I broadly agree with the sentiment here and appreciate the nuance around the topic, but I also have a lot of sympathy for J.D. dismissing the call for a public apology.
Sorry, but the pattern has been very clear over the past decade that public apologies to the Left are just blood in the water, they're never actually satisfied by them and will only use the admission of wrong as a cudgel to forever continue attacking and demanding more. There's just no point to asking for forgiveness from people who have none to give. I can understand not wanting to turn anyone over to the howling mob or give more time and attention to old tweets than current actions.
Doesn't mean I'm fully satisfied with the situation though. I don't want people who say things like "all I want for Christmas is White Genocide" or "I hate all men" serving anywhere in positions of influence either, and I'm not inclined to give similar sentiments a pass just because they happen to target a group other than mine. "First they came for the..." and all that. I don't think it's necessarily a firing offense for somebody in a job that doesn't include opportunity to discriminate on the basis of bigotry, but yeah it's pretty disqualifying for somebody who CAN use their position to harm the people they hate.
Now, regarding the DOGE guy, I don't have the impression that his job is one that offers that opportunity for bigotry to influence his work product, so his rehire may well be justified. I'd feel better about that though if Musk or J.D. had specifically made that point. Is this guy making judgement calls or just providing technical expertise? What are the guardrails in place to check this work JIC? Given the track record of people in government, I'd rather not be left relying on "just trust me" appeals rather than systemic safeguards.
I think it's irrelevant if "public apologies to the Left are just blood in the water, they're never actually satisfied by them," because that is not whom the apology is, or should be, for. The apology would be for those people of whichever ethnic groups were targeted. No one should care in the slightest if any of the so-called, self-styled "Left," or any other political persuasion believe it or not, are satisfied or not. That seems to be missing the purpose of what an apology is for, and whom it is given to.
AFAICT, it's only the Left that dug up the tweets and only the Left that has demanded an apology. If there's been any genuine outcry from any ethic group he's ever harmed I have yet to see it. So there's only two possible justifications for a public apology now: 1) to appease the Left, or 2) to express genuine regret (if he has any, which given the lack of a voluntary apology so far, I doubt he has)
1 is pointless. 2 brings us back to the matter of freedom of speech. Assuming that he genuinely is STILL a bigot, any apology would be fake.
What is the purpose of an apology? It's to express regret, right? An insincere apology is nothing more than a lie. To the extent that an insincere apology is 'for' anyone, it's purely for the person giving it, to try to get out of trouble. So what if he doesn't regret his words? What then?
Do we have any right to force a false confession of regret from him? No, compelled speech is a clear violation of freedom of speech.
Do we have any right to demand that he be fired for speech? Debatable. As discussed in the article there are some jobs where trust in impartiality is a legitimate job requirement (like diplomacy) and others where it isn't (like tech support). His role seems more in line with the latter than the former to me, but there's scope for good faith disagreement on that.
So, does being a bigot in his private life legitimately disqualify him from doing technical work for the government, in the absence of any evidence he's ever actually broken any law or regulation? I don't think so.
Everyone supports freedom of speech... Until somebody else says something that offends them. Then comes the real test. The entire point of freedom of speech is to defend unpopular, unwelcome, and even offensive speech, because speech that's popular, welcome, and inoffensive doesn't need protection.
For the record, I DO find his statements offensive. I'd welcome an apology from him if he's actually come to change his opinions and regret his earlier words. I can't agree though that we have any right to legitimately demand one. Given the facts of the matter as I understand them so far, I can't agree that we have any right to demand that he be fired. Being offended doesn't entitle anyone to an apology. Being offensive in private life doesn't necessarily disqualify everyone from having a professional life.
It is not private life if you choose to broadcast your thoughts on a public medium. This is where people get confused in my opinion. He put this out there publicly knowing that he was demeaning and insulting individuals and being proud and perhaps pro active by doing so. I have no desire to have this type of individual in my government and think that Musk and Vance are way too defensive about this, even for understandable reasons. If he had said this to a bro privately and had been secretly taped and the tape released, then I think it would be a close call. But Vance and Musk are I’m-lovingly dating thst they are not bothered by his comments . Agree totally with the go tent of this post.
I think you've conflated two different meanings of "private" here, so I'll clarify further to avoid any accidental Fallacy of Equivocation.
"being a bigot in his private life" is not intended to imply that the communications themselves were private, in the same sense as a phone call or conversation at home with a friend might be. I agree that the medium (social media) is public (in the sense of taking part in a 'public space'), not private, in that regard.
OTOH, the communications in dispute were issued in his role as a private citizen (using his personal account and speaking only on his own behalf), not as the public representative of any other entity. This is 'private speech', not in the sense that the public can't hear it, but rather in the legal meaning of 'private': intended for or restricted to the use of a particular person, group, or class. It is 'private speech' in that it is solely his, not owned by or representing the views of any other entity. The speech is his private property. This is legally distinct from speech as a spokesperson (formally appointed or not) for a larger entity that is regulated by different standards (such as the 'commercial speech' of a company or 'official speech' of a government official).
For a more concrete example, military service members are strictly regulated in regards to their political activity. Military service IS a job where maintaining public trust in impartial service is a legitimate job requirement. Among those restrictions are such rules as: can't advocate for fellow military members to vote for any particular person or party and can't attend political events in uniform. Why aren't those rules free speech violations? Because they aren't 'private' speech, the violator isn't acting in a private capacity as an individual citizen, but rather implicitly acting as a government representative, abusing their rank and position in the military to implicitly coerce fellow service members or abusing the uniform to falsely imply to the public that the military service has formally endorsed the political event or politician. Yet at the same time, it's entirely legal for service members to post as private citizens regarding their own preferred party and candidate and to attend political events in civilian attire as a regular attendee like anyone else. There is a very serious legal distinction made between "speaking as a member of the service" versus "speaking only for myself as a private citizen". Literally, the line between legal and illegal for a service member can be as thin as whether their username or signature on a political message identifies them as a service member or not. "Steven" (private citizen) can legally say and do certain political things that a "Sergeant Steven" cannot (even IF the public happens to be aware that private citizen Steven and service member Steven are the same person).
The offending DOGE employee spoke purely as a private citizen, using a private account, expressing his private opinions. DOGE has no responsibility for such speech: it wasn't made "as a member of" DOGE, it didn't use DOGE resources, and isn't any sort of public comment by DOGE as an organization. DOGE does obviously have a due diligence requirement to ensure that employees don't violate applicable nondiscrimination laws in their professional conduct, but I haven't seen any claims that he's done so nor that his particular job position even has any reasonable potential to do so. Therefore, demanding that DOGE fire or otherwise take any punitive action against him over his entirely legal (even if morally objectionable) private speech is inappropriate.
Apologies *could* have been accepted in this manner, and for a while I hoped they would be, myself. But the last 10 years have shown time and again that they are used as confessions of guilt, with a concomitant justification for cancellation.
“Let’s face it, you couldn’t Torquemada anything!”
Agree with your argument. To some degree this relaxation of norms may be an overreaction to the past few years but I suspect the Middle East conflict plays a role. In order to allow the extreme rhetoric and actions directed against Palestinians, a lot of social norms and values have to be torn up and rewritten. This is going to have consequences beyond the Middle East.
"I don’t think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life"
Somehow I don't find the statement reverberating with me. It's just that if a kid tweets "free Palestine," for instance, I know the statement wouldn't apply.
Don't ever fall into the trap of believing that the left has any moral consistency. Leftists demonize Palestinians, Jews, Russians, American white people (obviously) ALL the time, and never apologize.
Has Zaid apologized for publicly insulting white people 100s of times? Calling them "goras" and other slurs? Or is it just a joke when he says it but "normalize Indian hate" is super serious?
Consider also that this person needs to work with other people. If his job entails being in an office setting and working in collaboration with a team, then he may have disqualified himself. As an employer myself (albeit of a tiny workforce of 5), I don't think I could have someone on staff who managed to personally and publicly offend the rest of the team. The team can't be functional that way. It also sets a lousy corporate culture.
The problem with apologizing to wokesters is that the apology is accepted as an admission of guilt, but there’s never any corresponding forgiveness. Suppose this guy apologized. Would the people who are all up in arms about it forgive him, or stop ranting about it?
A thoughtful article, though I do have a question that has a point: What is materially the difference between suggesting that government would be better if "competent white men" ran it or suggesting that government would be better if "more non-white-men, often regardless of competence" ran it?
My only warning here--because I'm rather tired of this subject as a whole and am far more worried about results than racist posts and forcing performative apologies--is that people remember you may one day be asked to live by the rules you set.
I think the issue is that you're assuming that dichotomy when no one (even the most rabid DEI focused, "diversity matters" Liberal) has argued for incompetent non white employees- especially not at the highest levels of power. The argument has always been that focusing on diversity in hiring gives opportunities to qualified people who would otherwise go overlooked. We can argue about how true that is or not but it's an entirely rightwing reactionary framing that benevolent white people are just giving away jobs to talentless hacks who are BIPOC and/or queer.
“the most rabid DEI focused, "diversity matters" Liberal) has argued for incompetent non white employees” Actually, they’re arguing that being not-white combined with not-male is the deciding criteria, which is just as bad as deciding that being a white male is the deciding criteria. And they have assumed that being not a white male imbues people with a set of qualities and experiences that just naturally set them above, which is just as bad as assuming that being a white male automatically makes one competent. And given the number of incompetent not-white-men that have ended up at the upper echelon of government in the last four years (think Karine Jean Pierre, who was an abysmal spokesperson, and Kamala Harris, who was a joke of a candidate), I’d think that reality bears out that while they may not say specifically that immutable characteristics trump all, that is in effect what happens, and at some level has to be exactly what they mean, otherwise we wouldn’t be where we are.
I don’t deal in what is said or not said (hence the reason I find all this cancelling crap ridiculous). I deal in what has actually happened. And the DEI efforts have elevated completely unqualified people, just as the focus on letting “white men” run things elevated completely unqualified people, for precisely the same reason. There is effectively no difference, in case you were mistaken that the question was not a rhetorical one.
I think you're conflating the idea that it's important to have people with different perspectives with some sort of BIPOC/Queer supremacy which isn't really seen in DEI discourse (maybe you'll find it in radical feminist/ Black nationalist academic discourse). Also, it's hard for me to take you too seriously with your criticism of Karinne Jean Pierre considering that every D Trump spokesperson that proceeded her was infinitely more incompetent in terms of providing a coherent report of the administration's doings (granted, maybe you and I could argue that they had a harder job considering Trump's antics).
You’re saying that Kaleigh McEnany was more incompetent and less prepared that KJP. Oh, my goodness. KJP was a train wreck, but the first thing we were told about her was how “historic” she was.
No, these people are not brought in to have different perspectives. They are brought in because they look different or check a box. The Democrat Party wouldn’t be such a goosestepping mess if they encouraged “different perspectives.”
She literally defended Donald Trump's claim that the Morning Joe guy got someone killed with zero evidence but sure she's white and blonde and thus must be competent in your opinion. Look, I'm not a defender of DEI, I think it's mostly corporate whitewashing. My point is that the arguments for it were always framed as a means to increase competency by giving deserving minority workers a fair shot. IMO, that's fundamentally different than your framing of the mission of DEI initiatives which is a Republican talking point leveled at Democrats despite the fact no one can really argue why Elon Musk should be leading a new Federal organization outside of being one of Trump's biggest financial backers.
Why shouldn’t Musk be leading it? If you want a talking point, that’s it. X can’t be qualified because we said so. Well, Musk “exposed” USAID, something no one’s done before, not because we didn’t know it was a front for CIA machinations but because no one had the guts to make it so evident. Let’s see what else he can find.
KJP bumbled along. One moment Biden wasn’t going to do X, Biden did X, and now she was left trying to explain how she could have been so sure that Biden wouldn’t do X, rinse, lather, repeat. She was kept in the dark and stumbled the whole time and didn’t either have the brains or integrity to get out, because she was too busy being “historic.”
And I looked up your claim that Kayleigh McEnany “spread” the rumor. She did not. She said: “The president said this morning that this is not an original Trump thought, and it is not.” And it wasn’t. People have been suggesting that Joe Scarborough (aka The Morning Joe guy) had something to do with Lori Klausutis’s death for quite some time. So she wasn’t lying. And then she went on to talk about this clip of Scarborough being interviewed by Don Imus (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4123fntzZSc). Scarborough’s reaction is . . . interesting. So try again.
And the arguments might have been framed a certain way at one point, but they long ceased to actually work out that way, but we’re still hearing the same argument: “government would be so much better if all the people just looked different because obviously a man like Barack Obama has exactly the same experience as every other black guy and they’re all interchangeable, right?” Okay, well, not Byron Donalds, obviously, because while he might look black, he’s really “white adjacent” or so people like Joy Reid tell me. And the ridiculousness rolls on.
We're done apologizing to people who are beneath us (politically active libs), sorry Zaid. Respect is earned, and the people demanding apologies have earned nothing but our ire.
It sucks because Elez is obviously very racist. Hell, he could have just waited for the H-1B debate a few months after his tweet and he would have been fine lol.
I'm glad the VP and Elon recognize that this is a political stunt. That's real leadership.
I have had many of the same thoughts about my own views on "cancellation" and "punishment" for wrongthink.
I often call it the "Antisemitic graphic designer problem."
If, say a graphic designer, posts antisemitic stuff on social media repeatedly I kind of don't care. However, people whose roles impact the general public like police officers, teachers, public librarians, healthcare providers, etc. , especially those in leadership roles, ought to be held to a higher standard.
Also, we should look for a pattern of bad behavior, especially on social media. I don't want to live in a world where someone's job is taken away because of one off-color post.
I broadly agree with the sentiment here and appreciate the nuance around the topic, but I also have a lot of sympathy for J.D. dismissing the call for a public apology.
Sorry, but the pattern has been very clear over the past decade that public apologies to the Left are just blood in the water, they're never actually satisfied by them and will only use the admission of wrong as a cudgel to forever continue attacking and demanding more. There's just no point to asking for forgiveness from people who have none to give. I can understand not wanting to turn anyone over to the howling mob or give more time and attention to old tweets than current actions.
Doesn't mean I'm fully satisfied with the situation though. I don't want people who say things like "all I want for Christmas is White Genocide" or "I hate all men" serving anywhere in positions of influence either, and I'm not inclined to give similar sentiments a pass just because they happen to target a group other than mine. "First they came for the..." and all that. I don't think it's necessarily a firing offense for somebody in a job that doesn't include opportunity to discriminate on the basis of bigotry, but yeah it's pretty disqualifying for somebody who CAN use their position to harm the people they hate.
Now, regarding the DOGE guy, I don't have the impression that his job is one that offers that opportunity for bigotry to influence his work product, so his rehire may well be justified. I'd feel better about that though if Musk or J.D. had specifically made that point. Is this guy making judgement calls or just providing technical expertise? What are the guardrails in place to check this work JIC? Given the track record of people in government, I'd rather not be left relying on "just trust me" appeals rather than systemic safeguards.
I think it's irrelevant if "public apologies to the Left are just blood in the water, they're never actually satisfied by them," because that is not whom the apology is, or should be, for. The apology would be for those people of whichever ethnic groups were targeted. No one should care in the slightest if any of the so-called, self-styled "Left," or any other political persuasion believe it or not, are satisfied or not. That seems to be missing the purpose of what an apology is for, and whom it is given to.
AFAICT, it's only the Left that dug up the tweets and only the Left that has demanded an apology. If there's been any genuine outcry from any ethic group he's ever harmed I have yet to see it. So there's only two possible justifications for a public apology now: 1) to appease the Left, or 2) to express genuine regret (if he has any, which given the lack of a voluntary apology so far, I doubt he has)
1 is pointless. 2 brings us back to the matter of freedom of speech. Assuming that he genuinely is STILL a bigot, any apology would be fake.
What is the purpose of an apology? It's to express regret, right? An insincere apology is nothing more than a lie. To the extent that an insincere apology is 'for' anyone, it's purely for the person giving it, to try to get out of trouble. So what if he doesn't regret his words? What then?
Do we have any right to force a false confession of regret from him? No, compelled speech is a clear violation of freedom of speech.
Do we have any right to demand that he be fired for speech? Debatable. As discussed in the article there are some jobs where trust in impartiality is a legitimate job requirement (like diplomacy) and others where it isn't (like tech support). His role seems more in line with the latter than the former to me, but there's scope for good faith disagreement on that.
So, does being a bigot in his private life legitimately disqualify him from doing technical work for the government, in the absence of any evidence he's ever actually broken any law or regulation? I don't think so.
Everyone supports freedom of speech... Until somebody else says something that offends them. Then comes the real test. The entire point of freedom of speech is to defend unpopular, unwelcome, and even offensive speech, because speech that's popular, welcome, and inoffensive doesn't need protection.
For the record, I DO find his statements offensive. I'd welcome an apology from him if he's actually come to change his opinions and regret his earlier words. I can't agree though that we have any right to legitimately demand one. Given the facts of the matter as I understand them so far, I can't agree that we have any right to demand that he be fired. Being offended doesn't entitle anyone to an apology. Being offensive in private life doesn't necessarily disqualify everyone from having a professional life.
It is not private life if you choose to broadcast your thoughts on a public medium. This is where people get confused in my opinion. He put this out there publicly knowing that he was demeaning and insulting individuals and being proud and perhaps pro active by doing so. I have no desire to have this type of individual in my government and think that Musk and Vance are way too defensive about this, even for understandable reasons. If he had said this to a bro privately and had been secretly taped and the tape released, then I think it would be a close call. But Vance and Musk are I’m-lovingly dating thst they are not bothered by his comments . Agree totally with the go tent of this post.
I think you've conflated two different meanings of "private" here, so I'll clarify further to avoid any accidental Fallacy of Equivocation.
"being a bigot in his private life" is not intended to imply that the communications themselves were private, in the same sense as a phone call or conversation at home with a friend might be. I agree that the medium (social media) is public (in the sense of taking part in a 'public space'), not private, in that regard.
OTOH, the communications in dispute were issued in his role as a private citizen (using his personal account and speaking only on his own behalf), not as the public representative of any other entity. This is 'private speech', not in the sense that the public can't hear it, but rather in the legal meaning of 'private': intended for or restricted to the use of a particular person, group, or class. It is 'private speech' in that it is solely his, not owned by or representing the views of any other entity. The speech is his private property. This is legally distinct from speech as a spokesperson (formally appointed or not) for a larger entity that is regulated by different standards (such as the 'commercial speech' of a company or 'official speech' of a government official).
For a more concrete example, military service members are strictly regulated in regards to their political activity. Military service IS a job where maintaining public trust in impartial service is a legitimate job requirement. Among those restrictions are such rules as: can't advocate for fellow military members to vote for any particular person or party and can't attend political events in uniform. Why aren't those rules free speech violations? Because they aren't 'private' speech, the violator isn't acting in a private capacity as an individual citizen, but rather implicitly acting as a government representative, abusing their rank and position in the military to implicitly coerce fellow service members or abusing the uniform to falsely imply to the public that the military service has formally endorsed the political event or politician. Yet at the same time, it's entirely legal for service members to post as private citizens regarding their own preferred party and candidate and to attend political events in civilian attire as a regular attendee like anyone else. There is a very serious legal distinction made between "speaking as a member of the service" versus "speaking only for myself as a private citizen". Literally, the line between legal and illegal for a service member can be as thin as whether their username or signature on a political message identifies them as a service member or not. "Steven" (private citizen) can legally say and do certain political things that a "Sergeant Steven" cannot (even IF the public happens to be aware that private citizen Steven and service member Steven are the same person).
The offending DOGE employee spoke purely as a private citizen, using a private account, expressing his private opinions. DOGE has no responsibility for such speech: it wasn't made "as a member of" DOGE, it didn't use DOGE resources, and isn't any sort of public comment by DOGE as an organization. DOGE does obviously have a due diligence requirement to ensure that employees don't violate applicable nondiscrimination laws in their professional conduct, but I haven't seen any claims that he's done so nor that his particular job position even has any reasonable potential to do so. Therefore, demanding that DOGE fire or otherwise take any punitive action against him over his entirely legal (even if morally objectionable) private speech is inappropriate.
Apologies *could* have been accepted in this manner, and for a while I hoped they would be, myself. But the last 10 years have shown time and again that they are used as confessions of guilt, with a concomitant justification for cancellation.
“Let’s face it, you couldn’t Torquemada anything!”
Agree with your argument. To some degree this relaxation of norms may be an overreaction to the past few years but I suspect the Middle East conflict plays a role. In order to allow the extreme rhetoric and actions directed against Palestinians, a lot of social norms and values have to be torn up and rewritten. This is going to have consequences beyond the Middle East.
"I don’t think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life"
Somehow I don't find the statement reverberating with me. It's just that if a kid tweets "free Palestine," for instance, I know the statement wouldn't apply.
Don't ever fall into the trap of believing that the left has any moral consistency. Leftists demonize Palestinians, Jews, Russians, American white people (obviously) ALL the time, and never apologize.
Has Zaid apologized for publicly insulting white people 100s of times? Calling them "goras" and other slurs? Or is it just a joke when he says it but "normalize Indian hate" is super serious?
Consider also that this person needs to work with other people. If his job entails being in an office setting and working in collaboration with a team, then he may have disqualified himself. As an employer myself (albeit of a tiny workforce of 5), I don't think I could have someone on staff who managed to personally and publicly offend the rest of the team. The team can't be functional that way. It also sets a lousy corporate culture.
The problem with apologizing to wokesters is that the apology is accepted as an admission of guilt, but there’s never any corresponding forgiveness. Suppose this guy apologized. Would the people who are all up in arms about it forgive him, or stop ranting about it?
A thoughtful article, though I do have a question that has a point: What is materially the difference between suggesting that government would be better if "competent white men" ran it or suggesting that government would be better if "more non-white-men, often regardless of competence" ran it?
My only warning here--because I'm rather tired of this subject as a whole and am far more worried about results than racist posts and forcing performative apologies--is that people remember you may one day be asked to live by the rules you set.
I think the issue is that you're assuming that dichotomy when no one (even the most rabid DEI focused, "diversity matters" Liberal) has argued for incompetent non white employees- especially not at the highest levels of power. The argument has always been that focusing on diversity in hiring gives opportunities to qualified people who would otherwise go overlooked. We can argue about how true that is or not but it's an entirely rightwing reactionary framing that benevolent white people are just giving away jobs to talentless hacks who are BIPOC and/or queer.
“the most rabid DEI focused, "diversity matters" Liberal) has argued for incompetent non white employees” Actually, they’re arguing that being not-white combined with not-male is the deciding criteria, which is just as bad as deciding that being a white male is the deciding criteria. And they have assumed that being not a white male imbues people with a set of qualities and experiences that just naturally set them above, which is just as bad as assuming that being a white male automatically makes one competent. And given the number of incompetent not-white-men that have ended up at the upper echelon of government in the last four years (think Karine Jean Pierre, who was an abysmal spokesperson, and Kamala Harris, who was a joke of a candidate), I’d think that reality bears out that while they may not say specifically that immutable characteristics trump all, that is in effect what happens, and at some level has to be exactly what they mean, otherwise we wouldn’t be where we are.
I don’t deal in what is said or not said (hence the reason I find all this cancelling crap ridiculous). I deal in what has actually happened. And the DEI efforts have elevated completely unqualified people, just as the focus on letting “white men” run things elevated completely unqualified people, for precisely the same reason. There is effectively no difference, in case you were mistaken that the question was not a rhetorical one.
I think you're conflating the idea that it's important to have people with different perspectives with some sort of BIPOC/Queer supremacy which isn't really seen in DEI discourse (maybe you'll find it in radical feminist/ Black nationalist academic discourse). Also, it's hard for me to take you too seriously with your criticism of Karinne Jean Pierre considering that every D Trump spokesperson that proceeded her was infinitely more incompetent in terms of providing a coherent report of the administration's doings (granted, maybe you and I could argue that they had a harder job considering Trump's antics).
You’re saying that Kaleigh McEnany was more incompetent and less prepared that KJP. Oh, my goodness. KJP was a train wreck, but the first thing we were told about her was how “historic” she was.
No, these people are not brought in to have different perspectives. They are brought in because they look different or check a box. The Democrat Party wouldn’t be such a goosestepping mess if they encouraged “different perspectives.”
She literally defended Donald Trump's claim that the Morning Joe guy got someone killed with zero evidence but sure she's white and blonde and thus must be competent in your opinion. Look, I'm not a defender of DEI, I think it's mostly corporate whitewashing. My point is that the arguments for it were always framed as a means to increase competency by giving deserving minority workers a fair shot. IMO, that's fundamentally different than your framing of the mission of DEI initiatives which is a Republican talking point leveled at Democrats despite the fact no one can really argue why Elon Musk should be leading a new Federal organization outside of being one of Trump's biggest financial backers.
Why shouldn’t Musk be leading it? If you want a talking point, that’s it. X can’t be qualified because we said so. Well, Musk “exposed” USAID, something no one’s done before, not because we didn’t know it was a front for CIA machinations but because no one had the guts to make it so evident. Let’s see what else he can find.
KJP bumbled along. One moment Biden wasn’t going to do X, Biden did X, and now she was left trying to explain how she could have been so sure that Biden wouldn’t do X, rinse, lather, repeat. She was kept in the dark and stumbled the whole time and didn’t either have the brains or integrity to get out, because she was too busy being “historic.”
And I looked up your claim that Kayleigh McEnany “spread” the rumor. She did not. She said: “The president said this morning that this is not an original Trump thought, and it is not.” And it wasn’t. People have been suggesting that Joe Scarborough (aka The Morning Joe guy) had something to do with Lori Klausutis’s death for quite some time. So she wasn’t lying. And then she went on to talk about this clip of Scarborough being interviewed by Don Imus (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4123fntzZSc). Scarborough’s reaction is . . . interesting. So try again.
And the arguments might have been framed a certain way at one point, but they long ceased to actually work out that way, but we’re still hearing the same argument: “government would be so much better if all the people just looked different because obviously a man like Barack Obama has exactly the same experience as every other black guy and they’re all interchangeable, right?” Okay, well, not Byron Donalds, obviously, because while he might look black, he’s really “white adjacent” or so people like Joy Reid tell me. And the ridiculousness rolls on.
Joe Biden literally hired people because they weren't white. Explicitly. Like he said it from his mouth "I'm going to choose a black woman".
I'm of course talking about Kamala and Ketanji, both of whom are talentless morons who happen to be black.
"He also argued in favor of a eugenics-based immigration policy, whatever that means."
I think that he meant some kind of merit-based immigration policy, since those are implicitly eugenic. Many people support such immigration policies.
We're done apologizing to people who are beneath us (politically active libs), sorry Zaid. Respect is earned, and the people demanding apologies have earned nothing but our ire.
It sucks because Elez is obviously very racist. Hell, he could have just waited for the H-1B debate a few months after his tweet and he would have been fine lol.
I'm glad the VP and Elon recognize that this is a political stunt. That's real leadership.
I have had many of the same thoughts about my own views on "cancellation" and "punishment" for wrongthink.
I often call it the "Antisemitic graphic designer problem."
If, say a graphic designer, posts antisemitic stuff on social media repeatedly I kind of don't care. However, people whose roles impact the general public like police officers, teachers, public librarians, healthcare providers, etc. , especially those in leadership roles, ought to be held to a higher standard.
Also, we should look for a pattern of bad behavior, especially on social media. I don't want to live in a world where someone's job is taken away because of one off-color post.