- cross-posted to:
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- cross-posted to:
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/24046998
Summary
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum mocked Donald Trump’s proposal to rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” by suggesting the U.S. be renamed “Mexican America.”
“It sounds nice, doesn’t it?” she said, pointing to a 17th-century map showing California, Texas, and Arizona once belonging to Mexico before the Mexican-American War (1846–1848). She also noted the Gulf of Mexico has had its name since 1607.
Sheinbaum warned new U.S. tariffs would prompt reciprocal measures.
While advocating for cooperation, she emphasized Mexico’s sovereignty and its historical ties with the U.S.
Sigh. How do you people still not get it?
Musk, West, Trump. They’re all conmen. They’re all businessmen. Every single move they make is calculated to make them as much money as possible.
Any publicity is good publicity. They are all brands. They know that if they say something controversial, we’re going to be talking about it. This alone furthers their brand recognition and gives them more money.
That’s it. That’s the only point of comments like theirs.
Trump might be just a conman and he is 78; his main goal now might be just to live comfortably and stay out of jail for the few remaining minutes, days or years he will statistically survive his age and unhealthy lifestyle But Musk is a person with Big Goals, he’s selling actual stuff; and the type of stuff he sells happens to be very sensitive to the political climate.
Some of Musk’s products are so big and expensive that his target customers are whole Countries: Space rockets, Satellite communication systems, Giga factories. Here’s Musk peddling his stuff to Italy’s far-right government. Other Musk products, like Tesla EVs, are sensitive to governments’ policies on green transition, incentives, protectionism from China’s cheaper (and by now better) EVs.
So far, billionaire businessman were mostly keeping a friendly, progressive mask and were leaving it to their lobbyists to do the dirty work of convincing or bribing politicians. Musk is by all accounts a prima donna and certified megalomaniac and likes to take these matters into his own hands. He decided that a little push here and there to whoever is in power right now takes too long and that it’s more effective to just control the whole thing directly. He had a spectacular success with the far right and Trump, so he’s now repeating the same playbook in other countries (and other billionaire pals, like Zuckerberg, are starting to follow suit too, so they can finally stop pretending they are real human beings).
The UK example of Musk pushing Brexiter Farage and then dumping him because not far-right enough for his taste is almost comical. And here’s Musk endorsing far-right AfD in Germany.
They need to pierce the propaganda to perceive that unmitigated capitalism bought the system of governance that was designed to protect humans from unmitigated capitalism. Shouting shallow conclusions at them doesn’t help them learn.