🧵 I've spent this year writing for the @newrepublic about how a group of Silicon Valley billionaires has gone WEIRD. Now their weirdness is mating up with Trump's MAGA weirdness in the 2024 election. Here's a few things to understand about these guys:
1. How Fascism Works (from the book by Dr. Jason Stanley):
The Mythic Past: Fascist politics invokes a glorified, mythological past that has supposedly been destroyed or undermined by liberal, foreign, or otherwise corrupting influences.
"The Shining" is scary, but Stephen King should do a horror novel about a small band of Nazis and Soviets who unite behind a plan to destroy the USA from within by infiltrating a major political party with the help of propaganda media outlets, TV stars and billionaires. Oh wait
Ketamine Christ? To understand Elon Musk's authoritarian rage, examine his key delusion: He believes he's the savior of humanity and the future of our species depends on him. Therefore, he is the most important human in history and everyone must bow down. For the @newrepublic "Daily Blast" podcast, I spoke with @GregSargent about the roots of San Francisco's emerging tech authoritarian ideology. https://newrepublic.com/article/178930/elon-musk-maga-boosterism-tech-oligarchs-dark-side
Trying to upgrade to Ghost Pro so I can move FrameLab off of Substack. When I try to upgrade to paid, I get sent into a big loop where I have to sign in again, and again, but can never find a page where I can actually pay to upgrade. Either I am doing something very stupid or there is a catastrophic design flaw at play. Anyone have any experience with this?
Some tech billionaires want to build a new colony in rural California. They spent $900 million to SECRETLY buy up nearly 60,000 acres in rural Solano County for a new community called "California Forever."
Local residents are up in arms, as they should be. But the project may be a lot weirder and scarier than they think.
The well-funded right-wing campaign against evidence-based approaches (housing first, harm reduction, criminal justice reform) deserves more coverage than it's getting. This is an excellent example of how to do it.https://wapo.st/48FuHB9
"When It Comes to Twitter, Mainstream News Outlets Should Take a Cue From Fox News. Seriously."
Must-read piece from @parkermolloy about how news outlets have bowed down to Elon Musk's tyranny instead of using their considerable power to push back against his war on journalism.
As Molloy points out, Fox once stopped tweeting for 16 months in protest. Of course, as an information warfare outlet, Fox understands how this stuff works! Legit news outlets must learn...
Elon Musk buddy Peter Thiel dumped cryptocurrency while urging others to buy it.
Just before the crash.
“We’re at the end of the fiat money regime, ” he declared in April 2022, saying Bitcoin’s price could increase by a factor of 100. He’d pretty much cashed out by then.
Thiel called crypto skeptic Warren Buffet a “sociopathic grandpa” … while quietly doing the opposite of his own public advice.
California journalist and writer. Ida Tarbell stan. FrameLab (w/@GeorgeLakoff). Beat: tech fascism, billionaire extremism, meta narratives, network state, mirror worlds.