After the Earthquake

I think it’s hard to separate the (well deserved) pointing and laughing at the Musk/Trump antics from the political damage (or benefit) that will come from this little episode in our common disaster. Just look at this:

Clicks are up, I’m sure. I’ll confess to watching AOC’s “the girls are fighting” clip a few times. And thanks to a reader on BlueSky who pointed me to this:

Josh Marshall has a good piece on what he calls the Thunderdome Musk/Trump meltdown. He concentrates on SpaceX, and I think that’s the right place to look. Trump has some power over Tesla — mainly electric car subsidies — but that meme stock has somewhat recovered from yesterday’s dip. It’s the stock that is the basis of his fortune. At some point it will all come crashing down, but not today, and anyone who thinks they can predict Tesla’s downfall is playing a fool’s game.

But SpaceX, as Marshall points out, is absolutely crucial to the US space program. Musk tried to leverage that by threatening to decommission the Dragon spacecraft that is used to transport astronauts to the ISS, but he quickly walked it back.

That all said, here’s my take on the lasting political impact of Trump throwing Musk under the bus:

Trump has someone to blame for all the unpopular things that DOGE did, if he chooses. Since Elon is apparently a serious drug addict, Trump can spin a tale of Elon being fine when he started DOGE and that addiction took over, and the media will eat it up. They love gossip.
However, Trump fighting Elon over the Big Ugly Bill makes Trump and the rest of the Republicans own it. This is interesting since even MTG has flipped on the bill and Fox is reporting on that.
Elon out of the government means that Big Balls and the rest have lost their power, maybe. We can only hope on that some of the agencies they’ve destroyed can recover.

I think the net of this is that the main damage that this little breakup does is to increase the feeling that a Trump administration is pure chaos.

Open thread. Relatively obscure musical reference below, but it’s a breakup song.

Reply

or to participate

Galaxy Being1 year ago

Shove a bunch of eunuchs in the White House, and we'd be the declining years of the Byzantine Empire.

Scott H1 year ago

This (mal)Administration is pure chaos, that's the point.

It's why I view this is simply more noise to flood the zone, drown out other bad/worse things going on and divert attention by both the public and the media.

It's simply endless variations of "SQUIRREL!!!!!".

John S.1 year ago

Hey, remember Signalgate? How about the private crypto dinner that made Teapot Dome look like child’s play? Or the constitutional crisis happening every day that Trump thumbs his nose at the courts?

Yeah, the news media doesn’t remember any of that stuff, either.

mister mixAuthor1 year ago

Yeah, this is the big similarity between Trump I and Trump II -- everything gets memory holed.

John S.1 year ago

Because as Scott mentioned, it’s a daily exercise in then chasing after whatever shiny new object is placed in front of them.

If only they could learn how to focus on a particular issue, like they did with Clinton’s emails or Biden’s age. Alas.

Scott H1 year ago

And, every time people say "This one has legs". Many of us said that about SignalGate and Here. We. Are.

Pacem Appellant1 year ago

The Dems could have ran with SignalGate, but they were too shocked and cowered. Still are.

C P1 year ago

Unfortunately, I think the likeliest outcome of this is much ado about nothing; Musk won't do anything to meaningfully damage the Trump government (his "Trump was on the Epstein list!" moment, which tells us something we'd all already guessed while providing absolutely no evidence of such, kind of says it all), and Trump won't do anything to meaningfully undo any of Musk's harmful projects, including DOGE (whose members will simply soldier on, just with a very clear picture of what side their bread's buttered on). I'd love to be wrong, but the fact that both parties are such pathological cowards doesn't leave me much hope.

mister mixAuthor1 year ago

I think you're right.

Cheez Whiz1 year ago

I wanted to say something like this, but not as clearly. The fact that Musk's "employment contract" had a rapidly approaching expiration seems to have disappeared. All I saw about that was a Trump comment about Musk "having to go", though them honoring norms and laws over this seems odd. I suppose Vough and maybe Miller see value in keeping the kids around as sledgehammers, and now that Palantier has a contract we'll see if Theil has a use for them.

But the whole hissy fit just seems theatrical, though maybe Musk did blow up when Trump wouldn't promise the carve outs he expected/needed in the Bill. And having a pissed off contractor he refuses to pay is Trump's sweet spot. He can play that role in his sleep.

C P1 year ago

For what it's worth, I don't think it's theatrical - they're both way too shallow and emotionally unregulated for it not to be sincere.

I just also don't think there'll be any meaningful conflict, because they're also total cowards. Trump doesn't have the gonads to REALLY go to town on Musk (revoking his contracts, siccing the FBI on him, trying to have him deported as an illegal alien), when he knows Musk has the money to defend himself in court and the money and social media presence to make a serious go at undermining him. Musk doesn't have the gonads to REALLY go to town on Trump (having the DOGE gremlins cause havoc, funding primary challenges), when he knows Trump has the tools of the government to make life hard for him. So what's going on is the equivalent of a pair of posturing drunks screaming "YOU THINK YOU'RE TOUGH YOU WANNA TAKE A SWING AT ME" at each other, neither of whom, however, is actually brave enough to take a swing.

I would, I should clarify, LOVE to be wrong.

Sepideh M1 year ago

Also, Musk has a long history of accusing people of being pedophiles. Remember he accused the Thailand rescuers just because people did not let him drowned children in his mini-submarine coffin invention.

John S.1 year ago

It’s so nice to see that men aren’t too emotional to be in power.

After the Earthquake

Reply

Keep Reading

reverse pyromania

Home