AlterNet
The current president has decided that it’s a good idea for his regime to investigate criminally the previous president’s “cognitive decline.”
In political terms, this is ploy. Donald Trump wants to create conditions in which to invalidate legislation Joe Biden signed into law. He will say that Biden was too emfeebled to know what he was doing.
Biden is out of power. He’s a pariah among some in his own party. And now he has what appears to be terminal cancer of the prostate.
Yet Donald Trump seems to believe Biden can’t die fast enough. He’s now going to spend his precious time kicking him until he does.
That’s not the worst part. The worst part is that Trump will never pay a price for being a jerk just as he’s never paid a price for being a lying, thieving, philandering sadist. Indeed, he will be rewarded. His people will cheer him on, encouraging him to be an even greater jerk.
Character and morality matter to the GOP, but only if you’re Black or a Muslim or some kind of liberal. Otherwise, as can be seen in the case of billionaire Elon Musk, you can be as terrible as you want to be.
You can be a junkie.
A deadbeat dad.
A literal Nazi.
None of that matters, not when you’re rich and powerful.
Sure, Musk now appears to be “going to war” with Trump over his budget bill. Musk called it a “disgusting abomination” and has encouraged his followers on X to tell their congresspeople to kill it.
But that’s not because the legislation rolls back electric vehicle subsidies. It’s not because of anything to do with self-interest.
It’s because Musk is a jerk, too.
Or as USA Today columnist Rex Huppke put it, more politely than I would: “pairing two high-profile narcissists was bound to not end well.”
Rex added: “It's possible one or both will be able to temper their delicate emotions, but I doubt it. Musk is a sensitive fellow, and Trump takes criticism as well as a cat takes a bath. … Both men will continue to be miserable, because I don't think either is capable of feeling joy.”
What's wrong with Elon Musk? Something is wrong with him.
He certainly seems wildly not OK. I'm not going to try to diagnose whatever's going on in his noggin, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a reasonable person who would say his behavior seems fine.
He's erratic. He spews random vitriol and conspiratorial babble on X, the platform he turned into his personal rightwing-weirdo playground. And of course there's the Times solid reporting on his alleged drug use.
If nothing else, the guy thinks he's the smartest person in any room and strikes me as a narcissist of the highest order. Plus he just wreaked havoc on our government and cut spending in ways that are believed to be costing tens of thousands of people their lives.
If he were not the richest man in the world, the Times piece would have cemented the idea that he's a junkie and a deadbeat dad. He will never been known as such, which means wealth and power can paper over any number of sins that would never be papered over if the junkie and deadbeat dad in question were, say, Black.
I certainly agree with that. We're witnessing with Trump and Musk the ultimate examples of what wealthy white men can get away with in public. In fact, I'd even narrow it down to "what wealthy, white conservative men" can get away with in public, since I don't think any Democrat or liberal American would survive the near-daily scandals that Trump and Musk manage to pull off largely without consequence.
You wrote recently about Joe Biden's decency. Thank you for that. However, it's a reminder that being an honorable man, or just trying to be an honorable man, often fails in America. The social and economic incentives for being terrible are just too great these days.
Exactly. When Obama left office, I wrote about how he was a good and decent man, despite years of the right trying to paint him as a monster. Then the same thing happened with Biden. The Republican Party's entire playbook is to simply demonize any Democratic president, and they have the rightwing media apparatus to drive whatever loony messaging they come up with right into the brains of millions of Americans. Absolute nonsense becomes gospel to people.
After that piece on Biden's decency ran, I got a slew of emails from people 100 percent convinced that Biden was an evil criminal mastermind who damn-near destroyed America. It's just nuts, and it's clear most mainstream news outlets are unable or unwilling to do enough to knock down the lies and fabrications that bubble-up from the right. Of course, it's much harder to do when a huge swath of the population only gets its news from rightwing sources.
The conventional wisdom among Democratic leaders is that people who get their information from rightwing sources can be reasoned with by appeals to their pocketbook. Do that make sense to you?
Not really. My belief is that the MAGA faithful are unreachable. They're lost, and any attempt to cater to them or "reach them" is a waste of time and resources. The people who remain reachable, and the ones who I think swung the election to Trump, are the people who are less engaged, the ones who don't consume all that much news.
They care about pocketbook issues, and they tend to sway in the direction of whoever is not in charge when prices are high or things are impacting them negatively. That's who the Democrats need to be reaching out to, and I think they can do that by aggressively getting themselves out into communities, whether that's in person or via big advertising blitzes or via social media or non-mainstream platforms.
The Democratic Party should be blasting out the truth about what Trump and his cronies are doing to hurt Americans, and they should be doing that 24-7 in every nook and cranny of the country. With a few notable exceptions, I'd say they're largely dropping the ball right now. People are about to start really feeling the pain of Trump's tariffs and other nonsense. Democrats need to be loud and in front of it all.
Circling back to Musk, he is now calling Trump's budget bill, the “big beautiful” one, a "disgusting abomination." This is triggering some speculation of a "civil war" between Trump and Musk and within MAGA, generally. I'm skeptical, but what do I know? Thoughts?
Pairing two high-profile narcissists was bound to not end well.
As you noted in your earlier question, Musk doesn't seem right, and Trump, well, we know he's not right. So the chances of the two erupting into an absolutely bonkers online slap-fight seem solid.
It's possible one or both will be able to temper their delicate emotions, but I doubt it. Musk is a sensitive fellow, and Trump takes criticism as well as a cat takes a bath. Musk's businesses and reputation are in the toilet. Trump's ratings are low and his agenda keeps getting jammed up by judges and, you know, the law. All of this creates a volatile stew, and I don't know that these two nutters will be able to refrain from finger pointing or lashing out at the other as a way to distract from their assorted problems. If it happens, I expect MAGA will stick with Trump, because they always do. And both men will continue to be miserable, because I don't think either is capable of feeling joy.
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