Elon Musk’s endorsement of Trump has further driven a split in the Tesla community, with data on Monday showing customers are fleeing the brand in Europe.
  • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2241·
    5 months ago

    “Endorsement” meaning the 25 45 million a month to a PAC…

    How the fuck are we not going after them for this?

    The PAC system is incredibly fucked, but outside of a handful of progressives no politicians want to admit it’s legal bribery

    • friend_of_satan@lemmy.worldEnglish
      641·
      5 months ago

      In an ideal, fair, and just world, yeah, but have you been following the Supreme Court lately? This is their King we’re talking about!

    • Swordgeek@lemmy.ca
      342·
      5 months ago

      I’ e come to realize that sadly, legslity is irrelevant. If there are no consequences, then there’s effectively no law for rhe powerful.

      The SCOTUS ruling that they can declare the president above the law was really about shiwing they can make anyone above the law, if they wish.

      The last eight years have highlighted how the US is in fact, a caste system.

    • AmidFuror@fedia.io
      131·
      5 months ago

      It’s not bribery until he actually pushes for EVs (Tesla, specifically) as President. And then it will be an official act, so he’s immune.

    • Sabata@ani.social
      6·
      5 months ago

      The supreme court got bribed into saying bribery is fine as long as you pretend it’s not a bribe.

  • LEDZeppelin@lemmy.world
    66·
    5 months ago

    He bragged less than a week ago in Michigan that he is going to ban EVs just so he can pander to Michigan auto workers.

    Practically everything he says is a lie

    • skyspydude1@lemmy.world
      8·
      5 months ago

      Which is ridiculous because most manufacturers are building multiple new factories for batteries and EVs. It’s a pretty shitty pander all things considered.

      • ericjmorey@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        5 months ago

        Ford recently announced their decision to use their facility built for the purpose of expanding their EV supply to instead manufacturer more ICE pick-up trucks.

        • skyspydude1@lemmy.world
          2·
          5 months ago

          And? It still means that the push for EVs wound up creating those factories, and therefore jobs at those factories.

  • pjwestin@lemmy.world
    44·
    5 months ago

    I could be wrong, but isn’t a blatant quid pro quo basically the only way to wind up on the wrong side of the Citizens United decision? Didn’t the Supreme Court rule that, unless a candidate was engaged in open bribery, campaign contributions constitute free speech? I could be misremembering/misinterpretating, and he’ll never face any consequences for it anyway, but it would be very funny if there was a Supreme Court ruling that said, “As long as you’re not dumb enough to admit it’s a bribe it’s not illegal,” and he still fucked that up.

    • frezik@midwest.social
      261·
      5 months ago

      The Supreme Court ruling splits a very fine hair. If you give a government official money and say “make sure my housing development goes through”, that’s a bribe and it’s illegal. If you show them money and say “I’ll give you this if my housing development goes through”, that’s a gratuity and is perfectly fine.

      Why, yes, this is a stupid as it sounds.

    • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
      6·
      5 months ago

      Didn’t the Supreme Court rule that, unless a candidate was engaged in open bribery, campaign contributions constitute free speech?

      The core of the CU decision is that engaging in political speech is not a campaign contribution. Even if you spend money to engage in that speech. Even if you pay some 3rd party organization to engage in that speech on your behalf, unless that 3rd party organization is operating in collusion with the actual campaign.

      Or to put it another way, if you run off a bunch of flyers supporting Kamala Harris and pass them out, that’s not a campaign contribution despite ink and paper (and your labor) not being free. If Staples agrees to print those flyers free of charge for you, Staples is not making a campaign contribution. Unless the campaign itself is involved with the process. Now, just scale that up to massive corps and political nonprofits.

      People try to describe it as “deciding money is speech and corporations are people”, but both of those are long held by law - corporations have had 1A rights for a long, long time and likewise arguments that restricting things used to engage in protected expression is in fact restricting protected expression have held for a long, long time (for example you can’t just place a $10,000,000/week tax on printing presses to silence newspapers).

      • Spaceballstheusername@lemmy.world
        1·
        5 months ago

        But in practice what happens is people/companies make donations directly to a candidate then all of their priorities get fulfilled by the candidate even though the people that voted for the candidate don’t support the issue.

        • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
          1·
          5 months ago

          Except when we’re talking about someone like musk donating millions to a candidate, he’s not donating directly to the candidate, he’s donating to some third party who’s advertising for the benefit of the candidate but isn’t technically coordinating with the actual campaign as an end run around campaign finance limits.

          That’s the whole point of a PAC - hypothetically they exist to forward some issue but often that’s just code for a specific set of candidates for various offices.

          For example, Americans Against Murdering Babies is probably going to support GOP candidates across the board, likely emphasizing abortion. Whereas Americans For Medical Privacy is likely doing exactly the reverse.

    • mPony@lemmy.world
      5·
      5 months ago

      a) yes

      b) maybe he’ll be held accountable for this within the course of the next 20 years

  • OhStopYellingAtMe@lemmy.world
    23·
    5 months ago

    For sale: 1 (one) old man with dementia, loose bowels, poor grasp on simple concepts, malignant narcissism, and a massive following of slack-jawed troglodyte voters.

  • AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space
    17·
    5 months ago

    Hard-line MAGAts wishing to publicly demonstrate their allegiance will have to start wearing flip-flops alongside their diapers and ear pillows.

    • FuglyDuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      5 months ago

      Also, driving cyber trucks.

      Which would actually kinda be hilarious, if I didn’t have to share the road with those morons.

      • RaoulDook@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        5 months ago

        I have seen a couple of them on the highway. They look so ridiculous you have to laugh.

        It’s just like the ridiculous “future cars” we’d see in many old sci-fi movies from the 70’s and 80’s. Perhaps their visions of the future were not so wrong after all.

        • FuglyDuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          5 months ago

          And about as well built, too.

          (Those were typically golf carts with cardboard boxes slapped over them kit car fashion.)

  • IsThisAnAI@lemmy.world
    1411·
    5 months ago

    That’s politics, this shouldn’t be a surprise. None of this is remotely illegal as suggested in the comments.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
      121·
      5 months ago

      People are saying it should be illegal and the fact that it is legal is an issue that we should fix…

    • lolcatnip@reddthat.comEnglish
      4·
      5 months ago

      Having your position on issues for sale isn’t illegal when you’re not in office, but it’s certainly not normal politics. It’s fuckin’ the weird for a politician to openly admit they’re for sale.

      • IsThisAnAI@lemmy.world
        12·
        5 months ago

        So you mean to say that most politicians won’t change their positions based on their voting blocks demands?

        I hate Musk but I can’t see how any of this isnt standard fare in all of politics by definition.

        • lolcatnip@reddthat.comEnglish
          1·
          5 months ago

          Changing policies based on what voters as a whole want is democracy. Changing based on what one voter with a lot of money demands is corruption.