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Trump sides with Musk in H-1B fight
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this post was submitted on 28 Dec 2024
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That's the thing isn't it? You can't actually buy political influence, the closest you can get is the wink and nudge.
The only lever they have is threatening to not donate again.
Trump doesn't care if they donate to the GOP again. He's not running again. Musk and friends have served their purpose, or very nearly so. The promise of their donations can be leveraged to get the votes needed to ensure appointments that can help keep trump in power or out of jail at the end of his term, be they administrative, judicial or military.
Money can be useful to power, but it's not itself power.
"Hey, Clarence, how you doing? Virgina doing OK? Good, good. Hey, I was just thinking, my wife and I were going to use the yacht this weekend, but we had something else come up. It's all stocked and fueled, and it'd be a shame if it went to waste. Would you and Virginia like to get away? Ok, excellent, I'll let the crew know.
"Oh, and Thomas, you know that big ruling on Trump's boarder plan? Yeah, make sure it doesn't go the President's way. Yes, of course, I'll make sure there's plenty of eyebrow torture porn on the shipboard theater."
They have plenty of levers against Trump.
Trump can always try murder as an official act, that should keep people in line.
In that example, he doesn't actually care about a wall. How does a wall benefit him? He cares about diverting money to his pocket, maintaining power, and staying out of prison.
The supreme court already gave him personal immunity for most acts he takes while president. He could literally order Thomas arrested for corruption and there's nothing the court could do to him.
Musk has utility while he potentially helps secure votes on appointments that matter for significant goals, but securing those appointments is also desirable for other Republicans, so musk isn't key to those plans.
Not how that ruling works. The Court gets to decide what is and isn't an official act, and can do so arbitrarily. The Court just might take issue with murdering any members of the conservative wing.