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Chapter 1: What is the core theme of No Mercy / No Malice: DOGE: What Can Be Done?
Chapter 2: How does the current political climate affect the US government?
into the week's political news and fish out some political analysis you can trust. Yes, Tommy's shoes get ruined. Yes, he'll do it again tomorrow because the endeavor is worth it and so is your sanity. Tune into Pod Save America wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube. I'm Scott Galloway and this is No Mercy, No Malice. We are in the midst, in my view, of a digital coup of the U.S.
government. Ich habe meine gesamte Karriere gezwungen, die Unterschiede zwischen richtig und effektiv zu verstehen.
A recent poll shows many moderates favor effective, move fast, break things, over right, checks and balances. Autocracies are seductive. In the short term they seem effective. A third of Americans on both sides of the political spectrum favor an autocrat as long as he, let's be honest, it's always a he, is aligned with their views.
Viele, oder die meisten Amerikaner bis jetzt, fühlen sich nicht anders als unter der neuen Regierung. Und sie mögen die Idee, schnell gegen Probleme zu kämpfen, die sie glauben, aus der Kontrolle geflogen sind. Grenzüberschritte, Regierungs-Largesse, wachsende Ideologie.
Chapter 3: What role does Elon Musk play in modern politics?
Der Blitzkrieg, der die Verbrechung von Alliieren verursacht, die Verzeichnung von Wasserböden und die Verabschiedung von Putin, hat viele Amerikaner, besonders Demokraten, flachgelegt, auf die Enttäuschung gewartet. If you believe that democracy should not surrender, as Trump is urging Ukraine to do, then the seminal question is, what to do? Honest answer? I don't know.
However, I do have some ideas. Nobody had Elon Musk as master of coin on their 2024 election bingo card. Seizing the levers of the federal payment system was strategic and elegant, as it gave the White House a single point of control, with influence over government priorities and policies via control of money flows. I do something similar when my sons are misbehaving.
Rather than attempting to parent hard, I just remotely shut off their phones' internet access. Department of Dad Energy. Dode. With the seizure of power, and money is power, Musk can reward friends, punish enemies, impose his political will, and effectively delete government agencies and departments by shutting off funding without worrying about pesky constitutional oversight.
This is techno-authoritarianism. Musks dominion encompasses the public and private sectors, physical and digital realms, and even space. In a 2007 essay, Musk-Ally and Doge-Co-Architect Peter Thiel argued for a new Alexander the Great, i.e. a king or dictator to cut the Gordian knot of our age. The chief obstacle, according to Thiel, America's constitutional machinery.
Chapter 4: How does techno-authoritarianism impact democracy?
Thiel schrieb, Quote, Unquote. Mein Pivot-Co-Star Kara Swisher beschreibt diese Mentalität als, quote, Let's wipe the slate clean, then we'll build the civilization we want, unquote. The problem? A plurality of American citizens did not vote for this vision, much less these individuals. Trump won.
In our system, the ideas he campaigned on can now become policy, assuming he has the votes in Congress. Musk ist der mächtigste Vizepräsident in der Geschichte und er wurde nicht mal gewählt. Seht euch die Zeitung von Musk hinter dem Resolute-Desk an, folgt von der surrealen Oval-Office-Pressekonferenz, wo Trump den Rolle als geriatrischer Vizepräsident zu Musks Politik-Blitzkrieg gespielt hat.
Ich glaube, wenn ihre Gedächtnis, die die Libertards zu eignen hat, abschließt, werden die Republikaner im Kongress realisieren, dass sie einen Monster erschaffen haben, den sie nicht mehr kontrollieren können. Musk's digital coup subjugates the right as much as the left. His attempt to hijack the government also hijacks the MAGA agenda.
By the way, at some point Americans will realize the conservative-progressive battle is a misdirect. The real fulcrum, where the battle is being waged, is up-down. Rich versus not rich. The wealthy and corporations whom Trump and Musk listen to will put up largely symbolic resistance to an emerging autocracy. They aren't going to suffer, as the world now offers civil rights for sale.
The 1% can move anywhere by influence and ensure everybody in their circle has access to Mifepristone. The savings from Doge are again a misdirect from an enormous tax increase on today's youth via the deficits we'll register if Trump's tax cuts go through. I know a lot of very wealthy tech executives and financiers. The key to their wealth, yes, much of it is luck, not their fault.
And much of it is talent. However, the real secret sauce is a focus. The acquisition of wealth is an obsession for the, wait for it, Wealthy, pro tip, anybody speaking at a university who claims they never thought much about money, is obsessed with it. The right's defense of Musk, that Doge is some patriotic gesture, is laughable. His focus and his only focus. Er wird ein Trillionär.
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Chapter 5: Why is wealth obsession crucial to understanding political dynamics?
Sein Volontärismus ist ein Versuch, die Obstacke zwischen ihm und größerem Geld zu klären, spezifisch Regulierer und Fair Play. Musk-Kultisten offern oft das gleiche, ah, schucks, er kann sich nicht helfen, er ist so authentisch Rap, wenn er sagt oder tweetet, seltsame, rexistische und einfach dumme Dinge. Aber sein Id?
is always in check when it comes to saying anything about China, where officials likely feel they have leverage over Musk. So measured, so thoughtful, so disciplined, so obsessed with money. He recognizes he doesn't enjoy the umbrella protection of the First Amendment in China and accusing a member of the CCP of being a sex criminal, his go-to, would likely result in swift economic retribution.
He may or may not suffer from Aspergers, but he definitely suffers from being an asshole. And by the way, for those of you bots waiting to fill the comments section with cries of TDS or an obsession with Musk, you're wrong. I've been clinically diagnosed with DAS, Democracy Addiction Syndrome. And bitches, after four weeks of this nonsense, incompetence, surrender, my affliction is spreading.
If it's possible to hold our government hostage by capturing the federal payment system, then we need to work upstream of Musk's choke point. Already the Treasury Department has exhausted roughly 60% of the extraordinary measures at its disposal to delay a default on our bonds.
The rates on the 10-year Treasury bill, however, indicate that Congress will raise the debt ceiling, as both parties have done 78 times since 1960. But what if Democrats refuse? A dozen GOP senators and 49 House Republicans, more than 20% of each conference, have never previously voted to raise the debt ceiling. Democrats have a strong stand here.
If they credibly threaten default, rates on the 10-year T-Bill will increase and equities will likely suffer. This will be painful, but the pain will primarily fall on the 1% and corporations, i.e. those who own 90% of assets and have influence over Trump. In effect, the markets could do what Congress won't. Reign in Trump, kick Musk to the curb and demand the US remain a nation of laws.
In March the government will run out of money, unless Congress acts. If the government shuts down, roughly 3 million federal workers will stop receiving paychecks. Stiffing the military, air traffic controllers and people who keep our food and water safe is stupid. It hurts them and us.
At the moment, however, a sleep-deprived alleged ketamine abuser who makes Nazi salutes is cutting off funding for programs he dislikes and promising buyouts to federal workers with money that isn't there. Hakeem Jeffries is correct when he says there's little Democrats can do legislatively to stop President Musk. But Democrats shouldn't do anything legislatively to enable him either.
Here again, Democrats have a decent hand to extract concessions, as a shutdown is upstream of Musk's power. Musk's wealth is the source of his power and his main point of vulnerability. One third of his wealth is tied up in Tesla stock, which briefly rose after the election, as the market priced in kleptocracy, but has plunged 30% since December.
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Chapter 6: What are the implications of capturing the federal payment system?
Das hat Tesla-Sales verursacht. In China, Teslas zweiter größter Markt, sind die Verkäufe jährlich um 11 Prozent geringer. Letztes Monat hat BYD viermal die Zahl der EVs verkauft, die Tesla verkauft hat. Musks Politik ist schlecht für Amerika. Wir müssen sie schlecht für sein Geschäft machen.
Musk hat einmal tweetet, Quote, zwischen Tesla, Starlink und Twitter, ich habe mehr real-zeit globale ökonomische Daten in einem Kopf als jemals. Quote. Frage. Ist es in Amerikas besten Interesse, für einen Mann die kombinierte Macht von Henry Ford, NASA und William Randolph Hearst zu haben?
Starlink ist ein großartiges Produkt, aber die wachsende Bewertung, die Musk über globale Kommunikation erzeugt, ist erstaunlich. Musk kontrolliert bereits halb die Satelliten in der Orbit. Er plant, in den nächsten fünf Jahren bis zu 58.000 mehr zu starten und verspricht, das Niveau zu 500.000 zu erhöhen. In der Politik schlägt das Pendulum immer zurück.
Die Demokraten sollten klar sein, dass sie, wenn sie den Kongress wiederholen, die Dominanz in den Satelliten von Musk beurteilen und Regulierungen beurteilen, um im Interesse der nationalen Sicherheit zu arbeiten. Notieren Sie, dass das auch gute Politik ist, weil Musks Popularität auch bei den Republikanern sinkt. Denken Sie daran, als würde man Greenland invadieren, wenn Greenland Raum wäre.
In the meantime, Senate Democrats can block government contracts Musk companies rely on by filibustering funding legislation, as Republicans do not have a filibuster-proof majority. When I interviewed historian Niall Ferguson on my podcast, he said British politics is a game of cricket between people who went to Oxford. Whereas American politics is a blood sport.
I'd argue Niall misses some nuance. Recently, democratic politics have felt like a stern game of bridge at the rest home. For MAGA, the coarseness of our discourse is a feature, not a bug. Musk und Trump verstehen das. Sie spüren violente Rhetorik und leveragen politische Gewalt, wie am 6. Januar, weil Angst ein nützliches Werkzeug ist, um Follower und Opponente in Linie zu halten.
Gestern begann ein DOJ-Offizier falsche Angelegenheiten von Menschen an Musk und seinem Team zu verurteilen und Angelegenheiten an Offiziere zu senden, um ihre Kommentare zu klarifizieren, also sie zu enttäuschen. Ja, freie Sprache, unless it's our guys. This is an attempt to cast a chill on opposing speech in what can be described as the fascist hymn.
Speaking of fascist hymns, the Wall Street Journal reported on February 19th that Linda Iaccarino is now a brick in the fascist wall, threatening to leverage her dear leader's influence to block the IPG-Omnicom merger if they do not advertise on her platform.
Despite credible threats, Trump has removed security details protecting his former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, General Mark Milley and Dr. Anthony Fauci, to name a few. In response, Democrats marched to a federal building and did their best impression of a seniors facility when Jell-O nights been cancelled.
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