Valued commenter matt posted this headline in the overnight thread:
Musk says ‘hateful unrepentant racists’ must be removed from Republican Party as visa feud deepens
Musk does realize Republicans need to maintain a majority until they entrench the rightwing kleptocracy he envisions, right? Maybe not!
Here’s another headline on the same brouhaha from CNN:
Musk calls some Trump supporters ‘contemptible fools,’ escalating tension with MAGA hardliners
Recumbent positions, dogs, fleas, etc.
In other news concerning two of the most loathsome oligarchs who’ve ever lived, Trump accidentally publicly posted a rather plaintive direct message to Musk on his (Trump’s) knock-off Twitter clone:
“Where are you? When are you coming to the ‘Center of the Universe,’ Mar-a-Lago. Bill Gates asked to come, tonight. We miss you and x! New Year’s Eve is going to be AMAZING!!! DJT.”
CNN says the “x” Trump (unconvincingly) claims he misses is the ever-present spawn Musk has been using as a human shield since Luigi Mangione shot the UHC CEO (prompting Musk to inform followers that killing executives isn’t “based.”)
It was especially pathetic that Trump threw in the bit about Bill Gates to impress Musk and lure him back to Disgraceland.
The next four years are going to be such a massive shitshow. We all knew that. But I’m a little surprised the wheels are starting to come off the coalition before the inauguration.
Open thread!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
As John commented after Trump fired Christie and his entire transition team the first time around because of cell phone, these people are only good for stabbing each other in the back with plastic sporks.
Baud
I think he thinks they have what they need.
NotMax
“The avalanche has begun. It is too late for the pebbles to vote.”
– Ambassador Kosh
.
Barbara
The fact that Trump was elected the first time should have been sufficient to show that racist voters are essential to Republican power. Anyone who thought that categories of non-white people, but especially immigrants, were exempt is engaged in wishful thinking.
Baud
According to Bluesky and Reddit, Musk has also picked a fight with Wikipedia.
MagdaInBlack
@Baud: I think it was last week he threatened to buy Wikipedia because it’s too “woke.”
Baud
@MagdaInBlack:
So is Balloon Juice. Cole can make bank if he wants.
MagdaInBlack
@Baud: * 5 laughing emoji
Shalimar
@MagdaInBlack: Last week wasn’t the first time. Musk has been threatening to buy Wikipedia for over a year, and Wikipedia has been fundraising to keep the company private since then.
sab
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: In my long life experience I only once had to work with a toxic narcissist. He was the boss’s son. Evil incarnate. And the people he surrounded himself were toxic. Amazing level of backstabbing. Not a team. A crab bucket. Boss had to fire his own son because he was so disruptive to the work environment.
Leto
Musk thinks he’s bought majority control of the Republican Party, and as such can dictate how the party runs. He was able to kill the bipartisan CR, but now he’s trying to tell them to stop being so racist. Hope everyone invested early in those popcorn futures.
sab
@MagdaInBlack: As a woman who has read wikipedia over the years, reading wiki being called woke makes me laugh a lot.
Or snort with laughter.
sab
@Leto: Musk isn’t racist? Not what I have read about comments from Tesla workers.
Splitting Image
@Barbara:
I didn’t think that immigrants were exempt from being racist, but I thought that the increasingly loud and proud white boys would alienate enough of them to keep the Republicans’ numbers low enough to lose at least a few elections.
Even that was overly optimistic, as it turns out.
MagdaInBlack
This was quick, Betty. Did you have this post on a back-burner or did the coffee and gators help fire off a creative spark? Either way, thank you.
sab
@Splitting Image: The most publicized racist being named Fuentes didn’t help us at all. Trump’s folks weren’t all WASPs.
MagdaInBlack
@sab: It’s not racist if you really are superior. (that’s musk-think, please don’t yell at me)
p.a.
The phonecall is coming from inside the administration-elect!😱😂
sab
@MagdaInBlack: Am I allowed to post a thumbs up emoji?
MagdaInBlack
@sab: LOL. I’ll assume one =-)
sab
@Shalimar: That is worth knowing why they are so frantic on fundraising. I am not a wiki fan although I do use them a lot. Always seemed like a techbro thing ( emphasis on bro…women weren’t welcome) but Musk owning them is horrifying.
dmsilev
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I’ve always treasured the term ‘Night of the Long Sporks’.
Shalimar
@MagdaInBlack: I think Musk always had the casual white South African racism, but he has changed in the last 5 years. I suspect in his mind he doesn’t think he is racist because he looks down on all the little people since the richest man bullshit took over his brain.
matt
Thanks for the shout out! Made my day.
Professor Bigfoot
@NotMax: I’d forgotten that line; but man, it sure is appropriate right now, ain’t it?
sab
@Professor Bigfoot: Very appropriate.
Geo Wilcox
I think if Trump chooses Musk over Maga, they will turn on him. They love to hate anyone who does not look like them more than they love Trump.
Betty
@Leto: He only wants them to not be racist toward Indian engineers. They can hate the other minorities.
Baud
@Geo Wilcox:
Trump don’t care. He’s not running again for anything.
Starfish (she/her)
@MagdaInBlack: There are people who sit on the entries of famous Confederate soldiers and revert your changes if you write anything less than 100% supportive of people like Nathaniel Bedford Forest.
I may have a list in my history of removals and reversions that were some racist nonsense.
Eduardo
😆
Suzanne
I love to gawk at X, and not participate. (Unless you call pointing and laughing “participating”, I guess.) The algorithm knows I want entertainment, so it is serving me up Indian-Americans who regret voting for Trump, and Musk himself, who tweeted that he is in America because he likes the H1-B program, and if you don’t agree, “FUCK YOURSELF in the face”.
Popcorn? Cake? Champagne, anyone?
TBone
Maya Angelou has sumthin’ to say
Chief Oshkosh
Who’s gonna tell ‘im? :)
Matt McIrvin
Play racist games, win racist prizes.
Starfish (she/her)
@Shalimar: Wikipedia is always raising money, but they have $200,000,000 (page 5) so I never give them money.
Starfish (she/her)
@sab: Wikimedia is always fundraising and has frequently been a bro-thing.
They have a healthy balance sheet, and they could potentially pay women to write articles on women so it is not this lopsided place with a bunch of articles on the history of Star Wars and very few good articles on the history of the civil rights movement. But that never happens for some reason.
sab
@Geo Wilcox: I think Trump knows that. Interesting dilemma for him. Who to sell out first. He needs both. Musk’s money and MAGA adulation.
The first second Musk doesn’t pay Trump will bail on him. I cannot wait to see how much Musk will pay for the continued attention.
Baud
@sab:
I think money always wins. Especially since Trump isn’t going to running for election ever again.
Chief Oshkosh
@sab:
I’m genuinely surprised. As near as I can tell, anyone can upload almost anything on any subject. There’s lots of crowd-sourced editing (per design), though, and I am an older white male, so I very likely don’t have the same experience as others. What sort of thing happens that makes you feel unwelcome?
lowtechcyclist
@Betty:
I think that distinction is too subtle for the MAGAts to pick up on.
Besides, they don’t want anyone telling them it isn’t OK to hate, look down on, and use epithets to refer to members of whatever group they damn well choose to hate. They don’t want any group declared off limits.
TBone
I love Wiki and once read something by a woman contributor/editor about how hard she works to keep articles on science and medicine free of drek. But I am biased, not based.
https://medium.com/the-u-s-digital-service/editing-women-into-history-d1dccd812536
MomSense
The problem is that it is impossible to know if infighting and the general shitshow nature of a Trump administration is better or worse for humanity. He can fail to repeal the ACA and still drop a nuke.
Suzanne
Elon tweeted this last night. Seems like everything’s going well.
Honus
“Musk calls some Trump supporters ‘contemptible fools,’
At least he didn’t say they were a “basket of deplorables” or something really offensive the media could latch on to.
Baud
@TBone:
Don’t expect to see that for at least another four years.
Starfish (she/her)
@Chief Oshkosh:
Most things that require unpaid labor are biased towards the group that is living comfortably enough to give away their labor AND also have it valued. Wikipedia and open source software are dominated by men having free time to donate their labor freely.
When women’s labor is valued at $0, it is usually house chores, PTA meetings, and child care. There is “Archive of Our Own” which is fan written works of freedom which is frequently women subversively writing fiction that is valued at $0 for themselves. But that type of thing is the exception rather than the rule.
Baud
I wonder if the Sunday talk shows will press Republicans about this internecine dispute tomorrow.
Another Scott
@Starfish (she/her): AFAICS, most of their fundraising is at the end of the year (around now) – that’s when the pop-up on the pages appear. I donated to them (and archive.org) yesterday. They both do important work, IMHO.
I’m sure Wikipedia appreciated the extra attention from Melon. The Streisand Effect entry probably got a lot of hits.
YMMV.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Chief Oshkosh
@Suzanne: I guess Mr. Musk hasn’t met enough 2nd Amendment types yet. These are not the type of people who worry about your security detail when they get pissed off at you.
“…the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend…”
The guy’s mental state really is pre-teen schmuck from 1989.
satby
@Baud: will it matter if no one is watching?
Kosh III
@NotMax:“The avalanche has begun. It is too late for the pebbles to vote.”
– Ambassador Kosh
Yes
Mai Naem mobile ¹
I never saw the positive potential of Elmo and TFG being on the same side. TFG is such a vindictive POS that he would cut Elmos government contracts and Tesla subsidies just to hurt Elmo. And Elmo is such an awful attention ho that he’ll primary MAGats just to get them out even if it hurts his business. Add on top that he thinks the US as some third world country where a wealthy person can buy himself any legislation he wants or buy himself whatever he wants. Yes,we’ve been getting worse but we still have some bureaucratic and judicial methods of at least slowing down people like him. Elmo’s too stupid to understand that.
MagdaInBlack
@Suzanne: Oh the drama. Look out, Elon BIG mad now.
Starfish (she/her)
@Another Scott: I donate time, not money. This year, I edited the entries for Janice Harrington, a poet who has written children’s books; Derrick Palmer, an organizer who was trying to unionize Amazon; Banning Lyon, an activist who opposes those wilderness camps that bad teenagers get shipped off to, and Eric McFadden, a musician.
TBone
@Baud: I’m under no such illusion. We’ll lay low for a while, keeping our powder dry and waiting to see the whites of their eyes.
Professor Bigfoot
@Kosh III: I originally heard that in your voice, Ambassador.
Suzanne
@Chief Oshkosh:
Legit stolen from Emperor Palpatine.
I think Elmo has underestimated the war imaginings of white isolationist MAGAts. If there’s one thing those fuckers have thought too much about….. that’s it.
Phylllis
@Baud: I see a business model–sell ‘woke’ blog to Melon Head. Create new ‘woke’ blog, sell to Melon Head. Repeat until Melon Head groks the grift. So basically, infinity woke blog creation & selling.
TBone
There might be some serious war stuff happening, or some other vatnik crisis happening – my Spidey senses are tingling about why they are throwing so much red meat to us lions right away.
MagdaInBlack
@TBone: I suspect you may be giving them to much credit for any type of planning.
Professor Bigfoot
@MagdaInBlack: That may be the one thing that saves all our asses— they’re fucking incompetent.
But then, they ARE the Party of the Mediocre White Man, aren’t they?
Suzanne
@Professor Bigfoot:
Truer words, etc etc etc.
MagdaInBlack
@Professor Bigfoot: Well, elno certainly is an impulse driven 12 y/o.
While I agree with you on your point, I’m not gonna rekindle yesterdays fire. It’s too early here in grey chicagoland ;-)
rikyrah
Just Jack (@7Veritas4) posted at 10:34 AM on Fri, Dec 27, 2024:
Elon won’t invest in Americans because it costs too much.
He won’t move his businesses out of America because he gets too much in tax cuts and subsidies.
Elon was never about America First.
It was always Elon first.
Your move, MAGA. https://t.co/rYEIHQy4Nz
(https://x.com/7Veritas4/status/1872682535794487400?s=02)
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
Baud
@rikyrah:
MAGA will double down on racism.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Suzanne
@rikyrah: MORNIN’!
lowtechcyclist
@Starfish (she/her):
OK, but there are millions of childless, college-educated women in this country. It’s fine if writing and editing Wikipedia entries isn’t among their top dozen or so pastimes, but if so, that’s not the fault of techbros.
rikyrah
@TBone:
When you have two people,who are unelected, but think they have all the power…
And on the other side…you have the rubes…
Red meat for us? They don’t give a shyt about us
TBone
They have been expert-level running interference via the media this whole time! Catch and kill, or knock some inconvenient truth off of top story status by doing/saying something ever more outrageous. Mediocre they may be, but they have that dance number down pat! They own the frames!
Plus: Kayfabe WWE (Linda McMahon snickers)
Are we not entertained?
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
Fixed.
Abnormal Hiker
@NotMax: Shouldn’t that be snowflakes?
kalakal
Just insanewashed that statement.
I’m beginning to think Elon may have a few screws loose
rikyrah
@TBone:
They also reveal themselves. They never had any problem with socialism.
They only want WHITE SOCIALISM.
You see evidence of it everywhere.
It’s why they want things sent back to the states. They want it when White folks controlled the distribution of funds and it could be distributed to White folks ONLY.
See The GI BILL and Farm Assistance for reference.
rikyrah
@Baud:
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Suzanne
@kalakal:
Watching the two worst groups of people in the country — the techbros who drool over wage slaves and the racist, armed MAGAts who are lazy — realize they misjudged one another is, no exaggeration, the funniest thing I have witnessed since the election.
kalakal
@TBone: Naw, this is just what they are. Delusional egomaniacs with a top dressing of weapons grade stupidity
TBone
@rikyrah: you’ll get no argument there from me, but that’s not the topic I was het up about/trying to point out.
lowtechcyclist
@rikyrah:
Good morning! It’s a bright, sunny morning here in central Florida. BIL seems to be just about over the effects of Covid, and he tested negative yesterday morning. FIL is still in the hospital with his case of Covid, but when we leave here tomorrow, BIL should be ready to keep an eye on what’s happening with him. Between now and then, we’ll have a few more chances to visit with him.
kalakal
@lowtechcyclist: Glad to hear they’re feeling better
Jackie
@Baud:
Musk is gonna try to keep buying presidencies following TCFG. And, he won’t be the only one.
TBone
@kalakal: are the WWE super geniuses?
https://sportsweeknow.com/unraveling-the-political-arena-gops-wwe-tactics/?amp=1
Starfish (she/her)
@lowtechcyclist: Newer Wikipedia editors get discouraged when their writings are marked for deletion for reasons that are not very good. In a lot of cases, instead of someone coming in and helping to make a thing better, some folks will just declare that the person you are writing about is not significant enough and mark your entry for deletion because people higher up in the hierarchy don’t know about a famous feminist or something like that.
It may not be that women don’t want to write. It could be that women are having their writings actively deleted.
There was a dude writing an entire Wikipedia in a language he did not know, and women are getting articles about feminists deleted.
There were also things like lists of famous authors and then someone would make another list of famous women authors and then remove women authors from the list of famous authors. 🤦🏻♀️
Matt McIrvin
@rikyrah:
But god forbid the state government starts acting more liberal than the feds; then they want the federal hammer to come down.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
The free Face Eating buffet is open for bidness!
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@rikyrah:
State legislatures were also easier to capture or significantly influence if nominally (D), NY being an example of that this century.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Betty: How does he explain that he only wants “Indian” engineers? Maybe the US is dum-dum, but don’t other countries produce engineers?
Torrey
@Suzanne:
As you pointed out: “Legit stolen from Emperor Palpatine.”
And that, of course, is the problem. It’s SUPPOSED to be “the likes of which no one has ever seen before” (TM). But then, when folks go to a different house of worship than they’re accustomed to, it’s almost guaranteed that they’re going to get phrases from the liturgy wrong.
Professor Bigfoot
@MagdaInBlack: In lieu of the Blogfather’s dictum, imagine a big cheezy-ass grin.
rikyrah
@lowtechcyclist:
🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: I think that’s basically all they’ve done for the last 8 years.
They just keep enlarging the tent of people to be racist against.
Professor Bigfoot
@rikyrah: This. The “white working class” isn’t against socialism; they’re against socialism that includes Black people, and the only way to get them is to agree that Black people should get no benefits from citizenship.
kalakal
@TBone: Heh, interesting. I can see how that could be the case but I can’t see either Trump’s or Musk’s egos setting themselves up to be the stage baddie. With WWE there’s a lucrative career in being the baddie, in GOP politics it makes you a RINO or worse. Musk is heading into very dangerous personal territory hear with the MAGAs.
Also sheer stupidity, never a bad bet with those two
TBone
@kalakal: mood music by ELP
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0VsifANR96s
This is for Linda McMahon of WWE, to be our new Secretary of Education.
Lara Loomer is the “baddie.”
Captain C
Who knows what Melon Husk is thinking while perpetually flying in the K-hole.
Captain C
@Chief Oshkosh:
See my comment above about K-hole delusions.
kalakal
@TBone: Ah, good choice of music
You’re dead right about Loomer
Chris Johnson
Some of this might be because Trump and Musk both have relationships with Trump’s ‘patron’, Putin. So they are both working for Russia and that’s how we got here.
But Trump is purely a puppet and wrecking ball, the WWE figure (literally!) to get attention and to posture.
Elon Musk controls Starlink, and does not HAVE to side with the USA if he doesn’t want to. He is capable of pulling a fast one on Putin’s behalf. And the more Russia’s blunders don’t pan out, the more power Musk has in Russia as someone who (theoretically) can wage war on behalf of Russia and have an effect.
But he doesn’t have to do THAT, either.
So he’s drunk on power (and ketamine). He thinks he’s the Blofeld now (I’d favor Thiel for that, though). And much like Putin, Trump, Thiel and everybody else he knows, he thinks MAGA are the peasantry that will do what he tells them to do, up to and including dying for him.
This is why Luigi alarmed him so much, and why he wears an ablative child (as if THAT would stop a MAGA).
So… interesting times. weeeeee
JaySinWA
@MagdaInBlack:
He’s dreaming of the Neo-Republican party as Lake Wobegon where all the proles are above average, or at least recognize his genius and will bow down in gratitude repenting their evil racist ways. His enlightened racist ways will prevail.
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: The alliance between xenophobes and bosses who employ immigrants has always relied on this sort of wrestling kayfabe, where the xenophobes only get scary enough to keep most of the immigrants in line. There have been problems in the past with the xenophobic true believers overstepping, deporting or detaining or keeping out too many people and actually causing labor supply problems, and then there’s a bit of a walkback.
But I think that dance works better with employers of undocumented migrant workers that it does with employers of upper-middle-class software engineers on legal work visas. Musk is a fool but he is, I suppose, just intelligent enough to realize that he’s hiring these people to think rather than to pick cotton and a terrifying pogrom environment isn’t great for that.
Matt McIrvin
@Dorothy A. Winsor: The speculation about immigration moratoria that was buzzing around a week or two ago had Nigeria on the short list of countries they were gonna shut down immigration from, and there was a lot of “where are we going to get doctors?”
You don’t have to look hard to notice that West African immigrants to the US these days have a strong tendency to be highly educated professionals. *Black* highly educated professionals. Racist head go boom
Barry
@Baud:
“I wonder if the Sunday talk shows will press Republicans about this internecine dispute tomorrow.”
‘Today, on Pravda TV, the God-King Trump Super-Trump Worship Hour!’
Glidwrith
@Chris Johnson: “He wears an ablative child”…..wait, I try to not see Shitgibbon as much as possible, but are you saying he’s using his youngest as a human shield?
Miss Bianca
@Geo Wilcox:
Cue the Cat Fud dog: “Oh please, oh, please…”
kalakal
@Glidwrith: Musk is wandering around with one of his young children pretending he’s Father of the Year rather than using a human shield
rikyrah
@Matt McIrvin:
The H1B visa is the undocumented fruit picker of tech. But, unlike fruit pickers, Americans WOULD take those jobs IF THE PAY WAS ON POINT.
THAT is why
Loomer made that tweet about engineers only making $70 k at Tesla. She knows that’s a lowball salary for the amount of education and experience needed.
Miss Bianca
@Suzanne:
I’ve been avidly following the Leopards Ate My Face Reddit thread since the election, and oh, my Lord, is it *lit* with this shit this morning! LOL!
lowtechcyclist
@Starfish (she/her):
OK, this explanation makes sense. But if that’s what’s actually happening, that’s fucking crazy, given the number of individual pop songs that have their own Wikipedia entries.
I contribute to Wikipedia periodically because I frequently look stuff up there, and where else anymore can you find an encyclopedia of any sort? But if I had some examples in hand of what you describe, I’d be emailing them saying, look, I gave $100 this year like I have most years, but if this shit doesn’t stop, I’ll stop giving.
Lynn Dee
For those who are interested (maybe nobody?), Musk supposedly has an alt/burner account on twitter called “Adrian Dittmann.” I learned this at the same time I learned about the old-MAGA/MAGA-techbro feud over H1B visas — which is to say, last night.
In a twitter “spaces” that may have begun as, or evolved into, a discussion of H1B visas, Mr. Dittmann apparently had a meltdown. Here’s a little bit about it:
https://x.com/BradMunchen/status/1872786552839127423
https://x.com/WilburnZac/status/1872573324565569717
Geminid
@Chris Johnson: There’s some funny video of Musk visiting the Turkish Consulate in New York earlier this year, to meet Turkish President Erdogan. Musk brought his son with him.
Erdogan: Where is the mother?
Musk: She’s in San Francisco. We’re divorced.
Erdogan: ?….
Grandpa Recip tries to charm the little boy but the kid is having none of it. So someone brings a new soccer ball; Erdogan deftly bounces it a couple times and holds it out. The kid looks like he’s trying to escape over Musk’s shoulder.
Kid (thinking): Who is this scary man, and what’s that round thing he’s threatening me with!
So Erdogan gives up and the two men take their seats around a big coffee table. They proceed to make small talk with some Consulate officials listening in and the child still trying to hide.
But it’s not really funny to see Musk using his child as a prop.
Kayla Rudbek
@sab: yeah, I don’t donate to Wikipedia because it’s too damned sexist
Lynn Dee
@Lynn Dee:
Heather Cox Richardson’s substack about the feud/meltdown:
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/december-27-2024?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=20533&post_id=153706185&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=abybc&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Kayla Rudbek
@lowtechcyclist: yes, it is the fault of techbros because they create the poisonous environment that discourages women from getting involved in technology. At one point there were MORE women programmers than men, back when computing was boring and tedious work. Hell, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, “computer” was a person who worked doing computation, very frequently a woman because they could pay her at lower wages than a man.
Kayla Rudbek
@lowtechcyclist: I don’t donate and never have donated precisely because Wikipedia keeps on allowing this sexist policing to go on.
lowtechcyclist
@Lynn Dee:
From Heather Cox Richardson’s substack that you linked to:
Wow, talk about saying the quiet part out loud!
lowtechcyclist
@Kayla Rudbek:
Whoa! Since when do people have to be “involved in technology” (that is, having tech jobs) to contribute to Wikipedia articles?
Starfish (she/her)
@lowtechcyclist: A lot of the entries that I have expanded on are not very high quality. I am not waiting until I have the best entry on something. I may lay down the bones for something with just enough references to not get deleted.
I have probably contributed to women in that women’s science project. I started the article on Maydianne Andrade, a Jamaican born Canadian ecologist who studies the type of spiders who eat their mates.
I have contributed small things to smaller figures in civil rights history.
Fewer things that I am doing get marked for deletion than they used to, but there is a barrier to learning what you need to know can be considerable.
different-church-lady
@lowtechcyclist: It’s Musk: there aren’t any quiet parts.
TBone
@Chris Johnson: thank you as always – Shazam!
Kayla Rudbek
@lowtechcyclist: the techbros are the ones encouraging the whole poisonous environment that coding and tech and the internet are a boys’ club only.
Carol
musk bought himself a president and, surprise!, he wants something in return.