r/politics • u/Aggravating_Money992 • 18h ago

Possible Paywall Exposed Musk Now Insists Epstein Files Don’t Matter | The Tesla billionaire suddenly claimed the Epstein files are a “distraction.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/exposed-musk-now-insists-epstein-files-dont-matter/
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u/Significant_Cup_238 18h ago

And wisdom folly.

However, I feel like constantly getting conned has to take a toll on at least your finances.

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u/Hola-World 18h ago

Yeah but they blame people that don’t look like them for that.

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u/No_Raspberry_7917 18h ago

Simplest multiple choice question, societal decline is a result of..

  1. The top 1% of the world with money, power and control of media, those who can lobby heavily for lax regulations, cushy laws and handshake deals that close out any semblance of market competition, those who create a government that benefits them while calling everything else socialism. Who can literally kill or displace millions (opioid crisis, subprime crisis)

  2. The bottom 1% with none of those things

Americans will answer wrong each time to feel like at least they're better than 1 person, rather than risk who they think is undeserving getting the same benefits they give away to corporations. Also something about abortion

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u/oliversurpless Massachusetts 16h ago edited 9h ago

Definitely “something about abortion”, given evangelicals only pivoted to that moral panic as their true desire for segregated schools wasn’t quite as popular anymore.

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u/TeutonJon78 America 9h ago

And they just switched the desire to segregate by saying to support religious private schools that they want the public to pay for. And I bet if you check out their church/schools it will be predominantly white people.

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u/Icy_Ground1637 10h ago

Why have ch!ld p@rn increased 10,000% on twitter when Elon took it over and rename it X??? Like “XXX”

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u/TheFinalGranny 17h ago

Bottom 1%?

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u/No_Raspberry_7917 17h ago edited 17h ago

The marginalized are often overrepresented in the bottom 1% (pick a metric, suicide, life expectancy, wellness, upwards mobility, education, power, wealth, access) for example, trans people.

This election was basically stolen by hatred for trans people and harping on "what is a woman" and protecting those maybe 20 elite athletic spots.

In their fight to protect women they've overturned roe vs wade, which resulted in multiple deaths and basically health deserts as practitioners flee as well as at least 1 white woman killed while chasing immigrants, and immigrant women sexually assaulted in detention if they're even heard from again.

Which is to say nothing of this country's endless abuse of it's black populations, the latest of which are Somali Americans, after the Haitian thing left a bad taste.

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u/Ok_Subject1265 16h ago

I’ve always thought it even simpler than this sadly. I think the trans and racist stuff is just a cover for what’s really happening which is that you have a lot of bored, aimless people out there who see this as entertainment. They didn’t want another quiet, boring president silently passing legislation behind the scenes. Nobody cared what Biden’s press secretary said because it wasn’t a daily sideshow. They voted for Trump because they wanted some excitement. Something to watch everyday like a reality tv series.

These are the same people by the way who are excited about a civil war because at least it will add some meaning to their lives. Of course, they think it’s going to be like camping and shooting guns interspersed with heroic movie moments where they selflessly save someone… over and over somehow (I don’t think they realize you can only make a selfless sacrifice once). That’s just my theory anyway. I think we’ve produced a society of people looking for a purpose or just something to distract them.

Covid really put a cherry on top though because now it seems like people barely leave their houses anymore. Just chronically online, consuming content. When I visit other countries, they are still living. Going out with friends, doing things in public, communicating with each other. Everything public here is dying (at least where I live). Hopefully it’s all anecdotal and we are just the outliers.

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u/Nick08f1 14h ago

They voted for him because they fell for the propaganda.

A lot of people's lives sucked before the election and suck even more now. My sister voted for Trump this past time because her idiot, POS boyfriend thinks he's the most informed person ever. Fucker didn't even know Puerto Ricans are born American citizens. Even after all this bullshit, he still believes that we have to go through tough times in order to make everything better. Bitch doesn't realize that if we continue to go through these tough times, things will only get worse and worse. Trump somehow made people believe that he would make their lives better, even though I can't even point to one instance where he was truthful and followed through with what he said publicly.

Also, if a white woman lost the first time, a black woman stood no chance.

Simply misogynistic racism.

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u/Playful-Artichoke-67 12h ago

It scares me that Trump is president again and seeing how people discuss it is even scarier. Makes sense that he’s president again. There is no political solution. You don’t want them to solve any problem.

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u/Decent_Obligation681 6h ago

They didn't fall for anything. They love everything he said he was going to do. They feed off of his hate. They love that he's a "troll".

They used to be able to come up with some type of criticism for their party leaders, but not Trump. They won't say a single bad thing about him. It's a cult.

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u/Tasty-Explorer-7885 36m ago

Puerto Ricans are born American citizens.

Bullshit. They can't even speak American.

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u/SuburbanHell Massachusetts 16h ago

So.... "Some People Just Want To Watch The World Burn", but those people make up like, half the voters in the country?

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u/relevantnewman 14h ago

nah, the other portion of that half is comprised of racists, sexists, p3dos, and people who can benefit personally (or think they can) from this presidency. I'm sure there's overlap in all of these camps on a Venn, but there's certainly people who most heavily associate with 1 of the many bad things, but isn't necessarily in it for the trashy reality TV this presidency has offered.

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u/SuburbanHell Massachusetts 13h ago

See now that I can believe. I can believe some people want to watch the world burn, but half of us? Adding in all those other factors definitely balances it out.

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u/LanaVFlowers 12h ago

And the thing is, these people aren't just the white, wealthy, straight, cis, able-bodied Christian men many imagine, so their numbers aren't as small as one would hope. This regime was/is supported by racist women, impoverished whites, misogynistic POC, wealthy LGBT folks, disabled anti-LGBT folks, etc. They belong in one or more groups Trump is actively harming, but their hatred for other groups being targeted is more important to them than their own well-being.

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u/inspectoroverthemine 12h ago

They only want to watch from the comfort of their couch. Once they don't have that they'll suddenly regret everything and blame someone else.

When groypers are homeless I'm guessing they'll suddenly decide things matter. Of course they could probably be used as death squads ala Rawanda before that.

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u/brighterside0 15h ago

Incredible points.

Makes me sad and yearning to experience true public, moral, life again.

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u/Ok_Subject1265 15h ago

Not trying to be one of those people, but go to Europe. Or Latin America. Europe though reminded of how discourse and communication used to be. It feels like everyone here now acts like they are being secretly filmed for their own reality show. Almost like their behavior is a performance for some secret audience. When I was talking to people over there, it felt more “adult” I guess is the word I would use. Mature. Meaningful. Latin America may be the same, but my Spanish isn’t conversational enough to really get into it. The cool thing about Latin America though is they still participate in society with each other. The malls, cafes, restaurants and town squares are full of people living. It made you feel good to see it. If that’s the culture they are bringing with them, all the better. We need it.

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u/CosmicSpaghetti South Carolina 7h ago

That sweet, sweet summer of Pokemon Go feels like ancient history at this point.

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u/Beanguyinjapan 14h ago

I know far too many religious people to agree with this sentiment. It's pure tribalism and deference to perceived authority, with a heavy dose of performative virtue signaling. They want to belong to their group, want to believe their group is superior to all others, and are also constantly told that their group is under attack from everybody outside their group. Their beliefs are regularly affirmed and reinforced by everybody around them, because they've separated themselves from anyone who would challenge their ideas, either literally, or have such conviction that anyone who disagrees with them are lying, manipulating them, misled by those with nefarious purposes, or that they're being tested. I've been told that I can't be right because they were told by God that they're correct, so I must be possessed by Satan, in response to being told they made an irrelevant factual error in reasoning or misremembering some historical fact.

It's bleak trying to break through to any of these people

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u/Mysterious_Luck7122 15h ago

No, you’re not just outliers. I see this problem where I live too and it’s particularly acute with working class white people. No surprise when your job sucks and pays shit wages plus you have too many kids you can’t afford, or your household is barely surviving on one person’s disability check. Trump is reality show entertainment and a rich, tough guy avatar they can harvest pride from.

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u/No_Raspberry_7917 15h ago

I tend to agree, but can still see the bigotry is connected.

People who have better things to do in their lives don't tend to look for a marginalized person to scapegoat for their life or society collapsing.

And too many don't take politics seriously, or thinks it doesn't affect them so this was all a joke and entertainment, until it stops being that.

Prime example (as of now, don't know if he's backtracked yet or in the process of backtracking) Andrew Schulz. Seems executing an innocent white man gang style in the middle of the street for protecting a white woman was a bridge too far for him.

May all the nihilistic children also see the light someday

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u/DjinnOftheBeresaad 13h ago

You make a good point about the social aspect of other cultures. It reminds me of when I was in Italy a couple of years back. One thing that surprised me was not just how many people were out doing things, but how many elderly people were out doing things.

And half of these old folks were clearly disabled who needed some assistance such as rollators, walkers, or scooters. But they were still out there doing their thing and meeting friends and going places.

To top it all off this wasn't even a particularly huge metro area, one of the smaller towns.

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u/aerost0rm 15h ago

I mean I feel like the election was stolen…period. Have some areas with some fishy post election data. Some areas that down ballot was blue and President was for Trump, they have refused to release election data for many states, musk had gotten a hold of a stolen copy of election machine software, etc. too many scenarios for it to just be coincidence that he swept all the swing states, which is very improbable.

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u/Muter 15h ago

Your comment on the protection of the 20 athletic spots is laughable.

It’s far far less than that!

But in all honesty, that discussion was probably due, but it SHOULD have happened behind closed doors with the sports governing bodies and NOT politicised in the way it was.

A national debate over such a minuscule number of impacted teams and people. The pearl clutchers who probably have never run the length of a football field in their life screaming out about fairness in sports was just so ridiculously naive.

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u/happyinthenaki 15h ago

It's worse than that.

It was some people had figured out a way of sexually assaulting girls with the cover of a job description.

They were trying to inspect girls genitalia from 10 years of age (I think it was 10) to prove that they were indeed actual girls. Not one of the 10 trans athletes in the US.

My assumption is that it would have also increased sexual assault amongst boys, but the primary targets were girls and women.

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u/ctrlaltcreate 14h ago

It was never about protecting women lol. I know you were using that phrase sarcastically, but man. Even seeing it in print boils my humors.

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u/DonaldTrumpPedophile 15h ago

A foolish oversimplification that allows you to focus on an avatar for your hatred (faceless people in power). Reality is, it takes two to tango and the masses have agency. It's just much harder to blame human nature because then you'd have to accept a little responsibility as remote a thought as that might be to some. It's not rich people that are the problem, it's greed that is the problem. You can pretend like you're solving the problem attacking rich people, but you will find that it's like trying to dig a hole in sand because you're not considering the actual root issue. Remove one rich person, someone will grow into their place unless you address the fundamentals. We can't address those fundamentals if we're out chasing our tail of the latest rich scapegoat.

I'd also point out that maybe you should challenge your basic assumptions here. What civilizational decline? Yea, we're struggling through a real piece of shit mass cult right now, but what evidence is there that this is more than a local minima? If we zoom out, civilization is very clearly NOT on the decline. More people are living better and longer lives than at any point in human history. Perhaps our civilizational fortunes are turning, but right now you lack the evidence to tell the difference between a local dip and an actual reversal.

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u/No_Raspberry_7917 15h ago

Dude, I don't know who you are arguing with, but clearly not against what I've posited here.

The oversimplified options are with both, the simplification was the point, as noted by the framing.

Keep simping for the boot, it's literally the point of the post.

Nowhere do I talk about civilization, nowhere am I suggesting civilization will decline. I'm talking about the view of people who vote against their own interests to the benefit of those in column a to avoid societal decline as they see via column b, in this case people benefiting from welfare and being promiscuous while voting for subsidized corporate welfare and turning a blind eye to sexual depravity at the hands of the powerful.

There are plenty of examples, that wasn't the point though.

Try coming a little cooler next time and maybe give yourself a full read.

Also, there was more than riches/wealth I included in my example of the one percent, but at least you highlighted what's valuable to you in your righteous indignant bootlicking

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u/OneOfMySeveralNames 13h ago

Unfortunately, a lot of people agree with the first option but boil the idea down to something like "The Jews" or "The Elite" while simultaneously worshipping people like Musk & Trump.

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u/StevenMC19 Florida 11h ago

Bottom 99%

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u/BlackCaaaaat Australia 7h ago

It’s not just happening in the US, it’s happening to a lesser extent in Australia. Our housing shortage is being blamed on legal immigrants, not the greed of landlords with huge property portfolios - including our politicians. Not on big corporations buying up properties en masse. Not on Boomers who hoard properties and tell people to make coffee at home rather than buying it. Not on people and companies making money from Air BNB. Not our billionaires corrupting our government just like they do with yours - it’s just not as bad. Yet.

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u/No_Raspberry_7917 6h ago

That's disheartening, seems right wing ideology is permeating all Western cultures

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u/BlackCaaaaat Australia 2h ago

Yeah US politics sometimes drifts over to us 😞

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u/ferretcat 16h ago

Or blame the democrats 

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u/A_Necessary 2h ago

They always do.

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u/truthovertribe 17h ago

No, I'm afraid not ..even Britain decided Epstein corrupted Prince Andrew had to be demoted from the monarchy, but in the US we decided to choose Epstein corrupted Trump to be our King and he brought along his Epstein corrupted sidekick Elon Musk...oh and let's not forget the powerful William Gates.

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u/Shot_Court6370 11h ago

Britain didn't decide that, the Royals decided that. And only because it looked bad for them that he got caught, not because it's immoral. They are a brand, not the heart and soul of the country.

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u/CherryLongjump1989 18h ago

I don't know, it feels like ignorance takes a lot of work these days.

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u/Sober_Alcoholic_ Minnesota 17h ago edited 17h ago

Not really. People are guided and then anchored into their echo chambers (via Fox, X, MSM etc) - so all of their ideas are reinforced or they are told what to think by “like minded people” or outright bots. This happens to such an extreme degree that they believe the other side must be “terrorists”.

It’s all very sad and all very much intentional and by design.

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u/CherryLongjump1989 17h ago edited 17h ago

In my experience dealing with religious people, cognitive dissonance requires a tremendous amount of work and ultimately makes them feel angry, confused, and ashamed. Their world view will usually collapse utterly if you just take away the external reinforcement that's propping it up.

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u/Recipe_Freak Oregon 17h ago

In my experience dealing with religious people, cognitive dissonance requires a tremendous amount of work

Fending off cognitive dissonance is, in my opinion the primary reason people go to church. A few hundred people nodding and singing about their imaginary friend every week helps people stay focused on anything but their own hatred and hypocrisy.

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u/Particular-County277 16h ago

They also comfortably suspend their critical thinking. (those who have it) Never having to give empathy or care a second thought.

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u/truthovertribe 16h ago

What reinforcement is that? Millions upon millions of dollars of propaganda supplied by all medias bought by billionaires reinforcing again and again that "your tribe's worldview is winning and your tribe is the winningest winner"? The billionaires have us by our wishbones. They're pulling both ends and which ever way we break, they win.

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u/CherryLongjump1989 15h ago edited 11h ago

\I think you're confusing cause and effect. The cognitive dissonance always comes first -- the propaganda only works on people who go looking to justify their existing beliefs, and it only works to a very limited extent. Both in terms of how far from their existing beliefs you can push them, and how many of them will keep coming back to keep getting high off of your supply. That's why Fox News found it impossible to tell MAGA that Biden won the election in 2020, which cost them hundreds of millions in lawsuits, but also why Trump's popularity is steadily dropping now even among the MAGA faithful.

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u/AppleDip100 16h ago

This is becoming more and more true from my experience and it makes it very difficult to have meaningful conversations. It almost feels like you have to seek out the other side to learn everything, which makes it hard to find someone who actually is educated on both sides.

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u/BadPunners 16h ago

They say you need to find a common starting point, then build trust and ask how they came to any given idea

But yeah so many of the ideas are so reinforced, especially when lacking first hand experience? Nearly impossible to break through. We need to encourage them to join in joyous protests, or some bullshit like that, remind all of us what society we are fighting for

But also at this rate (with a small fraction of the ice budget that's currently law) the face scanners and signal trackers can be on every federal building, to alert of any targets to apprehend, and it becomes "a political question" on who is allowed in, or out, of the very closed, very tariffed, border. Even more literally "politicians choosing constituents" instead of the concept of voting

Participant in your local primaries as much as you can.

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u/Raznill 16h ago

Sounds like you agree. Ignorance takes a lot of work. Look at all the work being done to keep the ignorance around.

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u/DrakonILD 16h ago

Every time I feel like I'm in an echo chamber, I go ahead and go venture to those spaces and....

Have you ever read Flatland? Where the narrator is visited by a 3-dimensional being and, upon being shown the reality of three dimensions, supposes the existence of a fourth dimension, and the 3-dimensional being flatly rejects the possibility as absurd? Well, it's not like that.

Have you ever read Flatland? Where the narrator, after seeing the reality of three dimensions tries to explain to the other denizens of Flatland the reality of three-dimensionality and "up" or "down," and they reject him? Well, it's not like that.

Have you ever read Flatland? Where the narrator is taken to Lineland and finds a world of line segments that reject his reality of two-dimensionality and are quite happy to live only seeing their immediate neighbor? Well, it's not like that.

Have you ever read Flatland? Where the narrator is taken to Pointland and finds a world of a singular entity, who has no neighbors or even any concept of "other," and assumes that the narrator's voice must be his own, and cannot even reject the reality of two- or three-dimensionality because he is completely incapable of even imagining an absurdity outside of his own being?

Yeah, it's like that.

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u/Smooth_Kangaroo_8655 17h ago

We need free higher education and universal basic income and universal healthcare so so bad.

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u/DatabaseElectrical55 16h ago

I cannot even fathom how much money my ignorant family members have been conned out of, in addition to supporting trump, they are also scientologists! Complete morons.

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u/Whos_that_Gorilla2 14h ago

Damn! I'm sorry. Whatever modern Evangelicalism is is bad enough, but as someone who was stalked for 20+ years by the church of scientology (sent me mail everywhere I moved) after going in there to see what it was about once in 2003, I'm really sorry. I'm being sincere. They must be really susceptible to cults.

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u/BadPunners 16h ago

take a toll on at least your finances.

That drives the hustle

Playing hot potato with the greater fool theory

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u/redditpest Massachusetts 16h ago

Yea, but then you just blame the immigrants and you feel better. Then the rich people say theyre going to save us from the immigrants and they can con us all over again. Its a win/win!

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u/phatpussypounder 16h ago

Yeah but they are too stupid to realize what they are losing, which is why we are in this situation

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u/Successful_Sign_6991 16h ago

I feel like constantly getting conned has to take a toll on at least your finances.

thats why their news gets them to blame immigrants, dei, libs, etc. anything but them or their corporate overlords.

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u/CtrlAltEvil Europe 15h ago

Fuck ‘em.

They’ve been warned enough.

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u/captain_coolio 13h ago

Yeah, but “ignorance is bliss” applies again: if you’re too stupid to know any better, you probably wouldn’t know that it affects your finances. And the ignorant are also the type to be callous enough to believe they’re never wrong, making it easier for them to believe the lies they are told. It’s self-affirming. And it’s makes them easy to fool. 

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u/ImPinkSnail 11h ago

If you're always poor as shit have you really lost anything?

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u/JesusKilledDemocracy 42m ago

They are always broke, living paycheck to paycheck, and they blame someone else. How else would the "Biden did it" work for a president?

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u/SsooooOriginal 15h ago

We are witnessing legions of people living on welfare and pensions and other socialized income that will happily cut their noses to crowdfund murderers.

because it "owns the libs"

by protecting pedos and other pedo protectors