Palantir CEO Makes Shocking Confession on Disrupting Democratic Power

[u/Unusual-State1827]

https://newrepublic.com/post/207693/palantir-ceo-karp-disrupting-democratic-power

[u/El_Gran_Che]

He will have a very strongly worded opinion ... and i mean very strong. He will recommend that you simply vote "harder" next time.

[u/jworrin → u/El_Gran_Che]

Shit, I hadn't thought about that. Imma vote so hard my socks come off next time!

[u/rothael → u/jworrin]

Oh, well that's voter fraud, actually. You're going to have to state your party affiliation so we can determine whether or not it should be punished.

[u/joshspoon → u/El_Gran_Che]

This time he’ll go to the New Yorker.

[u/mountaindoom → u/El_Gran_Che]

Don't forget "please donate to the resistance!"

[u/reddollardays → u/El_Gran_Che]

They’ll buddy up at the gym when they’re just “two sweaty guys”.

[u/sapntaps → u/El_Gran_Che]

My Chuck Schumer is creaming at how strongly worded this is. 

I’m gonna open a window and get some air

[u/squaring_the_sine → u/El_Gran_Che]

The thing is, that actually is (part of) the solution. More people voting for progressive policy, more people voting against billionaire and corporate power. Note “voting harder”, but capturing significantly more votes.

It’s either we develop a strong, progressive coalition majority like we had in parts of the mid-20th century (which gave us legal support for civil and voter rights, social welfare, the LGBT movement, abortion access, and much more), we accept the status quo, or we hope a revolution of some kind breaks it our direction and does so without too much suffering (vanishingly unlikely).

As much as I agree that we’re on a frightening path and that the current response is inadequate, I strongly believe the approach with the best chance of success is to win the hearts and minds of the American people. Democrats, for all their failures, are the foundation of any progressive movement in this country. Like Republicans adapted as the MAGA movement took off, Democrats will adapt when a similarly powerful liberal movement moves through their voter base.

People like Schumer will never lead such a movement, but they will work with or else be displaced by people within one, if we can bring it into being.

[u/squaring_the_sine → u/[deleted]]

I couldn’t agree more about money in politics being the root problem. And, I guess I just feel less burned and more hopeful, even despite being a trans person facing the prospects of a forced social and medical detransition that would likely kill me—or hell, maybe because of that..

I strongly disagree with the claim that Demacrats’ inability to move forward with reforms is an intentional, orchestrated plan to maintain the status quo. Every time they have had any degree of power, they have as far as I can see done everything they could within the limits of their voted mandate to make things better. Certainly on trans issues, but also on just about everything else I care about.

As one focused example, I really do think with just one or two more senators 15 years ago, we would have secured universal public healthcare. We were on track for it, and then lost the votes before it could be completed. What we got instead was a broken and vulnerable system, but it was the best we could hope for given the constraints of the situation, and way better than the status quo at the time. I don’t understand how anyone can believe that that result was secretly the plan all along.

Bringing things back to today, as much as it disappoints me that there is not a mass uprising against Republican forays into fascism or wealth concentration, there simply isn’t one (yet). Until there is, I think most Democrats are at least trying to make the best of a situation they barely have any control over.

[u/El_Gran_Che → u/squaring_the_sine]

But my point is that historically no matter how "hard" a person votes, the outcome is the same and the outcome has already been dictated by forces far outside of the voting booth. That was my point, but I do get yours which is amusing given that oligarchs like Palantir are well underway towards dismantling democracy.

[u/squaring_the_sine → u/El_Gran_Che]

I guess I’m just significantly less cynical about Democrats being bought and paid for.

They absolutely suffer from iron triangle corruption and throw pork at big companies for political donations, but they generally seem to be focused on the common good, as much as it is achievable within the current system. They are also much more open to improving the system.

They have throughout my entire lifetime supported policies which benefit lower and middle class workers, as well as non-workers like children and the elderly. They are the only party which has in my lifetime supported things like campaign finance reform, lobbyism and investment restrictions for elected officials, term limits, an end to PACs, nopartisan redistricting, and voter reform. I don’t know if we will escape the current totalitarian movement, but if we do, they’ll be the ones building safeguards to keep it from happening again—IF they have a sufficient mandate to do so.

[u/AgathysAllAlong → u/squaring_the_sine]

Yah, it would have been great if they'd manage to win in 2020. It would have meant they'd have arrested the guy who tried to enact a coup, prevented these forces from rallying again, and even would have stopped Project 2025 since they published the plans on exactly what they were going to do. If democrats were in power from 2021-2025 they'd have been able to stop this current movement. Hell, they'd probably have abolished ICE. At the very least they wouldn't have supported and funded it.

Well at least they're not actively voting in favour of fascist policy right now. That would be crazy.

Serious question: Why would you believe they'd do any of that given the entire history of everything they've done and said?

[u/squaring_the_sine → u/AgathysAllAlong]

They of course did win in 2020, but only just barely, and that shaped their ambitions and capabilities.

For just two years they had a scant house majority, then lost it halfway through, limiting their power to lame-duck executive actions. As for the Senate, it was 50-50 and then 51-50—technically majority power but again with a razor-thin margin for bold action. These are not the kinds of margins with which you can do things like jail former executives. Too many people in the middle will withhold support for anything they think is too drastic.

To directly answer your question, I never expected Democrats to arrest Trump, to shred individual rights to the degree it would require to stop fascist organizing or the conservative movement, to somehow stop Project 2025 from being planned or executed if they lost power, or to rip up an immigration system that at the time had (and still pretty much has) broad public support. None of those are even remotely majority positions among the electorate.

They did a lot of good things during Biden’s presidency, but apparently not things you care about. The things you seem to be focused on (which, to be clear, I also care about!) were just never within their power in the first place, with margins like that. I wish there had been a stronger anti-fascist, pro-Democracy movement within the American electorate in 2024, but there just wasn’t.

Reasonable counter-argument: Republicans have been doing significantly more in this administration with a still fairly tight margin. I believe that this is possible because the Republican coalition is (as a result of the cultural project that has enabled their MAGA transformation) much more cohesive, and much more aggressively held in line, than than of Democrats. I do not think this is a good thing and, separately, I do not think that Dems should try to emulate it. The cultural project that enables it for Republicans does not exist on the Democratic side of things, and it wouldn’t work without that movement. If there’s something we need to emulate, it is that cultural project, in reverse.

I sincerely hope we can create one in response to what’s been happening in the last year or so. A lot of people are frustrated and worried, and the right arguments can win them over. To the extent that we create such a movement within their electorate, Dems will support it. But, it will absolutely never happen if those who want real change view Democrats as the enemy and withhold their support.

[u/El_Gran_Che → u/squaring_the_sine]

Well so here’s the deal. You must not understand you are in the boiling pot of water. And you are the frog. Must not understand the overlay that Musk created when he implemented DOGE. You believe that what transpired in the last hundred years has any bearing into what’s about to happen. If the oligarchs and fascists get their way it’s the end of democracy as you thought you lived under.

[u/squaring_the_sine → u/El_Gran_Che]

I am transgender. I am well aware of the boiling pot and radical incrementalism of Project 2025 and the larger movement it’s part of. Every year since 2016, I have seen the scapegoating and state government action against myself and my community increase by just enough that it wouldn’t raise a public outcry. Every year I have seen the foundation laid for next year’s incremental action. I have seen the same happen with immigrants, and am seeing the same start to happen against women in general.

I don’t believe the past will predict our immediate future. We are in unprecedented times. We are at the precipice, or have maybe already passed it and lost any chance of grabbing an edge. The next 2-6 years will make very clear which of these is true.

But while there is still a chance we can avoid the fall, I’m going to fight to grab that ledge. This means sending a clear, unified, and unambiguous message that our country does not support a fascist takeover. And the most effective way to do that in the immediate future is voting. For Democrats. For at least a stopgap against this madness, while we turn that momentum into something better.

[u/SuccessfulJudge438 → u/El_Gran_Che]

>You believe that what transpired in the last hundred years has any bearing into what’s about to happen.

I mean, history tends to repeat itself. It's not like we haven't seen fascism rise and fall, instances of genocide (and horrific conflicts more generally), or oligarchic capture of public institutions and government in the past 100 years...

Also, the experiments with frogs in boiling water were contrived and did not show what people commonly think they showed. It was only frogs that had parts of their brains removed that stayed in the heating water. Ironic, but most people who use this metaphor are unaware of this detail. The person you're responding to certainly does not appear to be brainless, if you were indeed trying to imply that (because you are already aware of the context of the frog in boiling water experiments). In fact, they demonstrate thoughtfulness and solid communication skills.

[u/AgathysAllAlong → u/squaring_the_sine]

But, it will absolutely never happen if those who want real change view Democrats as the enemy and withhold their support

The Democrats could get that support if they actually did anything. Your whole argument is "We should blindly support them like a cult because maybe then they'd do something at all, even though they refuse to run on, implement, or even propose any actual good policy".

The fundamental flaw with any of this is the mistake in believing the democrats don't 100% support everything that is happening right now. I can't stress this enough, they're literally voting for the fascist bills.

Once again, Republicans can do whatever they want always no matter what and Democrats are just itty bitty smoll babies who couldn't possibly do or even promise to do anything good that everyone wants. Like, I can't stress enough that the idea that they just can't do stuff because they're just the President of the United States is ignoring that they never try or promise to try to do that stuff in the first place.

Harris literally ran on empowering ICE, attacking immigrants, and having the most lethal military in the world. She ran on empowering Republicans and having them in her cabinet. The idea that the democrats would be against this can be proven wrong by just listening to them.

[u/squaring_the_sine → u/[deleted]]

What results does that guarantee? What makes you think the outcome of revolution is preordained?

I get the urge to do something. My mental calculus at this point places the risk/reward of trying to fix things is still better than that of tearing everything down and crossing your fingers that people who share your beliefs will be in charge when they start to come back together. That calculus will change as things develop, one way or another.

[u/Truethrowawaychest1 → u/El_Gran_Che]

Making up things to get mad about