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It'll probably prompt Rightists to make thinly veiled comments, if it keeps going. About minecraft.
You often talk about worldview, predictions, updating, etc. Do you have an update to your worldview based on this thread?
On that one, it appears I was wrong right out of the gate, but I'm waiting to see the actual fallout. The whole thing seems deeply fishy for a number of reasons, but what will clear it up will be subsequent events. If either or both of them dedicate significant resources to striking at each other, then that will confirm that the breach is serious in nature, and that will bode extremely ill for my faction. In that case, I'd side with Trump over Elon, but reluctantly; more generally, this would be evidence that our leadership is fundamentally dysfunctional, and I would expect that to manifest in other ways in relatively short order.
What updates beyond this would you recommend? Where do you expect the thinly-veiled minecraft references to be directed?
...why? I mean, firstly, 'significant resources' is load-bearing here in a way that's difficult to falsify. Secondly, I recoil at the use of 'my faction' (where's the guy who was trying to address the address the hate in his heart with his pastor, or something like that?) but I guess that ship has sailed. Thirdly, what does it matter to you whether Trump cancels Elon's contracts or Elon doesn't show up for republicans next election? Your coalition is the same, the people who vote for guns and the people who vote for abortion and the people who vote for whatever else will turn out in 2028.
Either way, I'll go way out on a limb and predict that the presidency goes D in 2028, without knowing who either candidate will be. In the grand scheme of things, Elon-Trump beef is irrelevant.
Again, why? Obviously your leadership is fundamentally dysfunctional - how can you read what Elon and Trump are tweeting at each other and conclude anything else? Would you ever behave that way, let alone behave that way if you were representing a nation? They're just dysfunctional in ways that you or your 'faction' approves of.
You should probably update on at least the stability of Elon. Whether the drug of choice is ketamine or culture war, something degraded significantly in the last couple years, and I say that as a papa Elon fanboy.
I'd say you should probably update on Trump as well, but I expect you already think he's bonkers and love him anyways or you'll never change your opinion, so that's probably not a worthwhile conversation.
Was this meant to link to a pop song? If so, the reference went over my head.
From Trump supporters, towards Elon.
For Musk:
For Trump:
These all seem pretty falsifiable, and I'm sure we could come up with other metrics. In short, I'm waiting to see what actually happens beyond mean tweets, which seems to me to be a solid general rule. I note that this spat is resulting in Musk departing Washington... right about the time that it was announced that he would some time ago, and Congressional Democrats now publicly calling for the release of the Epstein files, which is something that I and most of Trump's base is in fact all for and Trump ran on.
My hope is that these men will actually be able to advance my tribe's interests in concrete ways. We're short on elite backing, so we've got to take what we can get, and if even what we get can't get their shit together, that bodes ill for us long-term.
I mean, it's pretty obviously not. The entire neocon wing and much of the corporate wing has defected to the democrats, and we've picked up a whole bunch of former centrist democrat and working-class types. And I think this is a very good thing; realignment and reshuffling of the power blocks gives potential for a break in the deadlock and stagnation, potential for some measure of actual positive change. You mention guns and abortion; the guns we're actually seeing a serious push on, and the abortion we aren't; Roe has been removed, but there's no actual drive for federal abortion restrictions, and I think that's quite likely a significant change from the past. From an overall factional perspective, at least, this seems like a good thing.
And the thing is, The Democrats could do the same, and maybe will after this latest loss. What we've been doing clearly isn't working, so stop pushing on a brick wall and find some way to actually deliver positive change in peoples' lives. If the parties can't do that, policy starvation proceeds and we're all in trouble.
If the angry twitter exchange is the limit of it, then it is undignified, not dysfunctional, and dignity was a value most of us were priced out of long ago. We can survive and potentially even thrive without dignified leaders. If the beef actually compromises the mission, then that's a very bad sign for the rest of this term. Again, my hope is that we get actual progress out of this mess. If they can't do that, then everything gets worse, the odds of a win for the current D establishment in 2028 go up pretty significantly, and that's not an optimistic timeline from where I'm sitting.
Sad but likely true; I'm still stanning for him at the moment as he's still one of the very, very few examples of someone who's actually made things better in a material way. We need much more of that, not less.
I've always been a fan of music videos, and my eldest likes to sit on my lap with my headphones on and listen to them. SIAMES has a good one she was listening to, and that vid popped up in the youtube recommendations this morning. Watch it if you have the time, and tell me what you see as the sociopolitical vibe the vid communicates.
You mentioned veiled threats. From my perspective, they are absolutely endemic, unavoidable, permeating every facet of our culture. I am served them organically several times a week, and so I am not surprised when I read about majorities of progressives approving of outright political murder. The last time we went round on this, you asked me where the violence was, the day before Luigi murdered a CEO. The result was broad social support for his actions from the left, up to the media posting stories about how attractive he is and how many supporters he has and doesn't he sorta have a point here, let's have a discussion about this.
I do not think we're going to see thinly-veiled minecraft references from the MAGA grassroots toward Musk. But if you care about thinly-veiled Minecraft references as a general class, there are a lot of them, and a notable amount of actual minecrafting, happening right now as we speak. The violence is getting worse. Public figures are endorsing and encouraging it. Common knowledge continues to accrue, on both sides.
If you're genuinely curious, see the discussion about distrust of emotion here. I am instructed to love my enemies. That does not stop them from being my enemies. Factions are a fact, differences in values are a fact. The question is what to do about it, and renouncing hate means turning away from many of the obvious and easy answers.
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