"It's extremely misleading not to mention Musk has a long history of also donating to Democrats, including in this political cycle."
https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1018211558835404800
Anyone in any major industry is donating to multiple parties and candidates. Who are they going to bug from now, Ford? Oh, noes! They donate to Republican too.
Meanwhile he donated 20x to the Sierra Club and for some reason that’s totally ignored.
It is indeed a fact that a company may donate to both Democrats and Republicans to garner influence with whomever wins. Quoting from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk : "Musk further stated, "in order to have your voice be heard in Washington, you have to make some little contribution"". Quoting from https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1018333202140680192 "a reasonable amount to maintain an open dialogue".
That may be true. If so, isn't it a sign of how the system is rigged in favor of rich? The complaint for decades has been that both major parties are in the pocket of large businesses and rich people - doesn't this support that view?
Who listens to those of us who can't drop tens of thousands dollars to participate in the dialogue?
FWIW, the Sierra Club number is more like 150x, not 20x - https://thinkprogress.org/elon-musk-house-gop-contributions-... says "Michael Brune, said on Twitter that Musk has donated $6 million to Sierra Club’s climate advocacy."
The donation information comes from ProPublica. Musk's $33,900 donation is at https://projects.propublica.org/itemizer/filing/1246378/sche... .
That in turn links to the primary information at http://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/forms/C00669622/1246378/sa/A... , where you can see an entry for 33900.00. (The aggregate donation is 38900.00.)
Why did you need to trust Salon.com when the official information is so readily available for verification?
Or is there something else from the piece that you are hesitant about?
Salon was pretty popular in the early days of the web. I used to read it in the mid-late 90s.
Source: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1018330925384458240
I imagine $35,000 puts you on a fairly short list.
Basically any deviation is labeled as "not being Marxist enough". They are following this similar path. It's not good. Mao, Stalin and to a degree mr Xi is doing this. It's as if progressives who demand this purity are completely unawares of this.
To start, what does Marxism have to do with any of this?
Aren't there any number of closer equivalences you could have used, without the specter of government-run mass murder? What about RINO - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_In_Name_Only , or the other way, an appeal to the 'big tent'? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_tent ?
(The latter links to 'Multi-tendency', described as 'Multi-tendency political organisations, especially left-wing groups, accommodate members who are affiliated or identify with different political ideologies, agendas, interests or perspectives.' Odd, isn't it, that it highlights how left-wing groups are more accomodationist?)
Isn't it a pretty normal behavior to expect a higher standard from those one thinks are friends or allies?
Might it be that Musk's claims of being a socialist actually are based in a poor understanding of socialism, and that he makes a show of being left-leaning while his actions stay firmly in the middle of the Overton window?
It seems that any of those are a more likely interpretation than what you propose.
As much as I generally like him, he denied being a top donor, which is not like denying any donation. He should clarify that.