I don’t disagree. If the Democratic Party plainly better served his material / monarchical interests, he’d talk up trans rights and start every meeting with a land acknowledgement. 1/

But the claim I think people like @mattyglesias.bsky.social try to make is that there’s some world in which people like Musk support the progressive values despite the kind of modest material costs an Obama would impose relative to Republicans lower taxes and greater deference. 2/

There might be a colorable case there for a lot of tech titans. But for Musk — and he’s hardly alone, there’s been a lot of toying with “race realism” in tribe gray for years, i swear i have some scars to prove it — it does not strike me as remotely plausible. 3/

These people have had strongly held views they’ve felt they had to suppress, and would have to suppress in anything remotely like the post-FDR Democratic coalition. 4/

They also like the freedom to do drugs and stuff, which they’d have had to suppress in the historical Republican coalition. 5/

But once a libertine, “race-realist”-curious, business (monopoly) friendly realignment occurred in the Republican Party, why wouldn’t they have jumped? (And that stuff precedes their influence, and is not down to Thiel. Trump done it.) 6/

The only real constraint was the values of their progressively college educated employees. But over the last two years, they feel they’ve acquired a whip hand there. 7/

So, jump they have. /fin

Suppose Elon Musk’s, um, hand gestures, his support of AfD, and promotion of replacement theory have persuaded you he has some interest or fascination with the historical Nazi movement. 1/

Musk has been fascinated by the number 420, which (4/20) is Hitler’s birthday but also a marijuana signifier, for many years. observer.com/2024/04/elon... 2/

Is your inference he recently became Nazi-curious, and previously had fetishized 420 solely over marijuana, or that he had some interest in Nazism for a long time and enjoyed the ambiguity and plausible deniability thay 420’s marijuana associations afforded? 3/

If the latter, is it plausible that the wealthiest and most influential figure in “tech” would have remained supportive of the Democratic Party and its racially, culturally, and sexually progressive values if only partisans had been less mean to tech? 4/

Or is it more plausible than any apparent progressivism was always feigned and as Musk’s wealth and power grew he would be emboldened to openly advocate for his views? 5/

We can’t know! In some counterfactual universe where the racially, socially, and culturally progressive party was also the low taxes on rich people and deferential to monopoly party, maybe Musk’s material interests would have overwhelmed his, um, “playful” fascinations. 6/

But in anything like the actual universe, I think the evidence suggests there was little hope the party both more economically and culturally progressive could have retained this person’s support if a more materially friendly, more racially “realist” party could champion his interests. /fin

God I want an edit button. Sorry for the typos.

Oh, I don't have any delusions about the "agency" people have when they vote. The amorphous public is an amorphous public, whether it is voting or buying. 1/

We need to build institutions under which governments are likely to emerge that are capable of organizing collective action intelligently. Part of that is voting, both to inform and discipline that government. 2/

But what matters is whether the institutions confer both political legitimacy and quality, to establish capable collective agency. Our status quo political institutions, including how you and I vote now, plainly aren't doing that. 3/

Somehow out of the mess of broken institutions we need to enact changes that will undo and reform those institutions. Not easy. Perhaps not probable, if you are a betting man. But neither impossible nor unprecedented either. 4/

We'll have to see how we survive the next few years to see whether we get another shot. Or maybe we in some sense we don't survive (perhaps for many of us we literally don't survive), and something new has a shot of growing from the corpse. Or perhaps armageddon. 5/

I'm hoping for the easiest, least armageddon-ish path. /fin

No offense, but I think that's dumb. These things thrive because of coordination equilibria. Humans almost never break coordination equilibria by spontaneously, in isolation, bearing switching costs and hoping others do the same. 1/

Coordinated collective action is required, and in a world where most people are and mean to stay busy and rationally ignorant of things like local maxima as traps, imagining mere communication by the concerned will deliver is also dumb. This is what state action is for. /fin

A hand gesture that culminates remarkably like a Nazi salute but begins with a hand on the heart might have been some novelty, something not intended as a Nazi salute. 1/

A longstanding fascination with the number 420 is pretty weak tea as evidence, even if 4/20 is Hitler's birthday. 2/

Support of AfD in Germany doesn't mean you are a Nazi sympathizer, even if that party has neonazi connections. 3/

Circumstantial evidence could always be coincidental. But as circumstantial evidence piles up, the probability of coincidence declines. 4/

Sure it could all be a gag! Trigger the libs! 5/

But that's just a different interpretation of the basic claim, that jokingly or not Musk has some longstanding interest in communicating support of Nazi-ish things. (And the support of AfD doesn't seem too jokey?) /fin [corrected, originally mistakenly referred to Trump rather than Musk]