Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
one thing different is now we all wonder about the politics of letting this story through when a year ago it was just WaPo’s core beat.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
I think you are giving them far too little. These people had very steady lives. They don’t any more. They are well aware.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
Sometimes you know what you are giving up, and you give it up amyway.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
We have Nicholas Gottlieb at US AID, David A. Lebryk at Treasury, who knows how many others, giving up their careers rather than betray their values. Bezos, Zuckerberg, et al, the CEOs of CBS + ABC, placate and bribe the President to preserve and expand their empires. Money makes people pathetic.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
they may think they are.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
Should people who openly bribe the President, even if they are “respected” lawyers or CEOs or whatnot, doing it because “it’s in the best interest of shareholders” be welcome in polite society? Should you serve them in your restaurant? Speak politely with them at conferences?
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
I think that’s right. I hope they’re badly wrong. The US is a lot bigger and more fractious than post-Communist Hungary. They’re running their play. We all have to live out the experiment, playing whatever part we choose.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
How is this the world we live in?
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
i think Trump will be torn between wanting to keep Musk around as an infinite pocketbook for propaganda and primarying dissenters, vs hating to share the limelight and so wanting to shiv him. 1/
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
ultimately i’d probably take the opposite side of the bet from you, i think Trump is a coward, picks fights with the weak. but as you say, Trump does have a nose for exploitable weakness. i mb overstating the effect of his cowardice and deference to net worth. i have no confident predictions. /fin
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
If he does cut Musk loose, yeah, Tesla is toast. But Trump instinctively defers to money. So long as Trump hasn’t cut Musk loose, Musk is “the richest man in the world”. Trump may not want to risk letting all that money, in the hands of an open, shameless manipulator of US politics, go offsides.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
OTOH Trump might realize, The can ruin Musk. Then there’s no money left for retribution, nothing to worry about. He could pull his own Khodorkovsky. All I got is 🍿
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
* He not The… (i want my edit button!)
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
Tesla’s fundamentals are Musk’s access to the state. That’s pretty hard to value!
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
new revenue sources on the horizon. www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...
Senior U.S. official to exit after rift with Musk allies over payment system
Link Preview: Senior U.S. official to exit after rift with Musk allies over payment system: A top Treasury career staffer is expected to depart. Surrogates of Musk’s DOGE effort had sought access to sensitive payment systems.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
This is fine. Musk wanted access to the literal spigot of Federal money in a way that made the totally nonpolitical guy who supervises it, a guy Trump and all his Project 2025-ers had been happy to reappoint, feel like he had to resign. ht @marisakabas.bsky.social
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Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
We are all so proud of our great corporate champions. 40yrs.blogspot.com/2025/01/ecch...
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
yes. that's certainly my perception, which partly motivates the question. i can't believe no matter how badly D leadership fails us — we're at serious risk of full blown fascism! — the faces at the head of the party are always people who've been there for years or have just waited their turn. 1/
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
the lack of accountability ex post, or incentive ex ante to take outcomes rather than fundraising seriously, drives me nuts. /fin
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
it is very debilitating of democracy that our choice of our most direct Federal "representative" (for 760,000-ish people, that's a weird word) is so often is basically completely removed from the risk and energy that might come from a meaningful election.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
Good idea or bad? "Ensure every Congressional Democrat in 2028 faces a meaningful primary challenger." (at first blush: upside is accountability for ppl some of whom seem to worry abt more abt risking their jobs than risking the country; downside is primary challenges might cripple in the general.)
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
To be fair to Trump voters, he presented himself as isolationist and antiwar, before he was elected.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
Normie white dude: This renaming shit is just stupid. Let Ulysses S. Grant Elementary stay Ulysses S. Grant Elementary. Yes, the Black Hills. It was 150 years ago. I mean, even Robert E. Lee Elementary. Who cares? Let's get real stuff done. Trump: Have I told you about the Gulf of America?
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
9/11: “They hate us for our freedoms” 1/6: “They free us for our hatreds.”