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Comment by jprd | Hacker News Reader

With his platform, influence and money - this is just dangerous.

Forget how morally wrong it is to joke like that in private, to then think that THE ENTIRE WORLD would find it funny and it would not incite additional violence - especially in this climate? This dude also offered to impregnate Taylor Swift a few days ago. We can't keep venerating this guy.

He is either in desperate need of intervention/mental health assistance, or a clear and present danger to democracy - or probably both.

I admire some of his achievements, but he isn't Tony Stark. Stark found his conscience.

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If a guy making odious jokes on his large social media account is enough to constitute a "danger to democracy" why are we even bothering with such a rotten structure? If the institutions of the US are in such a condition, when does someone who believe that decide it's time to give up the ghost?

The structure is rotten BECAUSE him and trump and all of these other clowns are making these "jokes" that aren't really "jokes" because he has to make excuses after making them. It didn't start with him. It's trump "asking a question about Obama's birth certificate" and Fox News "just asking questions/just making innocent jokes" but repeating them an infinite number of times.

It's death by a thousand cuts.

The rhetoric is just as bad on the other side.

What rhetoric? Simply explaining what they’re doing?

This isn't an "odious joke". This is a call for violence.

Nobody believes it's a question, any more than we believe that Henry II was merely inquiring why no one would rid him of that turbulent priest.

It likely doesn't rise to the level of a criminal act. But it's the kind of thing that earns one a stern talking to from the Secret Service. And if somebody actually does take him up on it, there may yet be charges.

It feels to me like he's envious of Trump's ability to say and do anything, social norms and morality be damned. They both want a world where those at the top can do whatever they want and the little people don't matter because big daddy knows better... democracy just gets in the way.

They're nearly there.

There is a chance that 1) he actually believes it and removed it because someone pointed out how bad the optics are for it or 2) it was a joke and was removed for the same reason.

Here's my point: at least with characters like Musk and Trump you know where you stand. Zuck recently only admitted to the shady actions during the last election cycle, Jack was proven to have been shadow-banning when Elon took over.

IMO none of them are exemplars of character and righteousness, one group is just much more covert about it than the other.

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