Lindsey Graham threatens Elon Musk for daring to pursue peace in Ukraine
If there’s one thing that can be said of Senator Lindsey Graham it’s this: the man loves a war. Whether it be in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, or Twitter, the man has yet to see a conflict he doesn’t want to insert his whole chest and all of your money into. So, it’s no surprise he got into a Twitter tussle with billionaire Elon Musk recently. The problem seemed to start with Elon suggesting a peaceful end to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The horror! https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1576969255031296000?s=61&t=-LlvF_rrV4uyUXL298Jq7A One can certainly disagree with the specifics of Musk’s proposal. He’s not an expert on foreign affairs. But, this desire for a peaceful solution is exactly the approach we should want our leaders to take with the conflict—as nuclear war, and thus human existence itself, hangs in the balance. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1576973049277992974?s=61&t=-LlvF_rrV4uyUXL298Jq7A This isn’t hyperbole. And as my BASEDPolitics colleague Jack Hunter pointed out this week, Americans aren’t taking the real threat of nuclear conflict as gravely as they should be. But Musk’s basic plea for peace seemed to trigger Lindsey Graham, who promptly took to Twitter to post this tirade. https://twitter.com/lindseygrahamsc/status/1577715828568559618?s=61&t=-LlvF_rrV4uyUXL298Jq7A https://twitter.com/lindseygrahamsc/status/1577716273064153101?s=61&t=-LlvF_rrV4uyUXL298Jq7A https://twitter.com/lindseygrahamsc/status/1577716491486728204?s=61&t=-LlvF_rrV4uyUXL298Jq7A He’s basically suggesting that we come in and force Russia to honor an agreement it made. And since he didn’t spell out what that means, I will. It means we enter the war. In case you haven’t noticed, Russia is run by an unhinged madman who doesn’t particularly care what the West thinks of him. The only way to force Russia to honor such an agreement would be a conflict between our country and theirs, which is how we quickly get into a nuclear war situation. That makes Graham’s thread unhinged as is, but then he got even wilder. https://twitter.com/lindseygrahamsc/status/1577716698848919555?s=61&t=-LlvF_rrV4uyUXL298Jq7A So here you have a sitting politician threatening a private individual with financial harm for merely suggesting a policy he does not like. Sir, what? To be clear, corporate welfare is always corrupt and always an attack on the free market. It’s governments picking winners and losers and putting their thumbs on the scale in the business world. It means business leaders with friends in politics get special handouts while their competitors or those politicians dislike get slapped in the face. This is how some companies get unfair market advantages, it’s why many businesses that should fold and make way for new, better options, are able to instead hang on for decades while offering worse and worse services (think the airline industry). But this is also how politicians control business leaders. It’s how they limit dissent and get companies to act in ways that often go against the consumers’ interest. We already know this goes on in our system every day. But seeing a sitting senator so casually make such a threat publicly is still chilling. It’s a good reminder that the real wars politicians are waging are on us and our best interests—whether that be through entangling us in global conflicts we have no business in or by manipulating the market against us. https://twitter.com/hannahdcox/status/1578000660871651333?s=61&t=-LlvF_rrV4uyUXL298Jq7A Not only are Graham’s comments corrupt, they also arguably violate Musk’s free speech rights. What Graham is threatening is to take political action to retaliate against Musk’s industry because the Tesla CEO holds different foreign policy views than he does. The First Amendment protects individuals’ free speech from government persecution. So on its face, this would seem to be a pretty direct assault on that right. And there’s more case law to back this up further. In a case known as O’Hare Truck Service, Inc. v. City of Northlake, the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that local governments cannot revoke benefits—even privileges businesses have no inherent right to—in retaliation for a company’s political opposition. So while we at BASEDPolitics are staunchly against any and all corporate welfare, revoking such privileges in this manner would be blatantly unconstitutional. Then again, that’s pretty on-brand for Graham. The longest-running war Lindsey Graham has advocated for has been a war against the Constitution. It’s time Americans rise up to fight back against the real assault on our country.
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