While J.D. Vance has his own controversies, his close connection to billionaire Peter Thiel, who is poised to have unprecedented influence in a new Trump administration, should deeply unsettle every American who cares about freedom, privacy and reining in the surveillance state.

A couple of nuggets from the article for any of you thinking that the Dems are any better:

Anduril is now building a “virtual border wall” for the federal government and Trump, who long campaigned on building a physical barrier on the US-Mexico border, abandoned that promise during his first term and now supports the exact solution Anduril is selling.

Key words being: “is now building” (under Biden)

From Anduril’s blog: https://blog.anduril.com/president-biden-demanded-high-tech-capacity-for-border-security-805b7b5664b5

and:

Though HARPA was not created under the Trump administration, Trump reportedly reacted “very positively” to the proposal and was “sold on the concept.” In addition, before the proposal was known publicly, Trump had called on Big Tech, and specifically social media to collaborate with the DOJ to create software that stops mass murders before they happen by detecting potential mass shooters before they can act. However, Trump ultimately passed on creating HARPA, which was ultimately created during the Biden administration as ARPA-H, underscoring the bipartisan nature of this agenda.

It’s a uni-party, folks. The article is worth a full read.

    • Eldritch@lemmy.worldEnglish
      25·
      4 months ago

      Wow that wasn’t worse than I thought. It’s kind of exactly what I thought. But then I’ve been paying attention so I suppose that was kind of obvious.

      • Pronell@lemmy.world
        21·
        4 months ago

        Well you’d have to ask Vance, since at one point he thought he was gay, by his own admission.

        But I don’t like going down that road. I don’t want to shame him for his potential sexuality. Just for his actual policies.

        • MagicShel@programming.dev
          13·
          4 months ago

          I was more referring to Thiel backing him. And I agree there is no shame at all in being gay, but there is a strong element of hypocrisy and that is shameful.

        • Wogi@lemmy.world
          6·
          4 months ago

          Shame him for fucking a couch all day. But the fact that he’s one of probably many, many, closeted Republicans is just kinda sad.

  • 👍Maximum Derek👍@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    40·
    4 months ago

    Peter Thiel is Elon Musk’s even more evil version, who’s been smart enough to mostly stay out of the press. I’ve been waving my arms about him since paypal.

    • Yawweee877h444@lemmy.world
      5·
      4 months ago

      Yikes. Eric weinstein is managing director at theil capital. Sounds like a lucrative position. Always been suspicious of Eric, seems too much like an Elon bootlicker. His brother Bret though is absolutely on his knees begging to Elon LOL.

    • lemmysam@lemmy.mlOP
      711·
      4 months ago

      Peter Thiel and his related companies/funded companies Palantir, ClearviewAI, and Anduril so heavily invested in the Ukraine conflict, it is very unlikely that Harris would draw any negative attention to the donor class.

        • lemmysam@lemmy.mlOP
          43·
          4 months ago

          “the donor class”

          The Pentagon, under the Biden administration, is currently contracting to Thiel’s companies for support in Ukraine. ClearviewAI even handled the facial recognition analysis that identified the Jan 6 rioters. These corporations and are in bed with both parties.

          • just_another_person@lemmy.world
            23·
            4 months ago

            Sorry, but what the fuck are you on about? The fact that there are terrible people in the planet? What does this have to do with the topic or your original comment?