Political Memes

Also, compare the breakdown of the 2020 race:

https://www.opensecrets.org/2020-presidential-race

Biden's campaign directly spent over $1B, and over half a bil of outside money (SuperPACs, I assume). Trump "only" managed about $1B combined.

IIRC, money spent directly by the campaign is also worth more; they get preferential ad rates.

Harris has already broken $100M in the first few days. Some of that was pent up donations from donors who wanted Biden out.

WINK

I learned a cool magic trick that changes the color of people's posts! Check it out:

I have some ideas about what we should do with Musk and Trump, but they're against instance rules

He started donating as soon as Trump appointed JD Vance as his VP. Vance is a protege of Peter Thiel, a Musk partner and Silicon Valley confidant.

Nobody is going to release "the Epstein file" (whatever the fuck that's supposed to be) because Epstein was doing all sorts of shady shit on behalf of national security services in order to build compromat on people in conflict with those agencies. You didn't need Trump to make any kind of promise for that (not that he's particularly trustworthy anyway). What you needed was a guy on the inside, slavishly loyal to the Silicon Valley techbro community. And JD Vance is that guy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ElonJet

Our whole schtick is (supposed) to be that anyone who wants to come here and make a life here is an American.

There's plenty of things to be pissed at Musk for, especially in relation to how his family made their money in Apatheid South Africa (emerald slave mines), but him being born elsewhere isn't it.

Wait until you hear about this guy named Rupert Murdoch.

I'm not saying that this is a good thing, but the meme really wants you to believe that ordinary people have donation limits and rich people don't. This is an oversimplification.

Sure, but it's a practical truth. Which is to say, it's true.

Now, if you want to file the paperwork to start your own superPAC as Stephen Colbert did on his show, you can do that. It wouldn't cost much. That would allow you to accept and funnel unlimited funds to whoever or whatever you wanted. The "laws" around it are ludicrous.

But if you're a regular working stiff and just want to relax and not fuck around but feel like donating to a candidate - the limit is there for you. That's the practical distinction that makes the meme true.

If someone works from 18 to 65 and makes $60,000 a year then over the course of their career they would have a total take-home pay after taxes of about one million dollars. This guillotine dodger is donating 45 people-lives worth of productivity a month.

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert did a lovely series about this.

But in short, Donating millions to Trump. Illegal. Donating millions to Trump PAC. Legal. Trump can not spend Trump PAC money directly. Trump can say "boy I wish I had millions of dollars in political ads in a specific states at specific times about these specific topics." Trump can also get pretty specific about the details.

The Supreme Court declared money to be "free speech" and therefore protected by the first amendment. Therefore, if you are a billionaire and wish to throw elections to a fascist of your choice, that is protected speech.

The case is referred to as Citizens United. It's also the source of the phrase "corporations are people, my friend" as it affords first amendment protections to corporations which are not people. Except in the crooked eyes of the fascist Supreme Court majority.

Short version: strategically place judges at all levels of jurisdiction, bring cases in front of them that upend protections aimed at preventing exactly that type of oligarchic power buying and thus rewrite the laws through these hoops until Freedom of Speech is conflated with buying elections.

Ha haaa - I see what you did there

It is just a weighted voting system where their opinion matters one billion times more than yours. I see no problem here.

He also planned to have a bulletproof window cyber truck. He should plan to get his head surgically removed from his ass. Since that is apparently where it's been for a decade.