Elon Musk Delivers the Most Truthful Tweet In U.S. History

I have never been on left side of the American political spectrum. I was conservative in my youth, kind a ‘70s version of the Michael J. Fox character - Alex P. Keaton - on “Family Ties.”

But the center of the American political spectrum has shifted steadily to the left over the decades. A great example is that any honest analysis of the policy platforms of the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy are virtually indistinguishable from one another in any real sense. Yet, Reagan was characterized as an arch conservative in the 1980s while JFK was considered a liberal in the America that existed in the early 1960s.

Though my own political beliefs shifted more towards what had been the center of the political spectrum during my youth as I grew older, what was considered to be the actual center moved steadily leftwards over time. Thus, though my own progression as been somewhat leftwards on a number of issues, I stand today as far to the right of center as I ever have.

Elon Musk is significantly younger than I am and thus has experienced a different frame of reference for the same kind of leftward progression in U.S. politics. On Thursday, he published a tweet containing a cartoon diagram depicting his own experience since 2008.

Here it is:

Musk’s diagram shows not only the leftward movement of the “center” in U.S. politics, but also the seeming disappearance almost entirely of real liberals, who pretty much all appear to have been replaced by woke progressive nitwits.

Thus, we see the spectacle of Elon Musk, who has considered himself to be a political liberal throughout his entire life, being hailed - or scorned, as the case may be - as a conservative icon on social and legacy media platforms. Musk believe his own political views haven’t changed, but the ground has shifted beneath his feet.

It calls to mind Ronald Reagan, who was a liberal Democrat throughout most of his film career only to turn into perhaps the greatest conservative icon of any generation, saying that “I didn’t leave the Democratic party; the Democratic party left me.”

Musk no doubt believes he is still a political liberal. But the reality, made clear by this tweet, is that he is far too honest and self-aware to really fit that label.

That is all.