Anne Applebaum

A piece of the authoritarian playbook is absolutely control of the media and control of the public conversation, establishing the terms of debate, arguing that Elon Musk is bravely doing the work of trimming the federal budget, and that he's a brilliant mind finally focused on government waste, changing the narrative about what he's doing.

I mean, there's an extra element of it as well, which is the way in which And you saw the original version of this was in the old Twitter files debate, which is also another thing that Musk does, and he's been doing it in the last couple of days. And it's another thing I'm worried about is taking information that he finds selectively and spinning it into justification for what he does.

I mean, there's an extra element of it as well, which is the way in which And you saw the original version of this was in the old Twitter files debate, which is also another thing that Musk does, and he's been doing it in the last couple of days. And it's another thing I'm worried about is taking information that he finds selectively and spinning it into justification for what he does.

I mean, there's an extra element of it as well, which is the way in which And you saw the original version of this was in the old Twitter files debate, which is also another thing that Musk does, and he's been doing it in the last couple of days. And it's another thing I'm worried about is taking information that he finds selectively and spinning it into justification for what he does.

And you saw this. I still don't know the veracity of this or exactly what it was, but they found some... chunk of money that seemed to be going to the Lutheran Church. And it turns out that the Lutheran Church runs old people's homes in South Dakota and other places.

And you saw this. I still don't know the veracity of this or exactly what it was, but they found some... chunk of money that seemed to be going to the Lutheran Church. And it turns out that the Lutheran Church runs old people's homes in South Dakota and other places.

And you saw this. I still don't know the veracity of this or exactly what it was, but they found some... chunk of money that seemed to be going to the Lutheran Church. And it turns out that the Lutheran Church runs old people's homes in South Dakota and other places.

Yeah, the way the federal government works is it often, you know, some outsourcing is done to private companies, but outsourcing is also done to NGOs because the Lutherans Faith-based organizations are sometimes better at running these kinds of services.

Yeah, the way the federal government works is it often, you know, some outsourcing is done to private companies, but outsourcing is also done to NGOs because the Lutherans Faith-based organizations are sometimes better at running these kinds of services.

Yeah, the way the federal government works is it often, you know, some outsourcing is done to private companies, but outsourcing is also done to NGOs because the Lutherans Faith-based organizations are sometimes better at running these kinds of services.

Yep. So but but Musk found this and he decided it was a scandal. Mike Flynn was tweeting about it anyway. And then suddenly there's discussion of the Lutherans being evil on Twitter. And then all the like blue blue tick supporters chiming in and talking about, oh, we found a scam to do with the Lutherans. You know, who are these Lutherans? You know, what are Lutherans?

Yep. So but but Musk found this and he decided it was a scandal. Mike Flynn was tweeting about it anyway. And then suddenly there's discussion of the Lutherans being evil on Twitter. And then all the like blue blue tick supporters chiming in and talking about, oh, we found a scam to do with the Lutherans. You know, who are these Lutherans? You know, what are Lutherans?

Yep. So but but Musk found this and he decided it was a scandal. Mike Flynn was tweeting about it anyway. And then suddenly there's discussion of the Lutherans being evil on Twitter. And then all the like blue blue tick supporters chiming in and talking about, oh, we found a scam to do with the Lutherans. You know, who are these Lutherans? You know, what are Lutherans?

You know, so what Musk also now has and this is a again, this is a power that I don't I can't think of anymore. I can't think of any exact parallel of being able to weaponize data and bits of information that he finds and turn them into Twitter talking points.

You know, so what Musk also now has and this is a again, this is a power that I don't I can't think of anymore. I can't think of any exact parallel of being able to weaponize data and bits of information that he finds and turn them into Twitter talking points.

You know, so what Musk also now has and this is a again, this is a power that I don't I can't think of anymore. I can't think of any exact parallel of being able to weaponize data and bits of information that he finds and turn them into Twitter talking points.

What he's just done to USAID, which is one of the most important sources of American soft power, it feeds millions of poor people in Africa, it provides vaccines for children all over the world. And, you know, he's now described it as evil.

What he's just done to USAID, which is one of the most important sources of American soft power, it feeds millions of poor people in Africa, it provides vaccines for children all over the world. And, you know, he's now described it as evil.

What he's just done to USAID, which is one of the most important sources of American soft power, it feeds millions of poor people in Africa, it provides vaccines for children all over the world. And, you know, he's now described it as evil.

He will probably be selectively finding things that it does that it can be made to sound outrageous or strange, you know, and the fact that he has that power on top of the fact that he's, he's now has access to this huge trove of data gives us an extra twist.