wonder Musk would shell out what amounts to nothing for him in an effort to be able to continue offering his unsafe products.