Greentext

You keep acting like saying “Elon Musk is a Nazi” is some kind of sacred password that proves moral clarity, when in fact it just shows you’ve got your rhetorical hammer and now everything’s a fascist-shaped nail. I don’t need to prove to you that I see Musk for exactly what he is—he’s a megalomaniacal, racist, transphobic, apartheid-raised billionaire whose social media platform has become a fascist pipeline and who pals around with actual white supremacists. You don’t get points for calling that out. That’s the bare minimum. The difference is I’m not so lost in self-righteousness that I think calling him names solves anything.

You say I’m defending the people who caused your rage. I say I’m trying to contain the blast radius before it consumes the few people actually trying to do something meaningful within a system that is already rigged to serve the wealthy and powerful. You want to burn it all down, fine. But don’t pretend you're building anything when all you do is torch and sneer. What you call “standards,” the rest of us recognize as reactive nihilism.

You assume I’ll come around later and admit that cozying up to Musk was a mistake. Maybe I will. Maybe it is a mistake. But the difference between us is that I’m not pretending every decision exists in a vacuum. Musk is a threat now. Not talking to him doesn’t erase him. Not trying to neutralize him doesn’t make him go away. If he gets locked out of government entirely and goes full mask-off fascist kingpin online, who does that help? Do you think he’ll disappear because we’re mad enough on Twitter? No—he’ll just consolidate more influence through the very networks progressives get deplatformed from. The idea that his empire will collapse if the Democrats just ignore him is a fantasy. You know how many times people said “this is the moment Musk is finished”? It never is. The man built rockets with public money and used them to troll the president on his own platform. That’s not someone who disappears because you wrote a scathing post on Reddit.

You’re right that we shouldn't let Dems cozy up to him without consequences. That’s why we raise hell. That’s why I back people like Bowman and Bush even when the party machine tries to ice them out. But your argument isn’t about pressure—it’s about banishment. It's “if you ever deal with this person, you’re dead to me.” That’s not movement-building, that’s purity cosplay. The right doesn’t fall apart like this. They lock arms and march into the fire. We call everyone who flinches a quisling and then act shocked when progress stalls.

You don’t trust me to oppose fascists because I don’t use your exact tone or terms. But here's the truth: I’ve been in this fight longer than you know. I’ve canvassed for abortion rights in red states, protested ICE, fundraised for progressive candidates the DNC ghosted. I don’t owe you proof that I give a damn. What I won’t do is turn every Democrat who makes a bad call into a crypto-fascist and every strategic interaction into treason. That’s not vigilance—that’s emotional gratification masquerading as politics.

If all you’ve got left is comment threads, use them to demand better, not to alienate everyone who doesn’t meet your ever-shifting purity line. You’re not powerless because you’re in Texas—you’re acting powerless because you’ve already decided everyone sucks and nothing matters. But if that’s true, why are you even arguing? Either you think people can be pushed or you don’t. And if you don’t, then what the hell are you fighting for?

You think it’s my machine? Fine. Then help break it from the inside. But if you’d rather be the guy heckling from the sidelines because nobody’s pure enough to link arms with, don’t be surprised when the only people left marching are the ones who want to burn the world down for real.