Beating Social Security fraud
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So, the context is that he was responding to a question about the nation-wide anti-Tesla terrorism. He was trying to explain why people were so mad at Elon. The implication being that the terrorists are beneficiaries of government fraud. I think it's a stupid point (normal tribal politics and fever-pitch existential threat narratives can easily motivate this Antifa-style terrorism-for-fun). But it's not a point meant to imply that anybody is considering stopping SS payments to root out fraud.
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Full interview. Starts at about 41 mins here:
Link to video -
So, the context is that he was responding to a question about the nation-wide anti-Tesla terrorism. He was trying to explain why people were so mad at Elon. The implication being that the terrorists are beneficiaries of government fraud. I think it's a stupid point (normal tribal politics and fever-pitch existential threat narratives can easily motivate this Antifa-style terrorism-for-fun). But it's not a point meant to imply that anybody is considering stopping SS payments to root out fraud.
@Horace said in Beating Social Security fraud:
So, the context is that he was responding to a question about the nation-wide anti-Tesla terrorism. He was trying to explain why people were so mad at Elon. The implication being that the terrorists are beneficiaries of government fraud. I think it's a stupid point (normal tribal politics and fever-pitch existential threat narratives can easily motivate this Antifa-style terrorism-for-fun). But it's not a point meant to imply that anybody is considering stopping SS payments to root out fraud.
I thought it spoke to his quality as a thinker, and someone who actually understands what it’s like to be a normie.
I’ve heard him say a lot of dumb things and outright lies… and it calls into question his ability to actually carry out the one thing I’m really tuned into: the tariff war.
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Fair. But these long form interviews the Trump admin officials are doing do expose them to these sorts of granular judgments of their detailed thoughts, to a level that no administration has ever been exposed to. We can at least say that this guy is not a complete sociopathic nut job, even if he's not well considered at times. There's a reason Kamala was terrified of these interviews, and I think that reason was a good one. Granted, she would have chosen to say nothing, rather than to say something that could be judged, but 90 minutes of nothing would have damaged her just the same.
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I agree that these interviews expose a person a lot more. But this is not a commentary on the whole administration. For example, Bessent is fine by comparison. He’s not incompetent.
One of the downsides of these sort long form interviews is that you can see who is. (Downside for the incompetent person, I guess).
Clinton, Bush, Obama, Romney, etc. would all be fine talking for 3 hours. Kamala would be horrible, I agree. We can see from the bits and pieces that we have that she was a lightweight.
Edit: and by incompetent, I don’t mean as a person. Clearly he’s probably great at a lot of things to get here. But he’s trying to play this character that is at the same time freewheeling, salesy and tough - like Trump. But also needs to be face of real policy. He’s not doing it well.
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I agree that these interviews expose a person a lot more. But this is not a commentary on the whole administration. For example, Bessent is fine by comparison. He’s not incompetent.
One of the downsides of these sort long form interviews is that you can see who is. (Downside for the incompetent person, I guess).
Clinton, Bush, Obama, Romney, etc. would all be fine talking for 3 hours. Kamala would be horrible, I agree. We can see from the bits and pieces that we have that she was a lightweight.
Edit: and by incompetent, I don’t mean as a person. Clearly he’s probably great at a lot of things to get here. But he’s trying to play this character that is at the same time freewheeling, salesy and tough - like Trump. But also needs to be face of real policy. He’s not doing it well.
@xenon said in Beating Social Security fraud:
But he’s trying to play this character that is at the same time freewheeling, salesy and tough - like Trump. But also needs to be face of real policy. He’s not doing it well.
Good point. You can sense the performance, and this describes it well.
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@xenon said in Beating Social Security fraud:
But he’s trying to play this character that is at the same time freewheeling, salesy and tough - like Trump. But also needs to be face of real policy. He’s not doing it well.
Good point. You can sense the performance, and this describes it well.
@Horace said in Beating Social Security fraud:
@xenon said in Beating Social Security fraud:
But he’s trying to play this character that is at the same time freewheeling, salesy and tough - like Trump. But also needs to be face of real policy. He’s not doing it well.
Good point. You can sense the performance, and this describes it well.
The old cliche about if you can fake sincerity, you've got it made, springs to mind.
That was always Hillary's problem. You never got the impression that she actually believed in anything at all.
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I would have thought that poor people who don't get their check are pretty likely to complain. I'm guessing his mother doesn't really need the money.
@Doctor-Phibes said in Beating Social Security fraud:
I'm guessing his mother doesn't really need the money.
I mean, she has an arts building named after her at Haverford College, and her son is a billionaire. So I'm guessing you're right.
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I watched some of the full interview, thanks for posting it @xenon .
He comes off a bit smarter than I expected, such as running the transition team, filtering down cabinet positions, etc. He does provide some insight that is, I guess not surprising, but... he said they narrowed down the cabinet position candidates based on how they looked (using AI) and how they talked. I guess that helps in terms of communication, but it didn't seem the emphasis was as much on the actual qualifications of the person for the specific job.
Nonetheless, he rubs me the wrong way since he's always smirking and chuckling behind Trump in the oval office, almost like the wanna-be cool kid laughing at the 3rd grade bully's insult jokes at recess. And his lines about social security is just a plagiarized version of what Musk said, except Nutlick takes it a bit too far... two billionaires talking about "who would complain if social security stopped payments" is perhaps one of the most out of touch phrases I've heard in a while.
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The idea that billionaires really understand us common folk is quaint.
