Why Does Elon Musk Want You To Hate Unhoused People?
He wants to take your empathy.
Twitter/X/Xitter is a fucking nightmare these days.
Like, truly — it was bad before, but ever since all of the nice, normal people defected to BlueSky, it’s rotten. It’s creepy. And also very, very stupid.
Case in point! Tuesday, site-owner and billionaire Elon Musk — who has been practically euphoric over Daniel Penny getting a free pass on murdering a poor person — started complaining about the unhoused.
“In most cases,” he claimed, ever so confidently, “the word ‘homeless’ is a lie. It’s usually a propaganda word for violent drug addicts with severe mental illness.”
I could sit here and factcheck this obviously wrong statement — I mean, for one thing it presumes that people who have drug problems or mental illness either can’t be unhoused or deserve to be, which is certainly a take — but I want to talk about the replies to his tweet. About all of the people (and bots) who immediately said to themselves, “Yes! No one knows more truth about people living in extreme poverty than a billionaire!” and gleefully approved his assessment. About the 131,000 people (and bots) who clicked that little heart on the bottom to show their support.
“Set a limit on aid. It’s good to help someone who has fallen. Get them up, and on their way,” says the very first comment, from someone named Haynes Eslinger. “They repeat whatever put them down, again? Something else needs to happen. Something that they fear. Not prison, and free food and board. It has to be something bad. Healthy for society.”
“Truth! It may hurt some feelings but it is truth,” said someone calling themselves Gunther Eagleman.
“This is 100% correct. For most, it’s a lifestyle choice. Drug addiction and mental health are the markers…not having a home is a symptom,” said RedState columnist Buzz Patterson.
“Fighting homelessness is just as much of a scam as climate change. Billions are wasted, and nobody’s ever taken off the streets,” said the Bald Libertarian.
“exactly! mostly everyone has a home and a family that loves them, but for their bad decisions and choices they end up in their own miserable peril,” said a woman calling herself Natism.
There are quite a few more replies challenging his nonsense than there were when I checked on Tuesday, but even most of those are in the vein of “Oh gosh, I love you and think you are the best in the world but this seems wrong?” Here’s one very good one, though! Short and to the point!
And of course, all of the responses to those are from people who are sure he was right.
The — well I won’t say “good,” but the better billionaire, Mark Cuban, asked last month how people would feel if Elon Musk’s “DOGE” (“Department” of Government Efficiency) passed the “government savings” onto you. Rebecca pointed out this is the same thing as the people who claim we should spend foreign aid on our homeless veterans instead … but then never never never want to spend money on homeless veterans. And here comes Elon to prove the point.
They hate the unhoused. They hate the poor. And they want you to, too.
You know what else Musk tweeted on Tuesday? A screenshot of a post from Donald Trump on Truth Social — Marcie wrote about it here — reading, “Any person or company investing ONE BILLION DOLLARS, OR MORE, in the United States of America, will receive fully expedited approvals and permits, including, but in no way limited to, all Environmental approvals. GET READY TO ROCK!!!”
Now, I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but it did occur to me that perhaps “the cruelty is the point” in more ways than one.
So, Musk buys Twitter, lets all of the Nazis back on, all of the people known to spread disinformation, and then lets all the worst trolls buy influence for $8 a month, resulting in it becoming a more or less non-anonymous version of 4chan’s /pol/ message board. The more grotesque the site becomes, the more people who can’t tolerate that move on to bluer pastures — and the fewer critics he encounters. As much as I think the cult comparisons are wild, this is why cult leaders do things to thin the herd and weed out those who might question them. It’s what David Koresh did when he first took over the Branch Davidians, it’s what Scientologists do when people start asking about the whereabouts of Shelly Miscavige.
Those who stay start becoming increasingly inured to slurs, to coarseness, to lies, to extremism, and most of all, to cruelty and callousness.
I’m not saying they were good people before, but some of them perhaps skeeved the idea of straight up fantasizing about torturing poor people.
As easy as it would be to believe that these people are already entirely primed for this, I don’t know that they are. Because, honest to God, there are some very daft people out there, who truly just assume that Donald Trump wants whatever they want — or assume that Trump is so good and correct that if he wants something, it will be good for them.
Some even still seem a little taken aback by things like “claiming homelessness isn’t real.” There were a lot of “Wow I really love you Elon but not all homeless people bad!” responses to his post and a lot of confused people responding to the Trump screenshot that they thought he’d help the middle class and small businesses instead of just billionaires.
But the more time they spend there, the more normal all of this all becomes to them, the less likely they are to have even small objections, the more often they see lines crossed, the more hardened and callous they become, the easier (and more fun!) it becomes to viciously attack the most vulnerable people and root for the most powerful.
And that’s how you get to people being totally fine with a president deciding that he’s just gonna let billionaires do whatever they want. This is how you get to people not caring how badly things affect them, as long as they hurt someone else more. This is how you get people who a few weeks ago were hysterical over “the price of eggs” to cheer wildly for “temporary hardship.”
Now, I’m not saying he did this on purpose, or that this was his plan all along, but he truly couldn’t have orchestrated it better if he did.
Of course, no one has to be like Elon Musk. Back in November, Victoria Hughes, an IHOP waitress in Florida, lost her job because she gave a starving unhoused man a small stack of pancakes. The incident garnered a decent wave of media attention and outrage, to the point where the franchisee of said IHOP has now offered her her job back and has “integrated a new training program for its employees to address food insecurity issues,” and assured USA Today that they are “dedicated to fostering an inclusive environment that welcomes everyone.” Hughes isn’t sure that she’s going to take the job and go back to that crap manager of hers — hopefully she’ll find someplace more appreciative of her compassion.
In what is swiftly becoming a world of Elon Musks, be a Victoria Hughes.
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
I just noticed for the first time (while doing that photoshoop) that unlike many cartoon characters, Mr. Peanut has four fingers and a thumb. Huh.
Speaking about the homeless, a homeless guy outside my work asked me for a couple bucks.
I thought, "I don't want my money to be wasted on booze and drugs!"
So I gave it to him.