I will take FAR less than 3 months. It is almost there already.

Perhaps we (we globally) should have been taxing rich people more so they don't become this rich and potentially influential/damaging. Same goes for corporations when you now hear of them having the influence of nation-states and meddling in international affairs.

basically +1 to this sentiment... i also use Twitter professionally, and am wondering at what point will dropping from the platform become a practical requirement to remain in good standing in civil society

So far, I haven't noticed any differences, other than what people are pointing out as examples that apparently they are seeing and posting about (use of N word, etc.). My feed is mainly sports, music, comedy and center/left-leaning political stuff. Our business has a twitter account, but I don't use my personal account professionally. That's what LinkedIn is for.

I've wondered about this part. I always thought he'd never actually buy it.

My main theory is that he was just shooting off his mouth online, as he does, and then realized "oh, holy crap- there are like legal ramifications to this? I'm rich - they can't possibly hold me to what I said when I was high." Then, when he met with his lawyers, they were like "This isn't like the time you drunk posted about taking Tesla public and you could tie it up in court or wiggle out of it - they can legit fine billions and send you to jail". And he thought they were bluffing right up until they got a few days away from the case.

At that point, he sat down with his lawyers and looked at his options. He picked the one where he could finance this with as little of his own money except stuff he could write off for tax purposes to offset some of his other brain dead moves. For the rest, he took a bunch of money from bad actors, probably from other nation states who saw him as a useful idiot and were more than happy to have him break another social media outlet and make it easier for them to spread disinformation.

SI

It's probably not a good thing that the present day political attacks and rhetoric is compared to the....1850s.

Where Will This Political Violence Lead? Look to the 1850s. - POLITICO

The average user probably won't notice a difference unless advertisers start dropping in droves and the platform becomes cash strapped. Or until Musk starts making some major changes.

The issue is it will now become a gathering place for right wing extremists to gather, plot, spread disinformation, and radicalize people under the guise of free speech. Then we get another 1/6 but probably much worse.

By the same token though I have to wonder; how many people that you interact with in Annapolis might whisper in-person things similar to what Elder or Musk have regarding Pelosi?

They won't whisper it at all. It has now become fact in their world, that happened as soon as Jesse Waters started running his stupid mouth. I guarantee if I asked my FOX News loving MIL she will swear to me it was a sexual transaction gone wrong.

Please. I put the over/under at 2 weeks.

Two months until Google/Apple start dropping Twitter because of it being 8chan

Looks like Musk's first big move is to require people to pay for a $20 month subscription service to be verified. That will go over well.

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Natural leader of men, that DeSantis...

DeSantis reinstated the state tax at midnight last night.

He did it on purpose so that Floridians will be outraged at the sudden rise is cost, but blame Biden, because like you they didn't know DeSantis was behind it. https://t.co/TP4NfPFGw4

— Stonekettle (@Stonekettle) November 1, 2022

He understands politics in 2022, though.

SCOTUS is all over the place today. Justice Roberts granted a temporary stay on turning over Trump's tax returns to Congress, but the full court vacated the stay on Lindsey Graham testifying in Georgia to the Fulton County DA. There was no noted dissent on the Graham decision.

When I grow up, I wanna be....

voter on Herschel Walker allegations, including paying for an abortion when he was nearly 50 years old: "We all do things when we're young, naive. He's an adult now." pic.twitter.com/Bz3wuWiZV9

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 1, 2022

The optimist in me says the same thing will happen with the Roberts decision after parties are heard (except for maybe the no dissent, and Thomas will surely find something to protest here.)

I will admit the Graham thing is more than it appears. They are forcing him to testify , but he still has the option to claim privilege on any question he doesn't like, and they will have to go right back to court to force an answer.

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Seems like something a competent opposition could make hay out of.

Which I think he will do for every question asked, and if the judge rules he has to answer, he will plead the 5th.

Because of the way the purchase was financed, including costs incurred by Twitter paid for by cash reserves,Twitter's new yearly cost to pay for it's debt - this is strictly interest, no principal - will rise immediately from $50 million per year to $1 billion. Twitter brings in barely half of that yearly in revenue, so Elon is already in a huge hole financially.

Wasn't sure where to put this, but i found this twitter thread fascinating and revelatory.

https://twitter.com/AlexBerenson/sta...29158996975617

Berenson has become a folk hero among the COVID denier crowd, here making observations about current partisan politics and whether the 2020 election was "stolen," and... well, it's like adding water to acid here, the discussion just blows up.

Some of the earnest-sounding input is downright shocking.

There are an awful lot of people who have very little foundation for what they now believe, but nonetheless believe it very, very deeply. That's really weird.

The amazing thing to me is a lot of polling I have seen says independents are leaning R because of the economy, which I get, except not one candidate has mentioned anything about how they would fix things.

The odds are they take control of both chambers and we get 2 years of committees going after Fauci, Hunter, etc...then when we are in even worse shape because of lack of any meaningful legislation they will cruise to a 2024 victory, because you know, Biden.

Voters, particularly those who determine outcomes, are pinheads, who basically know nothing of now politics/economics work. They hold the incumbent to account for anything they are displeased with, and only occasionally feel that similar credit is due when they are pleased. The out-of-office party rarely benefits from details or plans when they can merely rely on the election serving as a referendum on the current party in office.

Midterm elections are predictable like this, and it now feels wise to have largely disregarded all the fluff that dems got excited about when it felt (back in June/July) that dem voters were going to come out and vote with vigor.

It is going to be the standard out-of-office tailwind election, something like R+4 to R+6 overall, once we dust has settled.

If you insist on a more complicated explanation story, then feel free to go with the Saudis constricting oil supply just in time to trigger a resurgent hike in US gas prices enough to remind voters that they really, really hate paying an extra $4 when they fill up the tank, and genuinely care more about that than they do all these other things.

"It's the economy, stupid"

-the people telling Bill Clinton what to say

This, minus the pinheads part. But in practical terms of results, yep. All of this.

The party not in charge is the political equivalent of the backup QB - you're just reacting to what the guy in charge has done and what the guy who could replace him hasn't done or might do. You think it can't get any worse, and you remember that one time 10 years ago he did something decent that you liked.

Yeah, both of these people saw something on facebook or read a tweet from a russian tweetbot or watched the pillow guy and now they are expert enough to be correcting one another over the exact details of the supposed conspiracy that cost their guy the election.

You're saying that "dreadpilled" and "pastrygirl1" aren't credible political pundits?

SI

I can't even read that stuff. I can only shake my head in disbelief so many times. It's basic psychology. The more familiarity you have with anything the more you approve of it, or the more that it becomes digestible. Desensitization.

You didn't like that album you listened to the first time you heard it, but it grew on you, and now it's amazing.

You knew better, but so many people kept saying the Jews did it, that you started to believe them, because it made you part of the group, and it 'felt' right.

The guy on the TV talks a lot, but he sounds very sure of himself, and even though they said he lied over 30000 times, he swears they are wrong, and they are just out get him, because they hate him. You slowly slide from "naawwww", to "well, maybe" to "he's totally right!"

It's fascism and autocracy 101.

It's North Korea Press and the Iraqi Information Minister.

If trump suddenly said that he played a round of golf and got 11 holes in one, and there were people with him who said they saw it, and Fox News was all over it, and praising him and saying how he could only have done that if he was "the chosen one," there would be a long line of believers right behind him.

We're pushing the envelope, and the next couple years, and the 6 after that, might be the final nail in the coffin here. Pretty soon, we'll be just like the rest. A leader who sold the country out to the highest bidder, and stole the rest for himself and his cronies, and the will of the people stopped making any difference whatsoever.

We've already had a Trump sports fable - he was a star baseball player who could have gone pro.

Trump said he didn't cast his Florida Governor vote for DeSantis today. Lol.

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2024 GOP Primary is going to be wild

SI

I thought he clearly said he voted for him. No way in hell Trump votes against the MAGA followers.

But tomorrow he never voted for him.

I think the opposite. I think they clear the way for Trump. He can't be beaten, why try? Let him either lose or win and do a 4 year term. Desantis, Younkin, Noem, hell, even Lake, are all young. Why have a bloody battle with Trump for a nomination you are likely to lose, damaging your career in the process, when you can just wait it out and run in 2028?

Now if Trump can't or doesn't run, then yeah, going to be something else.

Yep. Trump has so much sway that the beat down he will give to his opponents will stick. Does DeSanctimonious want even more of that kind of treatment? When Trump is finally done, Ron will have that stench on him. This is Trump's way of saying - "Back down, and you'll have an ally once I'm done. Push me, and I'll ruin you forever and it'll stick even after I'm dead."

Yeah - I was just thinking that if any of them were bold enough to think that challenging him in 2024 was the right play (if he takes over and they think it might be scorched earth in 2028 with no chance to win if in the GOP, etc).

SI

Agreed. Trump is now openly insulting Desantis and he's just sitting back and taking it like a chump. He would get annihilated in any head-to-head with Trump.

I also think Kari Lake will be the person to beat in 2028. She's full on fascist and not shy about it. Seems much more appealing to the base than someone boring like Desantis.

Lake has to be Trump's VP right? He can play the unintelligent bully and she can clean it up with a TV personality's swagger.

I think she has to be the frontrunner. The idea behind Pence was concern over appealing to evangelicals, but I think that crowd showed they don't really care about any of the stuff they pretend to.

Maybe Kristie Noem with Tonya Harding her....

Lakes plan is to be Trumps running mate, win in 2024 ( I guarantee following her win in Arizona she tones down the rhetoric taking a play from Younkins playbook), then run in 2028 as the incumbent VP. It isn't really far from the realm of possibility we get 12 years of her. She is easily the biggest rising star, including DeSantis. The only guy who can give her a run is potentially Younkin who comes across as mo moderate.

DeSantis winning big and Trump's hand-picked morons doing poorly was a horrible result for him.

I don't count him out, but yesterday was just unalloyed bad news for him.

Blaming his wife. This is so on brand for him....

Trump is indeed furious this morning, particularly about Mehmet Oz, and is blaming everyone who advised him to back Oz -- including his wife, describing it as not her best decision, according to people close to him.

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) November 9, 2022

So lets say the 2024 GOP primary comes down to Trump and Desantis and Desantis wins the nomination. Would Trump voters stay home out of spite? that would totally sink DeSantis.

I can only imagine how mad he must be that his hand-picked candidate lost to someone who had a major stroke during the campaign.

I could see Trump running as third party. He has no actual allegiance to the GOP.