Raising our voices

November 30, 2024

Hi, everyone! I offer a short reflection for the weekend. If you are still basking in the glow of a holiday with family and friends, my advice is to keep basking! We all need a break and there is nothing in this newsletter that won’t keep until next week. Feel free to skip this newsletter and go for a walk!

It has been surprising to many people (including me) just how painful the transition period between Election Day and Inauguration Day has turned out to be. Losing the presidential election was bad—but three post-election developments have amplified the disappointment while highlighting the need for us to raise our voices in resistance, opposition, and truth.

First, Trump's nominees are individually and collectively an insult to the American people, the Constitution, human decency, science and education, and the rule of law. On the whole, Trump's nominees have been unqualified, dangerous, and odious. Several have histories of sexual abuse—like the president-elect. They are anti-heroes in a time of crisis who have been chosen because they seek to undermine and destroy the Constitution they will take an oath to defend. Few imagined how bad Trump's nominees would be. Hold that thought.

Second, after lying during the campaign about his knowledge and connection to Project 2025, Trump has appointed designers and architects of the reactionary agenda to key positions in his administration. See NYTimes, Trump Disavowed Project 2025 During the Campaign. Not Anymore. (Accessible to all.) It was all a lie—and everyone knew it. But even today, the NY Times cannot call Trump's deception a lie. The normalization and soft-pedaling of Trump's extremist agenda continue unabated in the legacy media. Hold that thought.

Third, Trump has merged his transition team into a shadow government populated by “tech bro” billionaires who believe that their serendipitous fortunes are entirely the result of genius, insight, and hard work. In fact, their internet billions owe much to being in the right place at the right time when fortunes were to be made in a disruptive industry. They confuse good fortune with genius and believe they can run the world’s biggest economy because they can design computer algorithms that promote divisiveness and anger to generate addictive engagement. And—here’s the rub—they believe their success in turning hate into money is a template for running America. It is not. Hold that thought.

The three developments noted above collide in the fictive persona known as Elon Musk, who is Trump's Chief Hanger-on. Musk fashions himself a genius because he has had the capital to purchase other people’s promising technology and intellectual property, which he rebrands as his own. Trump, who values fame above wealth and wealth above all else, is enthralled with Musk’s contrived personality. Moreover, Musk controls one of the world’s most destructive social media platforms that he has converted into a dark web of MAGA bullying and disinformation.

Trump and Musk are in a parasitic relationship—and not one that is beneficial for them or for the nation. Musk’s advice is frequently so bad that Trump ignores it. But what Musk lacks in influence on the administration, he makes up for in using Twitter as a propaganda tool for Trump's lies. That alone would be a reason to abandon Twitter. But over the Thanksgiving holiday, Musk took a dark and dangerous turn.

The day before Thanksgiving, Musk posted

[Alexander] Vindman is on the payroll of Ukrainian oligarchs and has committed treason against the United States, for which he will pay the appropriate penalty.

Treason is one of the handful of federal crimes for which the US criminal code prescribes the death penalty.

Regardless of whether Musk intended to threaten Alexander Vindman with execution, that is at least one reasonable inference—and perhaps the strongest. Musk’s post has been viewed more than 6 million times and re-posted nearly 14,000 times (as of Friday evening, November 29, 2024).

Given that Musk dined with Trump on Thanksgiving at Mar-a-Lago and has been named to run a performative budgeting exercise, it is reasonable to assume that Trump approves of the comment. Surely the threat was raised as a topic of conversation between comments like “Gimme some more of those marshmallow sweet potatoes” and “Can I have some more Reddi Whip on my second slice of pumpkin pie?” It is only a matter of time before someone leaks the fact that Trump and Musk had a good chuckle over an implied execution threat leveled against an American patriot.

Given the closeness of Trump and Musk, the legacy media should hold Trump directly accountable for the threat and not stop writing about it until Trump apologizes for the comment, demands a retraction by Musk, and banishes him from the administration and his Thanksgiving table.

None of that will happen. Which is where we come in. We must raise our voices. Trump and Musk feel comfortable threatening American citizens with implied threats of execution because they get away with it. No one seems to care—so we must care. We must raise our voices. Individually and collectively.

It can feel futile to speak out as an individual. Musk has 133 million (alleged) followers on Twitter. The platform has become a cesspool of MAGA hate and bullying. And yet, it has been a reasonable choice to remain on Twitter. There are communities of academics, lawyers, activists, journalists and news organizations, scientists, state and local governments, and engaged citizens who use the platform in a positive and productive way that is not entirely replaceable at this point in time.

But the guy who owns and runs Twitter just made an indirect call of the execution of Alexander Vindman. A line has been crossed. People of good faith should say, “Enough!” and abandon the platform. Let it collapse of its own weight of vileness and hate, free of the public discourse that imbues it with legitimacy it does not deserve.

Bluesky is giving Twitter refugees a place to land. It will become more useful, informative, and effective as users flee Twitter and join Bluesky. Or join Substack. Write a daily / weekly / monthly newsletter. Add your voice. Or post on Facebook to existing friends and followers (note: Mark Zuckerberg dined with Trump the day before Thanksgiving at Mar-a-Lago!). Or post on Medium or Reddit or in the comment sections beneath articles published by newspapers to which you subscribe.

The point is this: With one tweet, Elon Musk told his hundred million followers that Alexander Vindman is a traitor who should “pay the price” for his treason. We need to overwhelm his voice—and we can. One at a time. Every day. We need to raise our voices.

We are living through a remarkable transformation of the media landscape. Let’s take the future into our hands and bend it to our will. We can do so by raising our voices. We are at the right place at the right time to be a disruptive force for good. Let’s do it!

Talk to you tomorrow.

Post-script: You can follow me on Bluesky: @rbhubbell.bsky.social, or search “Robert Hubbell” on the Bluesky app. Although I am not posting much original content, I am reposting commentary from trusted sources.

Even better, follow Marc Elias of Democracy Docket on Bluesky (@marcelias.bsky.social). Marc has a “starter list” that will allow you to follow good sources of news and commentary on Bluesky by importing Marc’s curated list.

Daily Dose of Perspective

Los Angeles is still experiencing broken cloud cover, which makes it impossible to take photos of deep-sky objects in long exposures. So, I offer a re-cycled image of the massive star Antares.

Antares is 550 light-years from Earth and is 15 times as massive as our sun. Taking images of bright stars overwhelms the camera sensor and makes developing the image difficult. Photos show “artifacts” that are not visible to the naked eye but are generated as the camera sensor struggles to balance the star's brightness with the dark background. But the clash of light and dark sometimes produces spectacular results.