Stop Supporting Musk's Businesses Now!

All politics is economics and vice versa...and the sooner we realize it and act on that knowledge the better

Starlink, Space X, Tesla and X are both economic and political vehicles created not just to enrich but empower their owner. He is an ignorant, racist, rogue, narcissist who supports America's enemies and an anti-democratic, white supremacist agenda. Supporting those companies in any way at all aids him and the toxic movement he is helping to lead. Buying the products or services of these companies is therefore anti-American, dangerous to our allies and alliances, and destructive to our institutions and values. It is critical that everyone understands this and acts accordingly.

Even as Musk uses his power with Trump and within this administration to advance his personal agenda and increase his wealth, those who oppose that agenda must view acting against the interests of those companies as fair political game...because Musk and Trump have made it so.

This is also true of course, regarding Trump's companies and the businesses of his other closest supporters because those enterprises produce the wealth that they have used to gain power.

When the Supreme Court handed down its Citizens United decision, it did not just equate spending money with free expression. It did not just undercut our democracy in a profound and perhaps irreversible way. It also meant that those who oppose the superempowered oligarchs who have created not just this billionaire owned-and-operated administration but also an ever less-equitable more divided society must recognize the political role played by the businesses and wealth engines that are the principle sources of the power of the very rich in our society.

Ultimately, to reclaim democracy in America we must recognize that it has been undermined not simply by the action of authoritarian extremists who are promoting a minority-rule agenda.

We must recognize that certain businesses and financial institutions have become politically weaponized against us and we must act accordingly. Our values may and should constrain how we do so. But one thing is clear, failing to acknowledge the role they play is a mistake. Consequently, there is no reason why any country or business or person who seeks to support democracy, the international order, a humane social order, or a society in which the average person has a fair shot at a decent life, should do business with any of Musk's businesses.

In fact, I do not understand why there is not a permanent series of coordinated protests around every Tesla dealership, Starlink, Space X, X or other Musk facility. He has invited this. His boards of directors have tacitly approved it. They have chosen sides against us and what we value.

We have every right and indeed, the obligation, to use the power of the marketplace to express our views. It is time we did so.

I do not understand how anyone with a conscience still owns a Tesla. Yes, many people invested in these cars for the right reasons. But surely it must be apparent to all that purchasing a Tesla to advance a personal green agenda has the consequence of empowering those with an anti-science, anti-climate, anti-personal freedom agenda. Tesla was an innovative electric vehicle. Tesla's are now the pace cars of the race to a drill-baby-drill rape of our environment. X was once a platform that helped advanced free exchange of views and the flow of information.

Now, it actively works to promote lies, to bully opposing views into silence, to celebrate racism, conspiracy theories, junk science, Russian aggression and authoritarianism. Sending X a dollar supports those things. There is no reason to patronize it. Aguments that it is a window into the views of the other side ring hollow. There are plenty of other ways to discern those views without directly contributing to Trump, MAGA, Russian propaganda and neo-Naziism in the US and around the world. Similarly, while Starlink has a valuable offering, it is an unreliable provider.

It has demonstrated the negative consequences of the politics of its owner repeatedly. Someday, a more enlightened administration should ensure that so much power never again falls into the power of one man. Someday, a wiser set of political leaders will make sure we no longer subsidize extremists with a dangerous, anti-US, anti-Western Alliance, anti-democratic agenda with big government contracts or with tax laws that enable Musk and other billionaires to claim ever more economic and political power by giving them ever greater shares of the profits of their companies.

That's right, Citizens United and the other pro-oligarchic elements of our system means that an inequitable tax code directly leads to the inequitable distribution of power in our society. It's not just unfair. It does not just place an unfair burden on those who can leas afford it.

It does not just promote ever-more divisive, ever-greater inequality in our society. It also is a path for the richest Americans not just to become richer but to gain ever greater political power over the rest of us. Our tax codes are not just economically reckless and socially unfair.

They are mechanisms carefully embedded in our system to weaken democracy, diminish the voices of the majority and do damage to every institution conceived to preserve, protect or advance the power of the majority, the democratic power that was at least ostensibly one of the foundational ideas that led to the establishment of the United States 249 years ago. Further, while our system is particularly corrupted and inequitable in favor of the billionaire-class and big corporate and financial power, all Western societies and many others contribute to this to some degree.

It is a fundamental problem that needs fixing if history is to someday record that human progress and growing empowerment of all people were somehow positively linked to one another. We must recognize that origins underlying the political crises we face today are linked to deeply flawed economic philosophies, notably the rise of the perversion of what is good and productive about capitalism that is known as Anglo-American Capitalism or vulture capitalism or Darwinian capitalism or frankly, often, as "the Washington consensus."

But before we can get into a healthy (and woefully overdue) debate about economic or political philosophies we must first stop the erosion of our political and personal liberties and the hyper-concentration of power in the hands of a few who do not share our interests or values.

And our system provides a way to do that. We can boycott the companies of Musk and his fellow anti-democratic, anti-free speech, anti-US, anti-Western, billionaires. We can stop...stop right now...supporting them. We can encourage everyone we know to do the same. And whereever possible we can demand our governments do the same. Failing to do so, continuing to support those entities is to support an enemy bent on the destruction of what you hold valuable even as you may condemn them or recognize the perniciousness of their role, intentions and allies.

Make it a personal priority. Help persuade others to do the same. It will certainly not alone help us restore democracy in the US and preserve it elsewhere but it is a vital step and the alternative is to strengthen forces that are actively seeking to destroy our country(ies), system and values and who seek to steal the futures of our children, grandchildren and other generations to come.