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naraburns  nihil supernum  5mo ago (text post)   27912 thread views

U.S. Election (Day?) 2024 Megathread

With apologies to our many friends and posters outside the United States... it's time for another one of these! Culture war thread rules apply, and you are permitted to openly advocate for or against an issue or candidate on the ballot (if you clearly identify which ballot, and can do so without knocking down any strawmen along the way). "Small-scale" questions and answers are also permitted if you refrain from shitposting or being otherwise insulting to others here. Please keep the spirit of the law--this is a discussion forum!--carefully in mind.

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Trump is on stage giving the speech now. AP has called Pennsylvania. Unless Alaska somehow doesn't turn out the electoral votes, it's over. What a ride this has been.

He has this manic charisma that makes no sense but is incredibly compelling. Imagining a counterfactual Harris victory, her speech would be full of positive words but have no joy behind them.

Trump has an optimistic vision of the country, who he is, and his role in it. I think that's what won it for him.

I have so many thoughts. Dana White taking the mic and thanking Adin Ross, Theo Von, and Joe Rogan felt surreal. Trump scooped up a lot of young men's influencers into his camp this time, while the Harris campaign didn't even seem to consider the option. Barron Trump has been advising his father to go on the podcast circuit before the election, and it seems to have paid off. Those memes about Barron secretly masterminding Trump's win in 2016 seem to have come true, eight years later.

How much did Elon, Rogan, RFK, etc. getting into his camp swing this for him? I'm thinking those were critical endgame winds for Trump. Hell, how much of this was made possible by Elon buying Twitter?

Hell, how much of this was made possible by Elon buying Twitter?

All of it. Pre-Elon it was a regular occurrence for me to go "oooh, there goes another one" as another mildly interesting, not even very spicy, account gets the ban hammer. If it was still under old management, they'd probably be cracking down on Peanut the squirrel memes. That's without mentioning the impact of things like Community Notes.

have you re-evaluated Elon, given these developments? Still confident he's a grifter?

I'm mostly sticking to my guns. There are things that are causing me to adjust - I kept my mouth shut, but internally I was expecting a giant fireball at Boca Chica, not a successful booster catch. But I don't think that's enough to change my appraisal on him running his companies mostly on hype. Also if you check my big anti-Elon post, I ranked his companies from best to worst, and I rated Twitter at the top. If it wasn't for the advertiser boycott - which I consider a political affair, rather than anything market-driven - he'd be making bank off of it, and taking it to profitability, I think for the first time ever.

I'm actually somewhat worried he'll tank the whole MAGA thing by using his connections to Trump to try to save himself. But if it helps - I hope I'll be proven embarrassingly wrong, and y'all will get to shit on me for being a retard for all of eternity.

Starlink is going to be a worldwide telecomm company. Coupled with how cheap they are making it to put satellites into orbit, SpaceX will be worth trillions.

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