UPDATED
By Abby Zimet
December 24, 2024
Source: Common Dreams
Image from meme on Bluesky
In this so-called holiday season, welcome to America’s “Mump regime,” governance of, by and for the oligarchs in which an erratic unelected white supremacist gazillionaire whose new hobby is buying presidents is cosplaying as shadow president to cash in – and fuck kids with cancer – alongside a senile grifter selling everything in sight: Bibles, sneakers, perfume, hotels, cabinet seats, diplomatic posts and democracy itself. Beware: Just to be clear, “We now have a criminal enterprise, not a government.”
With the tsunami of dark money and corporate coercion engulfing our politics, it’s unsurprising that ever-mercenary-president-elect-in-name-only Trump is assembling the richest administration in history, or what Jeff Tiedrich calls “a fucktangle of oligarchs (named) to his Confederacy of Sewer Clowns.” So far, there are 13 billionaires; of course they include Space Nazi Musk, the richest man in the world, and biotech kingpin Vivek Ramaswamy, who’ve been tasked with “improving the efficiency of government” by running it like a pitiless business and gutting vital services for millions of non-billionaires – food, heat, health care, education – in the name of brutal profit and an imaginary mandate to launch “a hostile takeover” of government “on behalf of the American people.” So much for Trump’s garbled “voice” of a working class – the rent is too damn high! – struggling to buy gas, eggs, bacon, butter, and other basics (let’s get real) foreign to a guy who’s likely never stepped foot in a grocery store.
Because all he really wants to do is help rich fat cats get richer and fatter, they’re flocking to gilded Mar-A- Hell-Go to kiss his gaudy ring, homage (albeit fake) the thin-skinned, unloved son of a tyrant is relishing: “Everyone wants to be my friend.” The latest is Jeff Bezos, whose flagrant fawning so mirrors Musk’s thatJimmy Fallon posited, “To settle who he loves more, Elon and Bezos are going to put Trump down in the middle of the room and see who he goes to first: ‘All right, here boy!’” But Musk is clearly more central, and in many ways more scary: A likely illegal alien and white supremacist who grew up in apartheid South Africa, made a fortune from a car that kills twice as many people as the industry average, and though foreign-born found a way to power by giving a useful idiot $277 million to become his puppet master. A good investment: Since the election, Musk has made $170 billion, most from Tesla and SpaceX investors eager to see him end all those pesky safety and labor rules that cut into profits.
Buying Trump was so profitable Never-Elected Pres. Musk is already malevolently branching out. He’s threatening people in Congress, including “jackass” moderates of both parties, with unseating them by throwing money at potential primary opponents if they dare to disagree with him. Governing by threat, tweet and financial heft comes so easily to the guy who quickly turned Twitter into a bigot-invested haven for hate akin to “a Munich beer hall hall in 1933” that he’s even telling Germans how to vote – for Nazis. “Only the AFD can save Germany,” he posted in defense of anti-immigrant fascists who want to purify Europe by casting out people it considers lesser, if not subhuman. Weirdly, he did it on the same day 100 years ago Hitler was released from a Bavarian prison, and the New York Times declared him a “tamed…sadder and wiser man” than when he’d tried to overthrow the government. “No longer to be feared,” they added, “it is believed he will retire to private life and return to Austria, the country of his birth.”
Of course the Space Nazi isn’t just meddling in Germany’s politics. Last week, utilizing what Adam Kinzinger called “all President Musk’s vast government experience,” he tried to kill a painstakingly forged bipartisan spending bill to keep the federal government running, something he admitted he has zero interest in ’cause how cool to just blow up everything and see what happens? Slamming the spending package as “one of the worst bills ever written” while offering no reason for the claim, he offered up his Very Important Opinion in over 100 posts, seemingly oblivious to its possible impact: hundreds of thousands of federal employees working without pay at Christmas, and oh yeah potentially eliminating funding for pediatric cancer research. Scott Fitzgerald on The Great Gatsby‘s Tom and Daisy: “They were careless people. They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness (and) let other people clean up the mess they had made.”
In the end, relative if desperate reason prevailed, Congress cobbled together a stopgap compromise bill, and Shadow President Musk outmaneuvered Trump, who likely never knew it. Trump, who had mostly just demanded the debt ceiling be raised (again) so he could fund tax cuts for his plutocrat pals, got nothing. The world’s richest economic vampire, having been given “free rein to clownfuck America’s government,” got much of what he wanted, including killing reforms to bring down drug prices and restrictions on U.S. investments in China, where he has massive investments and his sordid bottom line “depends on staying in China’s good graces.” The idea of making him pay his fair share of taxes out of his billions to help with a soaring debt somehow never came up, and funding for kids with cancer still got stripped, because fuck kids with cancer. The online response from a righteous father whose daughter is a Stage 4 liver cancer survivor: “Fuck these ghouls to the lowest depths of hell.”
The messy tussle over the usually straightforward task of keeping Congress running serves as both a harbinger of the mayhem awaiting us as a GOP clown car of fools and hacks try to run the government, and a reflection of a surreal historic moment when, for instance, we kinda have three presidents, and will for a while: In a recent poll asking voters who, in authority if not title, will be president starting Jan. 20, Musk got 57%, Putin got 30%, and Trump got 8%. “How to call this thing that is coming to America in a month?” asks Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny. Snyder came up with the “Mump regime” – apt because it hints of illness – also “Trumpomuskovia” and “the pro-polio party.” And while Trump aides are furiously insisting to media he’s still the boss, many others have noticed “what Musk thinks tends to eventually be what Trump thinks” and argue, “If you have to explain, you’re losing.” Thus did the Lincoln Project, deciding “the (First) lady doth protest too much,” salute “Vice-President Trump.”
To be clear: Vice President Trump is no more coherent than convicted felon, adjudicated rapist, and candidate Trump; aka, “Sundowning Grandpa Befuddlepants is deteriorating by the day.” In his hallucinatory first post-election interview with Meet the Press, he raved, babbled, lied, made up stuff: “We’re going to do something with the border, very strong, very powerful…Our country is a crime pod….I saved Obamacare” (Welker: You tried to kill it, sir)…(After harassing the president of Mexico) I called the border and said, ‘How’s the border looking?’ They said, ‘There’s nobody here.’ They couldn’t believe it…” His 2nd grade report on watching one of Elno Skum’s rockets: “It’s coming down so fast…Then all of a sudden the jets go on….Then it’s almost stopped it…I said, what the hell’s going on? Nobody ever saw this before.” In a Sunday speech on smoke backstage: “I said, Hey, are there any steps in front of me? I don’t want to go. I go down. That would not be good. We don’t want to do nice and slow. But I just want to thank you.”
But demented or no, grifters gotta grift – especially with a half-billion bucks in legal debts – so he’s still hawking crap. Some are hefty gigs: Loathsome spawn Eric was just in Abu Dhabi at a Bitcoin confab to peddle their new crypto venture, en route to two $7.5 billion luxury hotel deals in Saudi Arabia, bone-saws notwithstanding. Following a long tawdry trail of failed Trump steaks, water, vodka, casinos, digital trading cards – “It’s your favorite president with some exciting news” – $1,500 guitars, $900 to $100,000 watches, $400 “Never Surrender” gold sneakers, “Fight Fight Fight” cologne – “It’s not just a scent, it’s a statement” – he’s returned to flogging his sticky-paged, made-in-China God Bless the USA and Lee Greenwood Bible – with Jesus’ words in red! – like the 3 a.m. shift at Home Shopping Network to celebrate his own miraculous election. “Faith is coming back to America, and FAST!” he proclaims. “The perfect gift for this Christmas.” Just $59.99, autographed for $1,000. Get yours today!
And if not a Bible, how about Panama? Or Greenland? Having threatened to turn Canada into our 51st state, Trump just randomly decreed Panama reduce its “ridiculous” fees for the Canal or the U.S. will reclaim it “in full, and without question.” In a post clearly written by someone else – it used “magnanimous” – he charged Jimmy Carter “foolishly gave it away for One Dollar” (wrong again) and the U.S. can’t let it “fall into the wrong hands,” like China’s. When Panama’s president insisted the Canal belongs to them, Trump turned middle-school bully with, “We’ll see about that!” and a picture of a U.S. flag over the Canal. Like King Kong beating his chest, then he abruptly returned his feeble attention to Greenland, demanding Denmark sell it to America because “ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity” for “National Security and Freedom throughout the World.” So a fragile “President Juice-Box” goes all Imperialist tantrum and vows to annex other countries to prove his manliness: Haven’t we seen this before?
To many, the preternaturally thin-skinned Trump’s flailing and posing seem inspired by his crush on and insecurity before a younger, richer, thinner, brasher, crueler, more articulate, more government-subsidized, more skillfully manipulative, more viciously cost-cutting, better-dancing and did we say way richer diva and alpha dog with even more staggering conflicts of interest who sure seems to be calling the dubious shots. And he has rockets! Oh no, are people laughing at him, his most dreaded nightmare? Social media is on it with a flood of memes, mash-ups, cartoons, titles. Trump is President Musk‘s First Lady, vice-president, chief-of-staff, mascot, fan-boy, dupe on bended knee. None of that tearful groveling, “Sir, sir, how do you do it, sir?” Rumor has it the richest oligarch in the world might even buy Mar-A-Lago, at a fire-sale-price from the aging Art of the Deal buffoon, so he can launch freebie rockets from there while fueling bigotry online. One sage: “We were all afraid Trump was the next Hitler, but it’s Musk.”
There’s so much speculation about who’s running the malevolent circus that a tweet circulated last week of Trump clarifying, “I am the president-elect”; he’s grateful for Musk’s help, but “time to stay in your lane.” It was fake, but he’s rattled enough by Musk’s soaring profile he did speak up Sunday at Turning Point’s lunatic Gathering of the MAGAlos. Monotonically drugged, he lauded Musk for his future efficient cutting of pediatric cancer research before adding, “No, he’s not taking the president” (sic). Whipping out his imaginary accordion, he cited the “new hoax” he’d ceded the presidency to Musk. “No-o, that’s not happening…I can tell you,” he said to silence from the crowd. “And I’m safe. You know why? He can’t – he wasn’t born in this country. Ha ha ha!” Yeah, totally normal. To confirm that, it seems we’re to call Mar-A-Lago at 561-832-2600 and ask to speak to President Musk. Another good, normal action: Write to Vice President Donald Trump at 1100 S. Ocean Blvd, Palm Beach, FL 33480 asking him how to get tickets to President Musk’s inauguration. It’ll be America’s shining hour.
Image from meme on Bluesky
In this so-called holiday season, welcome to America’s “Mump regime,” governance of, by and for the oligarchs in which an erratic unelected white supremacist gazillionaire whose new hobby is buying presidents is cosplaying as shadow president to cash in – and fuck kids with cancer – alongside a senile grifter selling everything in sight: Bibles, sneakers, perfume, hotels, cabinet seats, diplomatic posts and democracy itself. Beware: Just to be clear, “We now have a criminal enterprise, not a government.”
With the tsunami of dark money and corporate coercion engulfing our politics, it’s unsurprising that ever-mercenary-president-elect-in-name-only Trump is assembling the richest administration in history, or what Jeff Tiedrich calls “a fucktangle of oligarchs (named) to his Confederacy of Sewer Clowns.” So far, there are 13 billionaires; of course they include Space Nazi Musk, the richest man in the world, and biotech kingpin Vivek Ramaswamy, who’ve been tasked with “improving the efficiency of government” by running it like a pitiless business and gutting vital services for millions of non-billionaires – food, heat, health care, education – in the name of brutal profit and an imaginary mandate to launch “a hostile takeover” of government “on behalf of the American people.” So much for Trump’s garbled “voice” of a working class – the rent is too damn high! – struggling to buy gas, eggs, bacon, butter, and other basics (let’s get real) foreign to a guy who’s likely never stepped foot in a grocery store.
Because all he really wants to do is help rich fat cats get richer and fatter, they’re flocking to gilded Mar-A- Hell-Go to kiss his gaudy ring, homage (albeit fake) the thin-skinned, unloved son of a tyrant is relishing: “Everyone wants to be my friend.” The latest is Jeff Bezos, whose flagrant fawning so mirrors Musk’s thatJimmy Fallon posited, “To settle who he loves more, Elon and Bezos are going to put Trump down in the middle of the room and see who he goes to first: ‘All right, here boy!’” But Musk is clearly more central, and in many ways more scary: A likely illegal alien and white supremacist who grew up in apartheid South Africa, made a fortune from a car that kills twice as many people as the industry average, and though foreign-born found a way to power by giving a useful idiot $277 million to become his puppet master. A good investment: Since the election, Musk has made $170 billion, most from Tesla and SpaceX investors eager to see him end all those pesky safety and labor rules that cut into profits.
Buying Trump was so profitable Never-Elected Pres. Musk is already malevolently branching out. He’s threatening people in Congress, including “jackass” moderates of both parties, with unseating them by throwing money at potential primary opponents if they dare to disagree with him. Governing by threat, tweet and financial heft comes so easily to the guy who quickly turned Twitter into a bigot-invested haven for hate akin to “a Munich beer hall hall in 1933” that he’s even telling Germans how to vote – for Nazis. “Only the AFD can save Germany,” he posted in defense of anti-immigrant fascists who want to purify Europe by casting out people it considers lesser, if not subhuman. Weirdly, he did it on the same day 100 years ago Hitler was released from a Bavarian prison, and the New York Times declared him a “tamed…sadder and wiser man” than when he’d tried to overthrow the government. “No longer to be feared,” they added, “it is believed he will retire to private life and return to Austria, the country of his birth.”
Of course the Space Nazi isn’t just meddling in Germany’s politics. Last week, utilizing what Adam Kinzinger called “all President Musk’s vast government experience,” he tried to kill a painstakingly forged bipartisan spending bill to keep the federal government running, something he admitted he has zero interest in ’cause how cool to just blow up everything and see what happens? Slamming the spending package as “one of the worst bills ever written” while offering no reason for the claim, he offered up his Very Important Opinion in over 100 posts, seemingly oblivious to its possible impact: hundreds of thousands of federal employees working without pay at Christmas, and oh yeah potentially eliminating funding for pediatric cancer research. Scott Fitzgerald on The Great Gatsby‘s Tom and Daisy: “They were careless people. They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness (and) let other people clean up the mess they had made.”
In the end, relative if desperate reason prevailed, Congress cobbled together a stopgap compromise bill, and Shadow President Musk outmaneuvered Trump, who likely never knew it. Trump, who had mostly just demanded the debt ceiling be raised (again) so he could fund tax cuts for his plutocrat pals, got nothing. The world’s richest economic vampire, having been given “free rein to clownfuck America’s government,” got much of what he wanted, including killing reforms to bring down drug prices and restrictions on U.S. investments in China, where he has massive investments and his sordid bottom line “depends on staying in China’s good graces.” The idea of making him pay his fair share of taxes out of his billions to help with a soaring debt somehow never came up, and funding for kids with cancer still got stripped, because fuck kids with cancer. The online response from a righteous father whose daughter is a Stage 4 liver cancer survivor: “Fuck these ghouls to the lowest depths of hell.”
The messy tussle over the usually straightforward task of keeping Congress running serves as both a harbinger of the mayhem awaiting us as a GOP clown car of fools and hacks try to run the government, and a reflection of a surreal historic moment when, for instance, we kinda have three presidents, and will for a while: In a recent poll asking voters who, in authority if not title, will be president starting Jan. 20, Musk got 57%, Putin got 30%, and Trump got 8%. “How to call this thing that is coming to America in a month?” asks Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny. Snyder came up with the “Mump regime” – apt because it hints of illness – also “Trumpomuskovia” and “the pro-polio party.” And while Trump aides are furiously insisting to media he’s still the boss, many others have noticed “what Musk thinks tends to eventually be what Trump thinks” and argue, “If you have to explain, you’re losing.” Thus did the Lincoln Project, deciding “the (First) lady doth protest too much,” salute “Vice-President Trump.”
To be clear: Vice President Trump is no more coherent than convicted felon, adjudicated rapist, and candidate Trump; aka, “Sundowning Grandpa Befuddlepants is deteriorating by the day.” In his hallucinatory first post-election interview with Meet the Press, he raved, babbled, lied, made up stuff: “We’re going to do something with the border, very strong, very powerful…Our country is a crime pod….I saved Obamacare” (Welker: You tried to kill it, sir)…(After harassing the president of Mexico) I called the border and said, ‘How’s the border looking?’ They said, ‘There’s nobody here.’ They couldn’t believe it…” His 2nd grade report on watching one of Elno Skum’s rockets: “It’s coming down so fast…Then all of a sudden the jets go on….Then it’s almost stopped it…I said, what the hell’s going on? Nobody ever saw this before.” In a Sunday speech on smoke backstage: “I said, Hey, are there any steps in front of me? I don’t want to go. I go down. That would not be good. We don’t want to do nice and slow. But I just want to thank you.”
But demented or no, grifters gotta grift – especially with a half-billion bucks in legal debts – so he’s still hawking crap. Some are hefty gigs: Loathsome spawn Eric was just in Abu Dhabi at a Bitcoin confab to peddle their new crypto venture, en route to two $7.5 billion luxury hotel deals in Saudi Arabia, bone-saws notwithstanding. Following a long tawdry trail of failed Trump steaks, water, vodka, casinos, digital trading cards – “It’s your favorite president with some exciting news” – $1,500 guitars, $900 to $100,000 watches, $400 “Never Surrender” gold sneakers, “Fight Fight Fight” cologne – “It’s not just a scent, it’s a statement” – he’s returned to flogging his sticky-paged, made-in-China God Bless the USA and Lee Greenwood Bible – with Jesus’ words in red! – like the 3 a.m. shift at Home Shopping Network to celebrate his own miraculous election. “Faith is coming back to America, and FAST!” he proclaims. “The perfect gift for this Christmas.” Just $59.99, autographed for $1,000. Get yours today!
And if not a Bible, how about Panama? Or Greenland? Having threatened to turn Canada into our 51st state, Trump just randomly decreed Panama reduce its “ridiculous” fees for the Canal or the U.S. will reclaim it “in full, and without question.” In a post clearly written by someone else – it used “magnanimous” – he charged Jimmy Carter “foolishly gave it away for One Dollar” (wrong again) and the U.S. can’t let it “fall into the wrong hands,” like China’s. When Panama’s president insisted the Canal belongs to them, Trump turned middle-school bully with, “We’ll see about that!” and a picture of a U.S. flag over the Canal. Like King Kong beating his chest, then he abruptly returned his feeble attention to Greenland, demanding Denmark sell it to America because “ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity” for “National Security and Freedom throughout the World.” So a fragile “President Juice-Box” goes all Imperialist tantrum and vows to annex other countries to prove his manliness: Haven’t we seen this before?
To many, the preternaturally thin-skinned Trump’s flailing and posing seem inspired by his crush on and insecurity before a younger, richer, thinner, brasher, crueler, more articulate, more government-subsidized, more skillfully manipulative, more viciously cost-cutting, better-dancing and did we say way richer diva and alpha dog with even more staggering conflicts of interest who sure seems to be calling the dubious shots. And he has rockets! Oh no, are people laughing at him, his most dreaded nightmare? Social media is on it with a flood of memes, mash-ups, cartoons, titles. Trump is President Musk‘s First Lady, vice-president, chief-of-staff, mascot, fan-boy, dupe on bended knee. None of that tearful groveling, “Sir, sir, how do you do it, sir?” Rumor has it the richest oligarch in the world might even buy Mar-A-Lago, at a fire-sale-price from the aging Art of the Deal buffoon, so he can launch freebie rockets from there while fueling bigotry online. One sage: “We were all afraid Trump was the next Hitler, but it’s Musk.”
There’s so much speculation about who’s running the malevolent circus that a tweet circulated last week of Trump clarifying, “I am the president-elect”; he’s grateful for Musk’s help, but “time to stay in your lane.” It was fake, but he’s rattled enough by Musk’s soaring profile he did speak up Sunday at Turning Point’s lunatic Gathering of the MAGAlos. Monotonically drugged, he lauded Musk for his future efficient cutting of pediatric cancer research before adding, “No, he’s not taking the president” (sic). Whipping out his imaginary accordion, he cited the “new hoax” he’d ceded the presidency to Musk. “No-o, that’s not happening…I can tell you,” he said to silence from the crowd. “And I’m safe. You know why? He can’t – he wasn’t born in this country. Ha ha ha!” Yeah, totally normal. To confirm that, it seems we’re to call Mar-A-Lago at 561-832-2600 and ask to speak to President Musk. Another good, normal action: Write to Vice President Donald Trump at 1100 S. Ocean Blvd, Palm Beach, FL 33480 asking him how to get tickets to President Musk’s inauguration. It’ll be America’s shining hour.
Trump’s chief of staff worried about 'shadow president' Musk leading him 'by the nose': analysis
Donald Trump with Elon Musk and House Speaker Mike Johnson on November 16, 2024 (Wikimedia Commons)
Alex Henderson
Donald Trump with Elon Musk and House Speaker Mike Johnson on November 16, 2024 (Wikimedia Commons)
Alex Henderson
December 24, 2024
ALTERNET
When House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) was making a last-minute effort to get a spending bill passed and avoid a federal government shutdown, billionaire Elon Musk threatened primary challenges against any GOP lawmakers who voted for a bill he didn't like.
Some Democrats, in response, mockingly referred to the Tesla/SpaceX CEO as "President Musk." The actual president-elect, Donald Trump — who is proposing a new advisory committee that would be called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and headed by Musk and MAGA businessman Vivek Ramaswamy — didn't appreciate that at all.
Speaking at a Turning Point USA event, Trump told the MAGA crowd, "No, he's not going to be president, that I can tell you. And I'm safe. You know why he can't be? He wasn't born in this country."
READ MORE: Elon Musk isn't the only CEO suck-up to Trump
But Salon's Amanda Marcotte, in a biting article published on December 24, argues that Musk has been acting like a "shadow president" — and that Musk has been leading the "aging and tired" Trump around "by the nose."
"Most importantly, the process thoroughly exposed Musk's hold over Trump," Marcotte emphasizes. "Democrats started the 'President Musk' meme, and, predictably, Trump's narcissism has led to defensiveness. First, Trump's spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt put out a statement insisting, 'President Trump is the leader of the Republican Party. Full stop.'"
By describing the Tesla CEO as "President Musk," Marcotte writes, Democrats are "accusing Musk of being the true power behind the throne."
One of the Democrats who has had a lot to say about Musk is progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York City.
READ MORE: 'Blindsided' and 'furious' Trump turned Elon Musk loose on House leadership: insider
In a video posted on X, formerly Twitter — which Musk owns — AOC said, "When Elon tweets something and when Trump tweets something…. Republicans don't know who their daddy is. They don't know which one they need to be listening to first."
AOC went on to say that Musk "poses real political problems for Trump" and "arguably…. may rival his power and influence."
Marcotte observes, "It appears Trump's nominee for chief of staff, Susie Wiles, is aware it's bad news to let Musk worm his way into being the shadow president. Despite all the mainstream media hype after Trump created 'DOGE' — the Department of Government Efficiency — cooler heads noticed that this Musk-led initiative is not a real government agency, but a 'presidential advisory committee.'"
The Salon journalist argues that Republicans, after "having spent years kowtowing to Trump's narcissism" are now "turning their practice towards lavish public obsequiousness to Musk."
"No telling how this all plays out," Marcotte writes, "except that it will be chaotic."
Amanda Marcotte's full article for Salon is available at this link.
When House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) was making a last-minute effort to get a spending bill passed and avoid a federal government shutdown, billionaire Elon Musk threatened primary challenges against any GOP lawmakers who voted for a bill he didn't like.
Some Democrats, in response, mockingly referred to the Tesla/SpaceX CEO as "President Musk." The actual president-elect, Donald Trump — who is proposing a new advisory committee that would be called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and headed by Musk and MAGA businessman Vivek Ramaswamy — didn't appreciate that at all.
Speaking at a Turning Point USA event, Trump told the MAGA crowd, "No, he's not going to be president, that I can tell you. And I'm safe. You know why he can't be? He wasn't born in this country."
READ MORE: Elon Musk isn't the only CEO suck-up to Trump
But Salon's Amanda Marcotte, in a biting article published on December 24, argues that Musk has been acting like a "shadow president" — and that Musk has been leading the "aging and tired" Trump around "by the nose."
"Most importantly, the process thoroughly exposed Musk's hold over Trump," Marcotte emphasizes. "Democrats started the 'President Musk' meme, and, predictably, Trump's narcissism has led to defensiveness. First, Trump's spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt put out a statement insisting, 'President Trump is the leader of the Republican Party. Full stop.'"
By describing the Tesla CEO as "President Musk," Marcotte writes, Democrats are "accusing Musk of being the true power behind the throne."
One of the Democrats who has had a lot to say about Musk is progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York City.
READ MORE: 'Blindsided' and 'furious' Trump turned Elon Musk loose on House leadership: insider
In a video posted on X, formerly Twitter — which Musk owns — AOC said, "When Elon tweets something and when Trump tweets something…. Republicans don't know who their daddy is. They don't know which one they need to be listening to first."
AOC went on to say that Musk "poses real political problems for Trump" and "arguably…. may rival his power and influence."
Marcotte observes, "It appears Trump's nominee for chief of staff, Susie Wiles, is aware it's bad news to let Musk worm his way into being the shadow president. Despite all the mainstream media hype after Trump created 'DOGE' — the Department of Government Efficiency — cooler heads noticed that this Musk-led initiative is not a real government agency, but a 'presidential advisory committee.'"
The Salon journalist argues that Republicans, after "having spent years kowtowing to Trump's narcissism" are now "turning their practice towards lavish public obsequiousness to Musk."
"No telling how this all plays out," Marcotte writes, "except that it will be chaotic."
Amanda Marcotte's full article for Salon is available at this link.
Ketamine and governance shouldn't mix
Sabrina Haake
December 24, 2024
Tennis - U.S. Open - Flushing Meadows, New York, United States - September 8, 2024 Elon Musk is seen during the final match between Italy's Jannik Sinner and Taylor Fritz of the U.S. REUTERS/Mike Segar/File Photo
Psychedelic drugs hit the news last week just as Elon Musk, America’s unelected oligarch, started blowing up the government, because, chaos.
Musk, who is clueless about how government works, killed a short term spending bill that would have kept government open through March, provided money for cash-strapped farmers, and provided FEMA disaster relief, all while posting juvenile clues of his cluelessness.
Musk also regularly doses on ketamine. NYT calls ketamine a “life-changing psychedelic drug” used “for when life is ending.” Musk, whose life is not ending anytime soon, uses ketamine to reduce his “negative chemical states like depression,” and says he uses the drug once every other week “or something like that.”
Ketamine blocks existential angst, but what else does it block?
Ketamine is a powerful anesthetic used in psychedelic therapy, like LSD, and is often prescribed for psychiatric conditions. Increasingly, it is also prescribed to patients facing end-of-life or terminal diagnoses to help them overcome angst based on fear of imminent death.
One palliative care specialist reported that patients taking ketamine experience a profound relief from fear and anxiety, and that ketamine “provides an alternative perspective of the end-of-life experience they are having.” Another therapist reported that she was startled by the results when she began administering ketamine to patients facing terminal illness: although they were still dying, most lost their fear of it.
The use of psychedelic compounds like Ketamine has not been researched enough to know the long term- or even short term- effects. Most concerning, neuroscientists aren’t exactly sure how psychedelic drugs work to alleviate existential distress, they just know they do. MDMA, the first such compound to be reviewed by the F.D.A., recently failed to win F.D.A. approval due to an absence of data and clinical trials tracking short and long term effects.
Scientists know that persistent negative thoughts, angst and negative emotions can calcify neural pathways, and that neuroplasticity, or rewiring those pathways through the use of psychedelics, allows patients to see life from a completely re-wired perspective. Sometimes with just one treatment, terminal patients report that their fear of death disappears entirely.
But for people who are not facing imminent death, is it really healthy or even desirable to lose all fear of it?
During the budget fiasco, Musk posted 100+ feverish tweets with misleading or outright false claims to kill the funding deal. Among other juvenile rants, he posted, “Just close down the govt until January 20th. Defund everything. We will be fine for 33 days.” He posted in a separate tweet that a federal government shutdown “doesn’t actually shut down critical functions.”
He’s a complete governance idiot, but all Trump sees, because he is an intellectual midget, is Space-X. Trump assumes that since Musk works with rockets and technology, Musk is informed on all things; it's a dangerous assumption any teenage boy might make.
Ketamine, according to doctors who prescribe it, is wildly effective at suppressing fear of death, even in patients facing imminent death. But for people like Musk who aren’t facing death, I’m not so sure losing fear of death is a good thing. I’m not sure a giant national defense contractorshould have an “alternative perspective” of what death actually means, because for the rest of us who aren’t on ketamine, death means we’re dead and it’s not a temporary condition.
A certain amount of fear is necessary
Fear of death is the healthy evolutionary guide that keeps us from touching the same hot stove twice. The implication of someone who has no fear of death setting national policy of any kind is comic-book cliché ominous.
I’m no neuroscientist. I’m no therapist either, I’m just a lawyer with a big mouth. But I do know that scientists don’t know exactly how these drugs work, because they’ve said so. They have no idea how ketamine effects different parts of the brain like receptors and neurotransmitters, or how it might suppress survival instincts along with fear. Most scientists acknowledge the need for larger, academically rigorous studies before psychedelic drugs are declared F.D.A. safe for consumption.
Just putting two and two together, if ketamine eradicates fear, wouldn’t it also eradicate compassion? Compassion comes from empathizing with the suffering of others, drawing from our own suffering. But if ketamine blocks fear and mental suffering, we don’t have those negative experiences to draw on to enable us to sympathize with others.
Only a pathological lack of compassion would allow the world’s richest man-- who will never need social security, VA benefits or Medicaid-- to cut those lifelines for everyone else. Only a lack of compassion would allow Musk to sabotage the budget bill, throw the government into disarray a week before Christmas, and demand that money for child cancer research be eliminated from the budget deal.
And, if my no fear/no compassion theory has legs, what’s the end game? Why would Musk, with the emotional maturity of a pre-pubescent teen, stop at axing government benefits for people who need them to survive? Musk has shown a complete lack of limits: he engaged in election fraud to get Trump elected, spread disinformation openly, and admitted that his million dollar a day “lottery” wasn’t even a lottery. He clearly suffers from the same above-the-law king complex infecting Trump, except his complex is heightened with psychoactive drugs.
Watching Trump and Musk playing at destruction just for fun and power reminds me of ignorant punks who put firecrackers in a dog’s mouth just to watch him suffer, egged on by other ignorant punks. They are the lowest creatures among us.
Unless Biden hides the nuclear codes, pretty soon we’ll all need ketamine just to stop the existential fear of what’s next.
Sabrina Haake
December 24, 2024
Tennis - U.S. Open - Flushing Meadows, New York, United States - September 8, 2024 Elon Musk is seen during the final match between Italy's Jannik Sinner and Taylor Fritz of the U.S. REUTERS/Mike Segar/File Photo
Psychedelic drugs hit the news last week just as Elon Musk, America’s unelected oligarch, started blowing up the government, because, chaos.
Musk, who is clueless about how government works, killed a short term spending bill that would have kept government open through March, provided money for cash-strapped farmers, and provided FEMA disaster relief, all while posting juvenile clues of his cluelessness.
Musk also regularly doses on ketamine. NYT calls ketamine a “life-changing psychedelic drug” used “for when life is ending.” Musk, whose life is not ending anytime soon, uses ketamine to reduce his “negative chemical states like depression,” and says he uses the drug once every other week “or something like that.”
Ketamine blocks existential angst, but what else does it block?
Ketamine is a powerful anesthetic used in psychedelic therapy, like LSD, and is often prescribed for psychiatric conditions. Increasingly, it is also prescribed to patients facing end-of-life or terminal diagnoses to help them overcome angst based on fear of imminent death.
One palliative care specialist reported that patients taking ketamine experience a profound relief from fear and anxiety, and that ketamine “provides an alternative perspective of the end-of-life experience they are having.” Another therapist reported that she was startled by the results when she began administering ketamine to patients facing terminal illness: although they were still dying, most lost their fear of it.
The use of psychedelic compounds like Ketamine has not been researched enough to know the long term- or even short term- effects. Most concerning, neuroscientists aren’t exactly sure how psychedelic drugs work to alleviate existential distress, they just know they do. MDMA, the first such compound to be reviewed by the F.D.A., recently failed to win F.D.A. approval due to an absence of data and clinical trials tracking short and long term effects.
Scientists know that persistent negative thoughts, angst and negative emotions can calcify neural pathways, and that neuroplasticity, or rewiring those pathways through the use of psychedelics, allows patients to see life from a completely re-wired perspective. Sometimes with just one treatment, terminal patients report that their fear of death disappears entirely.
But for people who are not facing imminent death, is it really healthy or even desirable to lose all fear of it?
During the budget fiasco, Musk posted 100+ feverish tweets with misleading or outright false claims to kill the funding deal. Among other juvenile rants, he posted, “Just close down the govt until January 20th. Defund everything. We will be fine for 33 days.” He posted in a separate tweet that a federal government shutdown “doesn’t actually shut down critical functions.”
He’s a complete governance idiot, but all Trump sees, because he is an intellectual midget, is Space-X. Trump assumes that since Musk works with rockets and technology, Musk is informed on all things; it's a dangerous assumption any teenage boy might make.
Ketamine, according to doctors who prescribe it, is wildly effective at suppressing fear of death, even in patients facing imminent death. But for people like Musk who aren’t facing death, I’m not so sure losing fear of death is a good thing. I’m not sure a giant national defense contractorshould have an “alternative perspective” of what death actually means, because for the rest of us who aren’t on ketamine, death means we’re dead and it’s not a temporary condition.
A certain amount of fear is necessary
Fear of death is the healthy evolutionary guide that keeps us from touching the same hot stove twice. The implication of someone who has no fear of death setting national policy of any kind is comic-book cliché ominous.
I’m no neuroscientist. I’m no therapist either, I’m just a lawyer with a big mouth. But I do know that scientists don’t know exactly how these drugs work, because they’ve said so. They have no idea how ketamine effects different parts of the brain like receptors and neurotransmitters, or how it might suppress survival instincts along with fear. Most scientists acknowledge the need for larger, academically rigorous studies before psychedelic drugs are declared F.D.A. safe for consumption.
Just putting two and two together, if ketamine eradicates fear, wouldn’t it also eradicate compassion? Compassion comes from empathizing with the suffering of others, drawing from our own suffering. But if ketamine blocks fear and mental suffering, we don’t have those negative experiences to draw on to enable us to sympathize with others.
Only a pathological lack of compassion would allow the world’s richest man-- who will never need social security, VA benefits or Medicaid-- to cut those lifelines for everyone else. Only a lack of compassion would allow Musk to sabotage the budget bill, throw the government into disarray a week before Christmas, and demand that money for child cancer research be eliminated from the budget deal.
And, if my no fear/no compassion theory has legs, what’s the end game? Why would Musk, with the emotional maturity of a pre-pubescent teen, stop at axing government benefits for people who need them to survive? Musk has shown a complete lack of limits: he engaged in election fraud to get Trump elected, spread disinformation openly, and admitted that his million dollar a day “lottery” wasn’t even a lottery. He clearly suffers from the same above-the-law king complex infecting Trump, except his complex is heightened with psychoactive drugs.
Watching Trump and Musk playing at destruction just for fun and power reminds me of ignorant punks who put firecrackers in a dog’s mouth just to watch him suffer, egged on by other ignorant punks. They are the lowest creatures among us.
Unless Biden hides the nuclear codes, pretty soon we’ll all need ketamine just to stop the existential fear of what’s next.
Behind the major influences on Elon Musk
Elon Musk with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (Wikimedia Commons)
The "backers" listed include venture capitalists Steve Jurvetson, John Hering and Marc Andreessen; Shaun Maguire and Roelof Botha of the firm Sequoia Capital; Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison; and former PayPal CEO Peter Thiel.
Although Thiel expressed libertarian views in the past, some say he has taken a far-right MAGA turn and is now a major donor to MAGA Republicans.
The Times reporters note, "Mr. Thiel and Mr. Musk are members of the so-called PayPal Mafia, a group of founders and early employees of the payments company. While Mr. Thiel helped oust Mr. Musk from the company decades ago, he has recently become a political ally and supporter. Vice President-elect JD Vance once worked for Mr. Thiel's venture capital firm, and Mr. Thiel was the one who introduced the running mates."
Schleifer, Mac, Boyce and Grind also list some of Musk's allies in Trump World and the MAGA movement, who, they report, include former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Trump adviser Stephen Miller, investor Nelson Peltz and MAGA businessman Vivek Ramaswamy.
Trump has proposed a new advisory committee that would be called the Department of Government Ethics (DOGE), and he would like Musk and Ramaswamy to lead it.
Read the New York Times' full article at this link (subscription required).
Elon Musk with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (Wikimedia Commons)
December 25, 2024
ALTERNET
Some Democrats have been jokingly describing Elon Musk as "President Musk," which is their way of saying that the billionaire CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and X (formerly Twitter) has way too much influence on the Republican Party and President-elect Donald Trump's incoming second administration.
The "President Musk" meme was used a lot during recent budget negotiations in the U.S. House of Representatives when Musk threatened House Republicans with primary challenges if they voted for any bills he disliked.
In an article published by the New York Times the day before Christmas 2024, reporters Theodore Schleifer, Ryan Mac, Lily Boyce and Kirsten Grind list some "people who influence Mr. Musk right now, and those whom he influences in turn."
"They are longtime friends, investors, staff members or party buddies — and sometimes, those boundaries blur," the journalists explain. "They shape how Mr. Musk operates and views the world. Many have propped him up, in the good times and the bad, and some now stand to gain from his new position in U.S. politics."
Some Democrats have been jokingly describing Elon Musk as "President Musk," which is their way of saying that the billionaire CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and X (formerly Twitter) has way too much influence on the Republican Party and President-elect Donald Trump's incoming second administration.
The "President Musk" meme was used a lot during recent budget negotiations in the U.S. House of Representatives when Musk threatened House Republicans with primary challenges if they voted for any bills he disliked.
In an article published by the New York Times the day before Christmas 2024, reporters Theodore Schleifer, Ryan Mac, Lily Boyce and Kirsten Grind list some "people who influence Mr. Musk right now, and those whom he influences in turn."
"They are longtime friends, investors, staff members or party buddies — and sometimes, those boundaries blur," the journalists explain. "They shape how Mr. Musk operates and views the world. Many have propped him up, in the good times and the bad, and some now stand to gain from his new position in U.S. politics."
The "backers" listed include venture capitalists Steve Jurvetson, John Hering and Marc Andreessen; Shaun Maguire and Roelof Botha of the firm Sequoia Capital; Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison; and former PayPal CEO Peter Thiel.
Although Thiel expressed libertarian views in the past, some say he has taken a far-right MAGA turn and is now a major donor to MAGA Republicans.
The Times reporters note, "Mr. Thiel and Mr. Musk are members of the so-called PayPal Mafia, a group of founders and early employees of the payments company. While Mr. Thiel helped oust Mr. Musk from the company decades ago, he has recently become a political ally and supporter. Vice President-elect JD Vance once worked for Mr. Thiel's venture capital firm, and Mr. Thiel was the one who introduced the running mates."
Schleifer, Mac, Boyce and Grind also list some of Musk's allies in Trump World and the MAGA movement, who, they report, include former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Trump adviser Stephen Miller, investor Nelson Peltz and MAGA businessman Vivek Ramaswamy.
Trump has proposed a new advisory committee that would be called the Department of Government Ethics (DOGE), and he would like Musk and Ramaswamy to lead it.
Read the New York Times' full article at this link (subscription required).
'He's not taking the presidency': Trump fumes about 'President Musk' at MAGA conference
David Edwards
December 22, 2024
David Edwards
December 22, 2024
RAW STORY
Real America's Voice/screen grab
President-elect Donald Trump used a speech to MAGA supporters to strongly push back on claims that billionaire Elon Musk had effectively taken over his presidency
While speaking to Turning Point USA's AmFest conference attendees on Sunday, Trump argued that "big companies" wanted him to cut regulations more than slashing taxes.
"And we will create the new Department of Government Efficiency headed by Elon Musk," he said. "And no, he's not taking the presidency."
"You know, the — they're on a new kick, Russia, Russia, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, all the different hoaxes," the president-elect continued. "The new one is President Trump has ceded the presidency to Elon Musk. No, no, that's not happening. But Elon's done an amazing job."
Trump praised Musk's business ventures before returning to the subject of the presidency.
"But no, he's not going to be president that I can tell you," he insisted. "And I'm safe. You know why? He can't be."
ALSO READ: It’s time to decimate the Republicans’ standing with the public — and the press
"He wasn't born in this country. Ha, ha, ha. But the fake news knows that."
Over the past week, Democrats have said Trump ceded his leadership over the Republican Party to "President Musk" after the billionaire led the charge to derail a bill that would have prevented a government shutdown.
Real America's Voice/screen grab
President-elect Donald Trump used a speech to MAGA supporters to strongly push back on claims that billionaire Elon Musk had effectively taken over his presidency
While speaking to Turning Point USA's AmFest conference attendees on Sunday, Trump argued that "big companies" wanted him to cut regulations more than slashing taxes.
"And we will create the new Department of Government Efficiency headed by Elon Musk," he said. "And no, he's not taking the presidency."
"You know, the — they're on a new kick, Russia, Russia, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, all the different hoaxes," the president-elect continued. "The new one is President Trump has ceded the presidency to Elon Musk. No, no, that's not happening. But Elon's done an amazing job."
Trump praised Musk's business ventures before returning to the subject of the presidency.
"But no, he's not going to be president that I can tell you," he insisted. "And I'm safe. You know why? He can't be."
ALSO READ: It’s time to decimate the Republicans’ standing with the public — and the press
"He wasn't born in this country. Ha, ha, ha. But the fake news knows that."
Over the past week, Democrats have said Trump ceded his leadership over the Republican Party to "President Musk" after the billionaire led the charge to derail a bill that would have prevented a government shutdown.
Watch the video below from Real America's Voice or at the link..
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