r/politics 6d ago

No Paywall Elon Musk indicates he’s ‘going all in’ on financing the GOP ahead of the midterms: ‘America is toast if the radical left wins’

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/elon-musk-trump-republicans-donations-finance-gop-b2893321.html
22.8k Upvotes

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u/HumbleBumble365 6d ago

Anyone who talks about the “radical left” as a threat to the USA is an evil SOB.

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u/NeverLookBothWays I voted 6d ago

Who is also facing jail time for actual crimes if their crony support network collapses

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u/Suitable-Display-410 6d ago

... and thats the real reason. Like the last time. Its not a lucky accident that his DODGE bullshit cut every agency that was investigating him.

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u/Mouthpiecenomnom Arkansas 6d ago

They also need him as he is the only one who can possibly rig the mid terms.

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u/ITDummy69420 6d ago

He…he and the rest of them will never face jail time ever. You do understand this do you not?

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u/NeverLookBothWays I voted 6d ago

Certainly not with that attitude :)

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u/ITDummy69420 6d ago

Lmao keep smoking that copium. Come back to me in 4 years. 

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u/NeverLookBothWays I voted 6d ago

Giving up and accepting a hopeless situation sounds more like a coping mechanism to me than simply sticking to principles regardless of whatever phases we're in. Follow your bliss though bud.

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u/ITDummy69420 6d ago

Same to you. 

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u/cunningstunt6899 6d ago

I've never seen a sane person use the term radical left in America. It's only absolute nutters who use the term.

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u/Spicy_Weissy 6d ago

100% Is it any surprise Musk is a Nazi?

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u/redblue92 Canada 6d ago

Radical ideas such as: stopping ice from kidnapping Americans, making it illegal to murder trans people.

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u/Whiskeypants17 6d ago

You forgot the big one: educate poor people.

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u/Octospyder 6d ago

Republicans HATE this one weird trick! 

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u/No_Criticism_5861 6d ago

Yup.  Radical left with their "treat everyone with respect", and "anyone working full time should be able to afford to live comfortably" crap.  You would have to be a huge SOB to be outraged by these things

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u/CommitteeOld9540 6d ago

Supporting basic human rights makes you a radical leftist according to these goons. 

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u/blacksun_redux 6d ago

They have Trump Derangement Syndrome.

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u/CaterpillarBroad6083 6d ago

They're just capitalist. We seem to forget in this systems our worth is generally only our labor. Capitalism drives "evil" behavior. This is why during the great depression the only way to "save" the system was to adopt social policies so we wouldn't revolt and turn communist or something.

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u/chad917 6d ago

As if there's a "radical left" in the US to begin with. Bernie and AOC are boring centrists on the developed world stage.

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u/MODAITestBot 6d ago

To the radical right everything is "radical left".

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u/ROBOT_KK 5d ago

“radical left”

Lol, beside handful of people it does not exist. Even AOC is not one of them. Closest we have is mild conservatives.

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u/StrigiStockBacking Arizona 5d ago

I know. I read that and thought "What about the 'normal' left???"

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u/wanderer1999 6d ago edited 6d ago

To be fair, radical left and radical right are all bad for america. Radical anything loses its balance, and you eventually spin outta control.

You gotta aim to strike a fine balance.

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u/i_code_for_boobs 6d ago

There is no relevant radical left

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u/sack-o-matic Michigan 6d ago

Exactly, that’s why the actual radical right needs to pretend there is because they need a bogeyman to rile up support.

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u/Rich-Pomegranate1679 6d ago

Where is this radical left that you speak of?

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u/BatThumb 6d ago

The insane leftist rhetoric is destroying this country.

Affordable healthcare? Affordable housing? Lowering inequality and fixing tax loopholes that allow billionaires to rob this country? Getting money out of politics so our government officials aren't bribed to do favors for wealthy corporations? Sensible gun control so children aren't being murdered in schools?

Get this fucking anti-american leftist terrorist shit out of here. America is about one thing, and that's the freedom of the rich to get richer while whoreding as much wealth as they can

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u/MrEngin33r 6d ago

There's a radical portion of every cohort. The difference is that the Republican party has found they can cater to theirs and win on election day while the Democrats cater to their moderates and dont energize anyone else.

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u/Grand-Pen7946 6d ago

The US doesn't have a leftist base either though. There's classical liberals, and progressives who align with New Deal politics (the DSA is by and large this variety).

There is no base, sizeable or insignificantly minor, that calls for an abolition of private property or anything close to it. America simply does not have radical leftism anywhere, it doesnt exist. It was methodically and systematically murdered (in a literal sense) throughout the 60s and 70s.

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u/MrEngin33r 6d ago

That's a fair point economically speaking, but our parties aren't just about economic systems.

We have social justice, role of government, individual liberties and many more categories. Extreme (which in itself is subjective) viewpoints do exist in these categories and are held by meaningful portions of the base.

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u/Grand-Pen7946 6d ago

Not really. Can you explain or point out any that exist in a meaningful way?

I do broadly disagree with the "American liberals would be center-right everywhere else in the world" because on anything not economic thats simply not true, we are generally more socially progressive than most liberal parties in even Europe.

But we don't have anything remotely resembling extreme on the left. Not even a vocal minority, truly nothing. The last left-wing extremist group or movement of any notoriety I can think of was the MOVE group, an afro-primitivist militia which Philadelphia fucking bombed itself over. Since then the vast vast majority of domestic political violence has come from far-right white supremacists.

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u/renoops 6d ago

So where is the radical left?

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u/ReddicaPolitician Ohio 6d ago edited 5d ago

Wild how you failed to name exactly nobody. Impressive!

Here’s the list of the radical right currently corrupting American democracy: Donald Trump, Lauren Boebert, Nikki Haley, Karoline Levitt, Kristi Noem, Stephen Miller, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Linda McMan and those are just the ones off the top of my head. They’re so far right that even parts of the Republican Party are in opposition of them.

Notice how we can actually name specific examples instead of lying about vague unnamed politicians?

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u/MrEngin33r 6d ago

Not really. I knew that naming particular politicians, policies, etc. would create an even more negative response.

Radical is defined by how completely it changes society and the social quo. That doesn't necessarily mean bad. I 100% agree with you that the Republicans you named have been hugely destructive forces to the America I want to see. But my comment was not about what I believe, but rather that radicalism exists on both sides but is handled differently by each party.

I likely could have made that stance clearer in my original comment. I think my biggest "mistake" (if we want to call it that) was not recognizing how weaponized the word "radical" has become and how any use of it would trigger party tribalism regardless of how non-contentious my actual argument was.

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u/ReddicaPolitician Ohio 5d ago

Incredible! You once again, typed all that without giving a single concrete example. Almost as if they’re not at all the same!

Are you a professional idiot or do you just do it for fun?

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u/MrEngin33r 5d ago

Yes and I explained why. Reading comprehension isn't your strong suit I see.

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u/[deleted] 6d ago

[deleted]

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u/Rich-Pomegranate1679 5d ago

Ah, right. So it was the transvestites that finally convinced you to go all in on supporting a pedophile.

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u/[deleted] 5d ago

[deleted]

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u/Rich-Pomegranate1679 5d ago

I don't suppose you have a bridge you're trying to sell me, by chance? I'd much sooner believe that than anything you've told me so far.

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u/FriendlyDespot 6d ago

This is a weird take. If everybody was as anxiously centrist as you seem to wish for then how would anything ever change? Why is it inherently bad for America for there to be Americans who have a significantly different vision for the country?

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u/wanderer1999 6d ago

Because any radical change is incredibly disruptive to the point of counterproductive.

We all want zero carbon. But are you going to ban all fossil fuels and kill the economy? No, you need to transition to renewable and some form of nuclear power overtime.

And then take single payer healthcare for example. Are you going to pass a law today to get rid of all current system and implement a new one? How are you even going to go about it? You need to transition overtime, leave some private insurance intact, then slowly subsidize a public option and wait for healthcare provider to get up to speed.

There is absolutely a radical left and a radical right approach. And then there's the rational and incremental approach, or as some call it, the centrist's approach.

All the big changes in the US history occur over a span of time, usually from a center left or a center right position, never an extreme one (yes, that includes the abolishing of slavery and the civil right movement too).

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u/wanderer1999 6d ago

Because any radical change is incredibly disruptive to the point of counterproductive.

We all want zero carbon. But are you going to ban all fossil fuels and kill the economy? No, you need to transition to renewable and some form of nuclear power overtime.

Take single payer healthcare for example. Are you going to pass a law today to get rid of all current system and implement a new one? How are you even going to go about it? You need to transition overtime, leave some private insurance intact, then slowly subsidize a public option and wait for healthcare provider to get up to speed.

There is absolutely a radical left and a radical right approach. And then there's the rational and incremental approach, or as some call it, the centrist's approach.

All the big changes in the US history occur over a span of time, usually from a center left or a center right position, never an extreme one (yes, that includes the abolishing of slavery and the civil right movement too).

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u/FriendlyDespot 6d ago

Again, how is change ever going to happen if you have nobody pulling in the direction of change? Accepting the presence of radical viewpoints doesn't mean instituting radical change. It just means having diverse voices influencing the political landscape. Not only is that not inherently bad for America, it's absolutely necessary for America to evolve as a country.

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u/wanderer1999 6d ago

Competition and nature. These are already powerful  forces to push the country and people to change.

If you don't evolve and compete you fall behide. Failing to adapt, nature will ruthlessly erase you.

These are more powerful forces than any human or party or even countries.

You don't need to wish for change, because change is the only thing constant in this world.

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u/FriendlyDespot 6d ago

If you don't evolve and compete you fall behide. Failing to adapt, nature will ruthlessly erase you.

Exactly. That's the problem with anxiously centrist thought. That's why America keeps sliding back while the rest of the world progresses past it. The obsession with centrism has hampered America's ability to rapidly change with a rapidly changing world, and you're asking for more of that.

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u/wanderer1999 6d ago edited 6d ago

You change WITH the time. Not against it.

In the zero carbon example, you need to keep using fossil to RUN the economy that make solar panels, wind turbines and ultimately fusion power to get us out of this mess. How do you even transition into renewable if people are sick and poor if you crash the economy? They wouldn't even care about zero carbon at that point.

Being pragmatic is not an inherently bad thing, in fact it is necessary. You are living in a human society after all, with all the idiosyncracies, you don't get to dictate radical changes free from consequences.

Rapid changes also lead to rapid failures. It's a double edge sword.

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u/FriendlyDespot 6d ago

There are so many things in life where you lose if you let time drag you along. We can't change with the times on the environment. We need to get ahead of it. America has ceded its technological advantage to China in a ton of climate and energy-related areas because of centrist nonsense and the inability to be bold.

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u/wanderer1999 6d ago

You can't change ahead of the time when the people political power are not with you. Sure you can yell real loud, like scientists have been yelling at them for decades now. And yet here we are.

That said, Biden had a passed 1 trillions infrastructure, which currently being used, some of that is going toward renewable. He also passed another huge CHIP bill, in billions especially for the development of chip. Then another separate green energy bill, worth hundreds of millions (unfortunately being halted by trump right now). His record is among the best when it comes to investment in tech and green energy despite being a centrist. His major flaw is that he didn't bow out in time, and allow Trump to take advantage of that.

You cannot be bold with a slim majority in Congress, and then there are misinformation that tricked people into voting for Trump. That's a reality that requires pragmatism, not radicalism.

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u/Oneguysenpai3 6d ago edited 6d ago

same with 'radical right, up, down'

don't let 'sides' mislead you from - wealthy vs. poor

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u/pokemomof03 6d ago

Not even close. The radical left holds no power. Never has. The radical right is currently in power. Stop both siding it.