Vice President Vance on Friday chided European leaders for their criticism of Elon Musk wading into their elections, comparing Musk’s actions to Swedish activist Greta Thunberg urging American leaders to take action on climate change.
“I believe that dismissing people, dismissing their concerns, or worse yet, shutting down media, shutting down elections or shutting people out of the political process protects nothing. In fact, it is the most surefire way to destroy democracy,” Vance said.
“And speaking up and expressing opinions isn’t election interference, even when people express views outside your own country, and even when those people are very influential,” he continued. “And trust me, I say this with all humor: If American democracy can survive 10 years of Greta Thunberg’s scolding, you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk.”
This is a brain dead comparison, Musk’s influence is highly destructive to democracy, while Greta’s influence is only advocating for a global shift to protect the future of the planet.
He’s mustering anger from his brain dead base. His words aren’t meant for the rest of us. He needs to distract the Maga crowd from the damage Elon is actually doing.
It’s also braindead because on the one hand you have the richest man in the world backed by the most powerful man in the world. And on the other you have pretty much a very popular influencer.
Question, what has Greta Thunberg done? Afaik, she’s only protested and post on social media.
She’s a woman who speaks without being spoken to
How dare she!
ahh yes Greta famously known to spend a fraction of a billion to influence elections.
Europe didn’t have to survive with Thunberg, she wasn’t in the government and had no decision making authority.
Which is a shame…
They play the victim card so hard.
How is that even close to the same thing? Greta pleaded with the people to think about their children’s future (and actively partakes in protests and demonstrations all over), while Elon is only looking to enrich himself.
It’s not the same at all, but it sounds clever, so the base will suck it up and repeat it.
It doesn’t sound clever unless you grew up eating paint chips
Conveniently, the paint chip eaters are running the show right now!
Even worse. The paint chip eaters voted their manufacturers into office.
Okay but putting all morals, ethics, character, and opinions aside, looking at it completely objectively… its still completely different because we never put her in government offices and allowed her to make decisions for the entire country
Yeah, but have you considered it from this angle? Elon Musk is a white straight extremely wealthy dude. Those are some strong qualifications right there.
IDK, sounds like DEI to me
No, you see, white rich straight men are oppressed and need the extra boost.
She also asked that people do things that she specially could not do due to having no authority to enact policy, whereas Musk is interacting directly with levers of power (whether he has any legitimate/legal authority to do so).
False equivalency is a celebrated fascist pastime.
Greta snubbed Trump, Elon didn’t, so it’s obvious why Vance considers the one as evil, the other as a saint.
I mean even the moral aspect of their ideologies aside, one literally just expressed opinions as a form of debate whereas the other is spending hundreds of millions to sway elections.
He definitely needs more riches, for that thing he can’t yet afford.
It’s a sickness, they can’t stop themselves.
Elon is also thinking about the children, in particular how they should all be white.
Greta Thunberg, famously in charge of… ?
…pissing off climate deniers.
while being a young neurodivergent woman
Right. Honestly, I’m so impressed with her being able to get inside these assholes’ heads since she was 16.
She has bigger balls than most of them.
Funny how we don’t see much of her anymore. Does it has anything to do with the fact that she publicly made the link between Capitalism, colonialism and the climate crisis ?
I guess we’ll never know !she got arrested again for being pro-palestinian.
Continuing to be based as hell.
fr*nch punctuation 🤮
I : have ? No ; Idea << what you >> mean !
Hilarious that a teenage girl once terrified the upper echelons of right-wing politicians.
Still does.
Yeah, how do you compare a 16yo (or however old she is now) girl with no political office to the president of the United States?
I guess we can hope Trump ends up being as ineffective as she’s unfortunately been (I also noticed she’s been invisible in the mainstream media as soon as she started talking about Palestine. Same with Malala.).
If I was American I’d be so embarrassed
The Hill’s piece on Musk and Vance’s Euro-tour reads like a corporate carnival masquerading as diplomacy. Tech oligarchs playing statesmen while defense contracts and AI patents get shuffled under the table. Ukraine’s “security” is just a euphemism for profit margins, and energy “innovation” means privatizing public infrastructure until it’s another subscription service.
Musk’s private sector savior complex hits different when you realize it’s just a hedge against taxes. Vance whining about EU regulations? Classic regulatory capture—can’t let pesky consumer protections interfere with monopolizing the digital commons. Algorithmic colonialism wrapped in venture capital buzzwords. But sure, let’s pretend this is about “progress” and not entrenching power where accountability algorithms can’t reach.
Interesting how he said elon musk and not donald trump.
🤣
One person with no power vs one person with all the power.
This is a key difference.
I wouldn’t say she has no power. She has the power to constantly upset these assholes.
Not even close to the same, but I’m glad she has that power.
Bad headline: I already hoped they’d deport Musk to Europe, so we could have physical access… :(
Getting back real, Vance:
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came without a credible peace plan
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read moralistic bullcrap about how it’s good to have your elections bought and manipulated (in the Romanian case where the court told to hold new elections - thousands of TikTok influencers and an unknown quantity of other actors working for a candidate who declared zero campaign expense).
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proposed to Zelensky that Ukraine give up 50% of its natural resources for US support (Zelensky politely refused)
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