rational_lib

Here's Elon just before the 2024 election telling Tucker Carlson:

If Trump wins that Epstein client list is gonna become public. And some of those billionaires behind Kamala are terrified of that outcome

I'll just point out the risk of what I'll call "Joe Roganing" here. Elon pretends he hates both parties while there's no election coming up. Then when the election arrives he "makes up his mind" and endorses Republicans. This allows him to 1) attract people fed up with both parties just to hand them to Republicans, and 2) have a credible that that forces Republicans to do his bidding.

Well that would eliminate the whole point of corporations, which is to make it easy to raise money.

Let's start with an understanding of why corporations suck in the first place. The root of all good and evil in a corporation is limited lability. This allows investors to not have to worry that they're going to lose more than their investment, so they don't need to think too hard before putting their money in some company they just heard of. This is great for investors and for the corporation.

But this comes with a cost to everyone else. There's the direct cost that if the corporation ends up owing people money through excessive debt, negligence, or illegal activities, they can declare bankruptcy and the investors don't have to worry any paying for those (other than their losses on the stock). But I suspect the more pernicious effect is that the investors' lack of concern over their investment as anything but a vehicle of profit basically leads them to pick sociopathic CEOs and demand profit maximizing behavior at the cost of social good and even long term stability. And since all this sociopathic activity is really great at amassing money, it's kind of a big power boost for sociopathy overall.

However, the ease of investing can be a good thing for society too - basically it allows a lot of people to retire at some point, and allows for rapid funding of new ideas. So is there a way to get corporations back under control without throwing out the baby? I tend to think we should tax corporations higher if nothing else, as it is we do the opposite thanks to Trump's last tax cut plan.

Ackman is also a part owner of X, and that platform will also definitely be a big part of an effort to defeat Mamdani.

Edit: a family member just asked me what I think of Mamdani wanting to put a tax on all hiring, saying he proposed a 35% tax on the salary of all new hires. I googled this, and the only results are on X. The fix is in.

Fair enough, but this is the opposite of going for the eyes and throat. This is attacking Trump where he's least vulnerable. It's an uphill frontal assault on Trump Castle, armed with a nerf gun. The best you can hope for is a valiant effort.

Better option would be they should stop pretending they have power, and go out there in the media and into communities and yell about how Republicans have too much power, and need it taken away.

I'm sorry I know this impeachment is important to all your emotional needs after feeling bullied and all, but it would be extremely helpful to Trump.

Bear with me please. Here's how impeachment actually works:

1. Trump does something terrible that is extremely unpopular.
2. Outrage forces Democrats to impeach him.
3. Because impeachment requires a 2/3 majority, which is literally unobtainable for Democrats even after the midterms, there's absolutely no chance whatsoever he gets convicted, so he wins at the Senate.
4. Trump declares victory, says the whole thing was a hoax.
5. (This is the key) Low information voters regard the issue as now settled in Trump's favor.
6. No one talks about the illegal war, leading the Jan 6 riot, or trying to corruptly shake down Zelensky again, because these are all now worthless as attacks against Trump.

See the last two impeachments. There's no way this works well. American democracy sucks, but realize it's a game. You can't win at poker by playing every hand, no matter how much you deserve to win. Impeachment is a 2-7 off suit. Fold it on sight.

I get that this is upvoted a lot due to being constructive but it also reflects a lot of Republican media tropes about the left that aren't really true - and that's why trying to "fix" these things won't work - because it misses the real problem.

Examples: No significant figure on the left is saying "men are rapists", or telling men to be more like women, etc. Reducing suicide, safer workplaces, and reducing excessive prison sentences are all priorities for the left and not for the right.

I think the real problem is quite simple: Republicans have invested heavily in portraying themselves as the "masculine party", and in driving the narratives I've mentioned. And because Republican leaders like the Murdochs and Elon tend to be men, they're best at driving those narratives.

Which goes to the real underlying problem with the left as a whole - no ability to drive or counter a media narrative. The right has Fox news and Elon's control over Twitter, which they can and do regularly use to create whatever narrative they want. Notice how for example they just made white south African farmer killings a topic all of a sudden. The left has a bunch of corporate media whose top priority is selling truck ads. Sure, maybe the reporters themselves are left leaning, but they have no top down guidance as to what narratives to build.

And until the left creates some sort of media capability to create and control narratives, the right will always have a leg up. And because of that, none of the well intentioned ideas here will actually work. If the left tries to appeal to men, the right will decide how those appeals will be interpreted.

Bill Maher used to be a right leaning "centrist" when he was running politically incorrect in the 90s. His politics never changed, he just got critical of crazy Republican shit like the Iraq war and then Trump ignoring elections.

A certain percentage of all people are bloodthirsty monsters, especially when it comes to people unlike themselves.

And anyone who thinks this problem is caused by no one trying to use a bomb, gun, or flamethrower to solve it is the biggest idiot in planet earth.

Maga has completely blown away all standards of cringe

To be fair, that grey tree trunk looked a lot like a road