For reference: JD Vance said that another DOGE staffer, who resigned after it was reported that he'd publicly come out in favor of racism, eugenics, and normalizing hate against Indian people on Twitter, should be rehired because it was just "stupid social media activity".
> For reference: JD Vance said that another DOGE staffer, who resigned after it was reported that he'd publicly come out in favor of racism, eugenics, and normalizing hate against Indian people on Twitter, should be rehired because it was just "stupid social media activity".
> What is so egregious about this that he needed to be pushed out
You are cherrypicking. There are dozens of other posts, ranging from benign to South Park edgy to outright indefensible. In any case, they were shameful and he should be taking great efforts to apologize and prove he's a changed person if he actually regrets posting them.
Compared to what is daily being said about 'white men' in particular and 'men' in general those posts seem to be mostly par for the course. If the things he says about ${identity_group} are bad then so are the same things being said by people in high places about the aforementioned so a sizeable fraction of 'progressives' should [take] great efforts to apologize and prove [they're] changed person[s]. If you don't agree I'd like to know where the difference lies.
I don't know what to tell you. It's racism, whether or not he's a white man or an Indian woman. If racism is "par for the course" then guess what, it's still racism.
> If the things he says about ${identity_group} are bad then so are the same things being said by people in high places about the aforementioned so a sizeable fraction of 'progressives'
Please, point to the spot where the progressives are being racist. Are you going to accuse Democrats of being racist against Krasnodar Krai for supporting Ukraine in their racist and illegal defense of Russian homeland? Accuse them of hating Palestinians more than Trump?
Or no, you're going to cherry pick racist Buzzfeed columnists who are (somehow) an analog for an appointed government employee with privileged access to private data.
"I don't think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid's life" is incredibly dishonest and Vance should be held to account for this incredibly dishonest statement.
The phrasing is intended to create the impression that the posts were made years ago, by some angry teenager, and it's not relevant to the person they are today. It's a way of downplaying the acts, creating distance between the person today and the acts at some unspecified point in the past.
But we know these timeline details. Elez is not a "kid" now, he's 25. These posts were not made when he was 13, they were made last year when he was, I suppose, 24 going on 25.
There are two conflicting perspectives being promoted by Musk, Vance, etc which IMO are in direct logical conflict:
1) This person's actions last year (going up to December 2024! Just 2 months ago!) are the actions of an irresponsible child and we shouldn't hold them accountable for those actions because they're not responsible enough to be held accountable for them.
2) This person is responsible enough right now to be operating at the highest levels of government.
It's not a lie. "I don’t think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life" does two things: characterizes endorsements of racism and eugenics policies as "stupid social media activity", and asserts that exposure of such activity should not lead to someone losing their job. The part about not rewarding journalists who "destroy" people does not exist in a vacuum away from his downplaying of Elez's abhorrent racial views. If journalists had revealed Elez, for example, was a secret left-wing antifa supporter on Bluesky, I think we can reasonably doubt Vance's reaction would have been the same.
Edit: Now that you've brought Vance's tweet into focus, it's also interesting that he does not think Elez is currently a "bad dude" when he's expressly stated a desire to normalize hatred against an entire ethnicity
Follow-up: "How is Elez both a child who shouldn't be held responsible for his actions from as recently as 2 months ago, but also the right person to be trusted with extensive access to government systems?"
"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
The doge boys are in-group, so they are protected, and the law will not be brought to bear against them. Simple as that.
“To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you. I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before,” Trump said.
Funny, I don't see those extra qualifiers in there.
No journalist is going to ask him this because they’re afraid of retribution and a loss of access. If they do he’s going to deflect - nobody will press him on a genuinely galling statement of values.
