The German elites in the interwar period felt very much the same about a political nobody named Adolf Hitler - they were sure they'd be able to push him around if he was elected chancellor, and gave him their backing. Most of them, to borrow your phrase, got their faces ripped off.
The problem here is that voting Republican or Democratic is one thing. A vote for a rapist and convicted felon despite unprecedented objections from millions of people is another. It's the act of a bad neighbor.
I'm seeing signs already that people have had enough. The stress, the volatility, the erosion of things like laws that we depended on to make sense of the world. And what we got in return was stuff for cruel, weird people trying to cheat to win. This situation and this behavior is no longer acceptable. What to do about it? What we did about smoking: make it too expensive and difficult and shameful to continue.
Start with Thanksgiving. Don't have anyone who's thankful for electing a rapist at your table. Yes, of course I mean family too. Face it: it hasn't gotten any better in eight years, has it? If those people were strangers, would you ever spend a minute of time with them at all? Trust me, you have a friend who feels the same way. Get together with them and have a Thanksgiving that people will actually look forward to doing again.
The biggest problem with silicon valley right now is the belief that enforcing anti trust == anti innovation. For a crew that feels so smart and superior it's pathetically un self aware and ignorant of history and economics. Anyone with any knowledge should know that fighting for freedom to create oligopolies means you're the bad guy pushing for stagnation and rent extraction.
Thanks for this write up and your continued journalism.
Maybe naive but I find it disheartening that so many powerful people within this ecosystem, so-called forward thinkers and renegades, are ignoring the truly existential issues for people like women’s health, climate progress, and others for the sake of unfettered personal gain, political access, or business contracts. Not even to mention the anti-American rhetoric and actions this man has shown time and again he stands for, despite the likely correct take that they associate Trumpism with doing whatever they want *personally* without feeling bad about it (which is a real issue for Democratic messaging, I agree).
I understand that these are our friends and colleagues in many cases, but I can’t help but be disappointed that they’ve hitched their wagon to this person in the face of all they know about him as a so-called rebuke of the “other side”, versus literally any other approach.
This article as opposed to a moral compass article is a good note among the many available. I see the construction of possibilities is overwhelming since 2016 and become exhausted at the future thought. My alternate view is thus and can't be extinguished since I'm a father and grandfather of other humans. While all of this commentary matters, what matters more is that the moral compass of Americas future seems to be in a vacuum tube accelerating into a black hole. Why, you don't even need to ask because you already know; a rapist, a racist, a convicted felon and disgusting human was chosen by your countrymen as president.
Trump has already proven that he won’t be moderated or even advised in any way,so what planet have these Silicon Valley guys been living on?And why is Musk ok with collapsing the economy?He seems totally ok with that.
On the free speech point, I think the first test comes with deportations. If he’s serious about it and goes hard with camera worthy house to house searches, I suspect there will be a lot of protests. If they get out of hand he may send in the national guard, like he wanted to in DC during the BLM protests.
This is exactly what I mean. In fall 2020 many of us were warning that Trump would break the law if necessary to stay in office, even if he lost, and people like you just shouted TDS. No argument or engagement with the facts of what he already did, just TDS.
He has said over and over and over again how much he admires dictators and their “iron grip.” All the way back in 1990 he said he admires China for cracking down on Tiananmen Square.
If mass deportation causes chaos and there are a lot of protesters, there’s a real risk of 2020 BLM style agitation, and unlike last time, he will have no problem invoking the insurrection act.
Even if every one of the things you theorize comes to pass, again I ask WTF does that have to do with free speech?
You really think in this age of cell phone video that the National Guard would attack *actually* peaceful protestors, huh? Or that the Army would?
And of course, despite whatever he may or may not have said in 1990, there *is* the reality of what occurred during 2020 - burning and looting in the name of George Floyd, while Trump did no such thing like what you are theorizing.
Would a national guard member shoot someone? Maybe? He wanted to do this in 2020, and Barr had no problem bringing in bureau of prison personnel without badges to make a formation on the Lincoln Memorial. Esper and Milley talked him out of it, but those guardrails are gone.
I never imagined something like January 6 would happen,let alone that voters would let him off the hook. He’s going to pardon all those people and thus send a message that anyone who breaks the law on his behalf is protected.
He pardoned a war criminal the first time around. If someone shoots at protestors he’ll proudly and ostentatiously pardon the “brave, strong patriot who defended our precious democracy from the radical left and Antifa.” I wouldn’t put it past him to preemptively announce he’ll pardon them.
After all, what are you gonna do, impeach him? Prosecute him? Pfffft. He has very broad immunity and a strong argument that it was all a official act. And he won’t be up for reelection so he doesn’t even have to worry about voters.
Maybe none of this will happen, but I learned in the two months leading up to January 6 that we all lacked imagination of how strong is his will to power.
"Which Trump is about to become president?" What a great question, seriously. I know nothing about the tech world and feel unqualified to comment here, but nevertheless wanted to say I so, so appreciate your viewpoint of hoping we'll be proven wrong.
“Coming out of this election with Trumpism ascendant, I’m committing myself to taking a very hardline approach on free speech ”
This is particularly rich given that it has been the left for the last several years that has been anti- free speech.
Of all the explicit and implicit criticisms of Trump, or even “fears of what he might do”, this has to be the most absurd, most utterly unself-aware one there is.
I talk about that in the post. This idiotic. Say what you couldn't say? You absolutely were able to talk about the Hunter Biden laptop story. And it was barely censored.
The German elites in the interwar period felt very much the same about a political nobody named Adolf Hitler - they were sure they'd be able to push him around if he was elected chancellor, and gave him their backing. Most of them, to borrow your phrase, got their faces ripped off.
The problem here is that voting Republican or Democratic is one thing. A vote for a rapist and convicted felon despite unprecedented objections from millions of people is another. It's the act of a bad neighbor.
I'm seeing signs already that people have had enough. The stress, the volatility, the erosion of things like laws that we depended on to make sense of the world. And what we got in return was stuff for cruel, weird people trying to cheat to win. This situation and this behavior is no longer acceptable. What to do about it? What we did about smoking: make it too expensive and difficult and shameful to continue.
Start with Thanksgiving. Don't have anyone who's thankful for electing a rapist at your table. Yes, of course I mean family too. Face it: it hasn't gotten any better in eight years, has it? If those people were strangers, would you ever spend a minute of time with them at all? Trust me, you have a friend who feels the same way. Get together with them and have a Thanksgiving that people will actually look forward to doing again.
The biggest problem with silicon valley right now is the belief that enforcing anti trust == anti innovation. For a crew that feels so smart and superior it's pathetically un self aware and ignorant of history and economics. Anyone with any knowledge should know that fighting for freedom to create oligopolies means you're the bad guy pushing for stagnation and rent extraction.
Thanks for this write up and your continued journalism.
Maybe naive but I find it disheartening that so many powerful people within this ecosystem, so-called forward thinkers and renegades, are ignoring the truly existential issues for people like women’s health, climate progress, and others for the sake of unfettered personal gain, political access, or business contracts. Not even to mention the anti-American rhetoric and actions this man has shown time and again he stands for, despite the likely correct take that they associate Trumpism with doing whatever they want *personally* without feeling bad about it (which is a real issue for Democratic messaging, I agree).
I understand that these are our friends and colleagues in many cases, but I can’t help but be disappointed that they’ve hitched their wagon to this person in the face of all they know about him as a so-called rebuke of the “other side”, versus literally any other approach.
This article as opposed to a moral compass article is a good note among the many available. I see the construction of possibilities is overwhelming since 2016 and become exhausted at the future thought. My alternate view is thus and can't be extinguished since I'm a father and grandfather of other humans. While all of this commentary matters, what matters more is that the moral compass of Americas future seems to be in a vacuum tube accelerating into a black hole. Why, you don't even need to ask because you already know; a rapist, a racist, a convicted felon and disgusting human was chosen by your countrymen as president.
Trump has already proven that he won’t be moderated or even advised in any way,so what planet have these Silicon Valley guys been living on?And why is Musk ok with collapsing the economy?He seems totally ok with that.
On the free speech point, I think the first test comes with deportations. If he’s serious about it and goes hard with camera worthy house to house searches, I suspect there will be a lot of protests. If they get out of hand he may send in the national guard, like he wanted to in DC during the BLM protests.
This is exactly what I mean. In fall 2020 many of us were warning that Trump would break the law if necessary to stay in office, even if he lost, and people like you just shouted TDS. No argument or engagement with the facts of what he already did, just TDS.
All due respect, WTF does your theorizing about possibilities have to do in the slightest with free speech?!?
He has said over and over and over again how much he admires dictators and their “iron grip.” All the way back in 1990 he said he admires China for cracking down on Tiananmen Square.
If mass deportation causes chaos and there are a lot of protesters, there’s a real risk of 2020 BLM style agitation, and unlike last time, he will have no problem invoking the insurrection act.
Even if every one of the things you theorize comes to pass, again I ask WTF does that have to do with free speech?
You really think in this age of cell phone video that the National Guard would attack *actually* peaceful protestors, huh? Or that the Army would?
And of course, despite whatever he may or may not have said in 1990, there *is* the reality of what occurred during 2020 - burning and looting in the name of George Floyd, while Trump did no such thing like what you are theorizing.
Or really, catastrophizing.
Would a national guard member shoot someone? Maybe? He wanted to do this in 2020, and Barr had no problem bringing in bureau of prison personnel without badges to make a formation on the Lincoln Memorial. Esper and Milley talked him out of it, but those guardrails are gone.
I never imagined something like January 6 would happen,let alone that voters would let him off the hook. He’s going to pardon all those people and thus send a message that anyone who breaks the law on his behalf is protected.
He pardoned a war criminal the first time around. If someone shoots at protestors he’ll proudly and ostentatiously pardon the “brave, strong patriot who defended our precious democracy from the radical left and Antifa.” I wouldn’t put it past him to preemptively announce he’ll pardon them.
After all, what are you gonna do, impeach him? Prosecute him? Pfffft. He has very broad immunity and a strong argument that it was all a official act. And he won’t be up for reelection so he doesn’t even have to worry about voters.
Maybe none of this will happen, but I learned in the two months leading up to January 6 that we all lacked imagination of how strong is his will to power.
TDS is certainly a severe thing, isn’t it?
Anybody actually work out if Silicon Valley voters were pro Trump or not. I’d go out on a limb and say no.
"Which Trump is about to become president?" What a great question, seriously. I know nothing about the tech world and feel unqualified to comment here, but nevertheless wanted to say I so, so appreciate your viewpoint of hoping we'll be proven wrong.
Techbros are good at sometimes useful tech, and making money. Why do we think they are wise outside of their little world?
Never bet against Elon.
“Coming out of this election with Trumpism ascendant, I’m committing myself to taking a very hardline approach on free speech ”
This is particularly rich given that it has been the left for the last several years that has been anti- free speech.
Of all the explicit and implicit criticisms of Trump, or even “fears of what he might do”, this has to be the most absurd, most utterly unself-aware one there is.
I talk about that in the post. This idiotic. Say what you couldn't say? You absolutely were able to talk about the Hunter Biden laptop story. And it was barely censored.