No, no, no, no, no! The enemy of my enemy is NOT MY FRIEND! Have you seen the anti-sematic garbage spewing from his "AI" Grok? Not to mention the people who are dying because USAID is gone, and the rest of the DOGE destruction. No, nothing for Musk, he can fuck all the way off.
The concept of the enemy of my enemy is my friend has been around for millennia. But it ultimately never works, because to have an alliance you need some kind of shared values. That said, if Musk wants to blow up MAGA, fine. But we need to avoid the delusion that Musk is ever going to be a friend of rational democratic governance and the rule of law.
It worked in WWII with the Soviet Union. Desperate times sometime call for desperate measures. I'm not saying we should be nice to Elon or endorse his toxic beliefs, but encouraging him to divide the crazy MAGA coalition? I'm all for it.
This is one of the most interesting cases in history. The Soviet Union was one of the key perpetrators in starting World II, along with Nazi Germany and Japan, invading Poland, Finland and the Baltic nations (Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia) and providing Nazi Germany with large amounts of war materials prior to the 1941 invasion by Germany. Yet the Soviet Union emerged as one of the winners when it deserved defeat and dismemberment, in my opinion. They ended up annexing large swaths of territory and eliminating the Baltic nations for 50 years, along with occupying Eastern Europe and creating mayhem around the world. The Soviet Union likely would have collapsed in 1941-42 without critical US aid. One of my great uncles was a merchant marine sailor in World War II delivering aid from the US to Murmansk in the Soviet Union. I’ve always wondered if the allies would have been better off letting Germany and Russia bleed themselves to death and then pick up the pieces. One of those alternative histories for the fiction writers.
Interesting thought exercise. In fact that is kind of what postwar Soviet propaganda tried to convey, that the US was waiting to see who would win out between Germany and the USSR before committing to the war effort, and jumped in late on the side of the Soviets in order to end up on the winning side (this completely ignores the fact that the US entered the war in 1941). It also reminds me of the George C. Scott Patton movie (not sure how true this was), where he was of the mind that the Allies should have continued advancing against the Soviets once they'd occupied all of Germany and not stopped until they'd taken Moscow.
Yea, I never knew if that was true with Patton either. The Soviet and current Russian government propaganda conveniently leaves out the Nazi-Soviet Pact of August 1939 and then then secret protocols carving up Eastern Europe, as well ad the wholesale massacres of Polish and Baltic nations civilians and key leaders.
My wife is Russian, and my father-in-law, who received a good Soviet education, literally thought that the US entered the war in 1944 with the invasion of Normandy! And yes, they completely ignore the events of 1939 through May 1941, and are silent regarding all the US materiel aid which as you mention was critical to their eventual success on the Eastern front.
The Soviets kept the Allies in the fight while the US was still getting its shit together in 42-43. Germany recklessly engaged in a war on two fronts, perhaps because they had forced the Tsar's forced to capitulate in WWI. Soviet resistance to the invasion forced Hitler to commit a huge amount of his army and airforce to the eastern front, which made fewer aircraft and crews available for the air campaign against Britain.
I generally agree with your comment and I could respond in great detail, having studied World War II history in college and after. Let me just say this as an addition and an alternative. Prior to the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, the Nazis could not defeat the UK navy and air force, so they could not conquer the UK. Even if Germany conquered the Soviet Union in 1941, once the US entered World War II, the Nazis were done. The US produced more war materials than all other countries in World War II combined. The war almost certainly would have taken longer, but there is no objective doubt the US and the UK would have been victorious even without one Soviet soldier entering the fight, even apart from nuclear weapons. Even if the Soviet Union allied with Germany, they never could have defeated the US and the UK, although that would have been an even longer and bloodier war. Of course once the US had nuclear bombs combined with the best bombers, the US could have destroyed all German and Russian cities and manufacturing capabilities and ended any war.
I agree with your conclusion about eventual victory, but even if Operation Sealion was just 'vaporware' for Hitler to dream about, would Britain have been able to stay in the fight? Britain was hanging on by a thread, both in terms of military capability and civilian morale, with cities being bombed and cargoes sunk left and right. "Barbarossa" gave the RAF breathing space to build fighters aircraft and train pilots to limit success of German bombers, imho. (Noe: not an expert on mil hist)
And at Treaty time in Croatia, both Churchill and Roosevelt were too ill to successfully prevent Stalin’s demands for dividing up Europe. The Poles had been key to winning the war in Europe, but Poland went to the USSR. A travesty in my view.
Soviet (not "Society" - c'mon, spellcheck, read my mind, not my typos) forces were the occupying power in the west; Roosevelt had the Pacific theater to contend with and the planned transfer of troops and materiel for the invasion of Japan (in case The Bomb was a fizzle).
And as you (I think it was) noted, both old men had nearly killed themselves with work and worry through the war.
We should take note of this in light of our current Prez's age & condition; the NC+SC is supposed to be carrying some of the weight but its staff has been reduced and may not have much say in planning. No man should be permitted to make these decisions concerning the life & death of the entire nation, in my NOT humble opinion.
How much encouragement do you think he needs? Seriously, the man impulsively bought twitter for $40 billion to turn it into his personal megaphone. Better to just buy popcorn (lot's of popcorn!), and watch the spectacle.
I'm defintiely stocking up on the popcorn! Elon is so loony that I don't think anyone knows what the hell he's going to do next. Most likely he'll just apologize again to Trump and give up as soon as his government contracts and subsidies are threatened. Although if he really believes all the Epstein stuff maybe there will be some staying power to this.
As an example: Iranian democratic moderates who allied with radical Islamists to overthrow the Shah. Then, well, we all remember what happened (at least those of us of a certain age).
Agree- look at how much they've happily gone along with for the past 10 years. Elon is insane enough to try this alternative party retribution gimmick. But he also has drug-assisted ADHD. So how long will he persist? Also, Trump is threatening to axe his government contracts. And WOW! - maybe even try to deport him.
That won't succeed, obviously but it further insults and fires Elon up. Elon's clearly in a white hot rage right now. But to say he's mercurial is like saying the Titanic had a bad day in the North Atlantic 113 years ago. He's an emotionally volatile boy-man. IMO, take great care in enemy of enemy alliances. More often, the cure was more deadly than the disease.
I get your point but your missing the big picture. We aren’t supporting Musk, just supporting the chaos.
Think of it as supporting an incumbents most hated competitor in a Republican primary race; you aren’t supporting the nut job running against the incumbent, as much as you’re hoping he will win the primary knowing he’d find it difficult to win the general, or to inflict enough damage on the incumbent to muddy to waters during the general.
Trump is the epitome of the “Chaos Agent.” To fight fire with fire, we need to rein chaos on the chaos agents so we can control the narrative. In short, we’re not supporting Musk, we’re supporting the chaos, or more aptly, the controlled chaos. IMHO…:)
Correct. We are not supporting (f)Elon just the damage he can inflict on the Felon and MAGA land, which (f)Elon is already doing by getting royally under the notoriously thin skin of the Orangutan (no insults to simians intended), and making him focus on this new shiny object that he does not like.
We don't need to become "friends" with Elon, we just need to take advantage of his enormous platform to sow discontent among the MAGA masses. That should be on the minds of all Dems and the resistance. Keep stoking the fire. With luck, those fools may burn their own house down.
Musk America Party or no Musk America Party, it might all be irrelevant if elections are corrupted or canceled. The underlying debate assumes regular elections which seem very much in doubt.
I worry that anything Musk does will strip away votes not ONLY from MAGA wackadoodles, but also actual centrists that are frustrated with Democrats seeming failures.
Regardless of what you might think, this wouldn't work the way anyone thinks.
there's principles and values, and there's realpolitik. I personally don't think the realpolitik play here is worth the moral cost and moral hazard (so I agree with you), but I think anyone talking about using Musk to wedge the MAGA base is probably not making a moral or values-based argument.
Re: "Such criticisms of Trump are extremely rare in MAGA media."
Yes. Yes, they are. And they are to be nurtured.
I saw a clip of Alex Jones in tears over the Epstein stuff last night. Megan Kelley lost her damned mind. All the kooks and weirdos who've been pushing this stuff for years have just heard the gravy train pull up again. The story was getting stale. Now it's fresh as a daisy again. Now it's even BIGGER. Now they can see how deep and wide the rot really is. Dan Bongino's in on it. So's Kash Patel. And Pam Bondi and ... heaven forfend ... Trump himself. He's hiding something! Who? Why? Let's go back to the tapes. There's a minute missing. Where did it go? There are anomalies. Questions need to be asked and answered. Ghislaine Maxwell is in prison. No one can talk to her. She KNOWS something, which is why they've locked her away.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg! Whistleblowers silenced! Threats! Intimidation! The Deep State has gotten to them all!
He believes in 1) protecting what he has and 2) making more money.
He can't go on the air and say, "well, I guess I was wrong. Epstein killed himself. There's nothing on the tapes. There is no list of Johns. Clinton wasn't involved. Obama wasn't involved. It's all just a story of human tragedy."
That doesn't achieve 1) or 2) above.
What WOULD help is saying something like, "Folks, it's worse than we thought. It's worse. It's much worse. You have no idea how insidious this all is, folks. The Deep State will stop at nothing. Nothing! Kash Patel, Dan Bongino, Pam Bondi, they've either all been in on it the whole time or the Deep State has gotten to them. They've got something on all these people and they're being told -- this is how deep the rot is, folks -- they're being told that if they speak the truth, if they name names, then they will be destroyed. It's so clear. Ghislaine Maxwell. She's their example. No one can talk to her. She was run through a sham trial, convicted and sent away to the deepest hole in the federal prison system. Why? Because they needed an example. See? This is what happens to you when you go up against these powerful people. We need to stay on this. There are anomalies in those tapes. There are people who know the truth!"
That gets the mouth-breathers tuning in and buying supplements from his store. Goals 1) and 2) achieved.
Jones is a former Bircher turned Snake Oil salesman/carnival barker.
So, for Alex Jones, it's a mix of extremist reactionary stuff that's genuinely felt, and anything he can say to sell more quackery and junk to his audience.
Welcome to the ouroboros, the dragon that eats its own tail: Musk outloathing and outgreeding Trump, in their lust for money, influence and power. If the past is any guide, both will fall into history's pit, locked in this unwinnable duel. Soon we will see the ongoing spectacle of other elements in the regime of the orange narcissist-felon attacking each other.
The problem: they are destroying a great nation in the process.
I'm not so sure they're secondaries. I think Miller and Thiel are actually the real powers behind MAGA, and they are just manipulating Musk and (especially) Trump. Get rid of Musk and Trump, and it's possible that they just seize power outright - and if Miller controls ICE and the military and Thiel (using Palantir) controls an effective internal surveillance network, who is going to stop them?
They're the real decision-makers behind MAGA, but they are far too unlikable (Miller is especially loathsome) to have any success in politics without latching onto Trump and his cult of personality like remoras. Even Trump himself is nothing without his cult.
Trump is just their useful idiot. It wouldn't surprise me if we found he was wearing an earpiece that tells him what to say--with, of course, the usual inane digressions about gold leaf (yesterday).
They are a symptom, not the disease. MAGA would not exist if a lot of Americans had not been eager to buy the grievance and hatred that Trump was selling. (Literally as well as figuratively.) Fortunately I don’t see anyone else with Trump’s “charisma” (hey, I don’t feel it, but a lot of people apparently do) on the horizon to take over when he shuffles off these mortal coils.
Sorry no, the entire cabinet has to go! Not to mention the entire republican congress! And of course the rest of the Executive branch. Maybe the whole West Wing.
Props to you for using 'the ouroboros' in a sentence. Gawd, how good it is to be able to read comments written by intelligent people, instead of the semi-literates populating the comments section of my hometown rag.
I'm not sure I deserve your kind comment, R Hodsdon. I calls it as I sees it, as I watch in (relatively) slow-motion horror as I perceive 250 years of a global beacon of hope being reduced to rubble by the ignorati. Sic transit gloria mundi, and all that.
Oh, Man you are hitting all of the "Greatest Hits" of my misspent you. YOUTH doggone it! (ed.)
Your quote is of course the Humpty Dumpty parody rhyme from "Mots d'heures, gooses, rhames" - a very silly book which is even funnier after you've finished off the second bottle of plonk.
I keep thinking the military will enact a coup, jail or just fire everyone in the cabinet.
For chapter two, watch Designated Survivor. It is streaming right now.
Isn't it ironic, at the Governors Ball, trump arranged for the Army chorus to perform the Finale from Les Mis ? Did he just not understand what it was about??
As it was pointed out, Felon Trump goes after everyone at some time. Does anyone know if he actually has friends, real friends? All he ever had were enablers, who took whatever they could get, until their time was up. So why is there any concern for his mini-me Elon Musk. Musk does whatever he wants because he is too rich to fail. He is too rich to have any understanding of the problems he caused, or their solutions. Has he ever done an altruistic anything? Felon Trump created a so-called charity that was really a piggy bank for his whims, what has Musk done?
Musk should be left alone. Today, he might be useful. But tomorrow? With no real understanding, except to make a lot of money, Musk is a danger to democracy. He has lived here for decades, and has no understanding of how democracy works.
Re. the discussion in these comments about the way Trump has treated his friends vs. has he ever had any friends, I go with the second. Although mental health professionals always hasten to say they can't diagnose someone they have never personally met and evaluated, there seems to be overwhelming evidence that he is a malignant narcissist. It is not possible for a person with that mental health issue to have real friends because their one and only motivation when dealing with people is how they can use them to get what they want. (Transactional is the word often used.)
From what I have read in the literature about narcissism, there is a combination of nature and nurture in the making of a narcissist. It is likely that Trump was born with some type of brain-based issue that, combined with what looks like a probably emotionally abusive father, resulted in him becoming what he is. As far as I know from what I have read, narcissism is not something with which people are born. However, as a lifelong special education professional who loves to observe people, I have long thought he probably has some type of learning disability that impacts his ability to read and/ or comprehend information by reading. (Look at the widely accepted issue with him not reading briefings from his aides, and his almost total reliance on TV to get his info.)
He probably also has other brain chemistry-based issues, perhaps attention deficit disorder or some brain chemistry issue that leads to poor impulse control. It appears to be documented that he had behavior problems even as a young student (there is the story about him punching his third grade teacher) and we know for sure that he was sent to military school pretty young, maybe middle-school age? Although he has bragged about liking military school, it's pretty clear that his parents wouldn't have sent him away to something this drastic without some pretty serious reasons.
Anyway, all of this doesn't excuse his horrendous actions throughout his life; as many have commented, he still chooses the things he does. I just think it's good practice to try to understand why powerful, destructive people do what they do
I know the answer to your first two questions: No and No. Trump has been a poor ...make that destitute, if we're talking about warm personal relationships... little rich boy his entire life. A portion of the blame for this is obviously the influence of his father, but Trump has done the rest of the damage to himself all by himself. He's very obviously not even friends with his present purported wife. Nor was he with her predecessors. Let's put it this way: His best friend and closest companion is at the end of his right arm.
Thank you for your comments. I get a little crazy reading about Felon Trump’s father’s influence over his son. Yes, that is real, but only up to a point. This man is 79, and has father issues? No. This man is wallowing in his victimoness so he doesn’t have to acknowledge his failures.
Really? People are dead and lives are ruined because of Elon and DOGE and people think we should work with him? There will be no savior from on high. The problem is waiting for those who benefit from the rigged system to save us. We have to save ourselves and that means absolutely no working with Musk.
He’s not saying we should work with Musk. He’s saying we stand back and watch as the two t-rexes fight (or the raptor jumps on the t-Rex and starts biting).
Good analogy, Linda, but you forgot about throwing raw meat in between them, like "What about that missing minute?" "Why not give up the REAL autopsy?" "Why can't Blondi find some gonads and give us the report herself? Oh, wait, I forgot."
If the feud keeps up, we might actually learn something about what data Elon has captured and what backdoor systems he has in place. I can't imagine he doesn't have info on regime members and he is unhinged enough to one day leak if he gets provoked enough.
If the report includes anything dangerous to him, why not just excise it or Sharpie it out of existence? He's the tech wizard (or has them on his payroll), not Blondi or the Felon.
Seems to me that the report's contents are 1000 times more likely to be dangerous to the Felon and his cohorts than any "retribution" they would have the time or energy to waste on (f)Elon. When your ship is sinking, no one stops to hunt the rat that gnawed the hole in the hull.
I propose that we take Blofed's advice from the beginning of "From Russia With Love." Blofeld admired the Siamese fighting fish that waited while two other fish attacked (and weakened) each other. Let Don and Elon fight all they want!
I dunno. Seeing Musk as a useful foil against DJT feels more like wishful thinking. I'd liken it instead to putting one raging drunk alcoholic in the room with another raging drunk alcoholic. They may hate each other, but at the end of the day you're stuck with two raging drunk alcoholics. What then?
Yup. All either cares about is hoovering up as much cash and power as possible before death...without caring what happens after. Trump and Musk the same thing.
Let’s see what Musk will/can do in the midterms. And Texas is the place to watch. Will he run in the middle and endorse John Cornyn? Ken Paxton has a large lead over Cornyn in the primary, I think grandpa John will fold if he’s about to get blown out by Paxton. Who will Trump endorse? Or will Elon tap someone crazier than Paxton. Yikes! There are crazier options than Ken Paxton. Or, could Elon try to tap Chipper Roy, the supposed protector of a balanced federal budget, to run for the senate. It sure would make the Texas senate race a tasty treat.
Me and a million others predicted the Musk/Trump blow up was inevitable. It can't be anything other than a death match between the two of them. Dems should just run the popcorn concessions.
Trump and Putin does surprise me. Putin had to have said something that punched one of Trump's core triggers because by tacoing on arms for Ukraine, Trump is punching back. It could also just be Trump realizes Putin is in real trouble at home and is no longer a winner.
Putin, Musk, Trump, Bibi, Epstein, this newsletter was just jam packed with shining examples of masculine toxicity.
Colleen, I take offense at the phrase "masculine" about any of the sorry excuses for taking up air that you named, even if it is only as an adjective. There are so many others to choose from, e.g., narcisstic, power-hungry, soulless, inhumane....
But she didn't say simply "masculine"—she said "masculine toxicity". It's like if I say someone is "politely malevolent" or "eloquently dishonest". That doesn't mean that being either polite or eloquent is a bad thing per se. They are adjectives that can describe both good and bad things, but to the extent they can describe bad things they offer unique challenges in combatting those bad things.
Being masculine, in and of itself, isn't a bad thing; accordingly there is a such thing as masculine virtuousity. I agree that people sometimes over-apply the term "toxic masculinity", so as to make it seem as though everything coded masculine is toxic. But that doesn't mean toxic masculinity isn't a real thing to be taken seriously.
In fact, I would go so far as to say there is a such thing as feminine toxicity as well. We all know the many legitimately positive aspects of what we traditionally think of as femininity. The nuturing, the empathy, the more gentle and thoughtful approach to resolving problems, the general tempering effects on masculinity, etc. Some women understandably bristle at the burden of expectations this can place on women, but a general descriptor doesn't have to serve as a requirement.
Regardless, I'm willing to bet that most of us have known women who exhibit a distinctly feminine form of toxicity. Unlike masculine toxicity, which is far more overt in its brute intimidation and threats of forceful, physical violence, feminine toxicity is manipulative and psychologically abusive, taking undue advantage of people's sympathies to effect forceful action on its behalf.
Furthermore, despite the general gender coding, women can exhibit masculine toxicity and men can exhibit feminine toxicity. I would argue that Kristi Noem and Pam Bondi are masculinely toxic, whereas feminine toxicity is as easily embodied by someone like Jussie Smollett as it is by Tara Reid.
Is feminine toxicity a real problem today? Somewhat. To the extent that there are legitimate excesses in the application of "woke" principles—and even as someone who considers himself progressive, I would definitely agree that there are—they rely on a form of feminine toxicity for sustainance. People are afraid to speak out for fear of being branded x-ist or y-phobic, and either hurting or being shunned by their friends belonging to the corresponding identity categories.
But when we're talking about MAGA, it's masculine toxicity all the way. And I think we're all here because, whatever we may think about problems on the left, we all agree that MAGA is by far the worse, more urgent problem right now. Toxic masculinity is the crisis du jour of our times, and we ought not look away from it.
So at the risk of somewhat over-thinking Coleen's original intent, I'd say there is no need to be offended by "masculine toxicity", any more than than there is to dislike the color red or the elephant—both things with which I generally have positive associations—simply because they are at times used to signify the Republican Party.
"Masculine", like "feminine", is an inherently neutral descriptor potentially applicable to a great many things, and those of us who like to think of ourselves as embodying a virtuous form of masculinity ought, in my opinion, be joining those calling out its toxic counterpart.
Except, apparently trump did not stop arms shipments to Ukraine, evidently that has Hegseth all on his own with no coordination with the WH. Defense is a major dumpster fire that is getting worse. Right now trump is pissed at Putin for making him look like a fool. If we had a congress instead of potted plants now would be the time to vote more weapons for Ukraine.
No, it was either Hegseth or one of his lackeys, but Trump didn't object when it was pointed out to him. DoD, DoJ, HHS, FBI, Homeland Security, ICE, so many fires and no FEMA.
Nah. Trump rarely asks Vlad for anything, and when he told him to stop bombing Ukraine, Vlad said, nope. Trump is just having a hissy fit and taking his ball and going home. For now.
I’ve been consuming all things Rubens and Rembrandt the past week. And it hit me, will Elon follow Rubens path and excel beyond his art and become an influential royal court advisor and diplomat. Or will he follow Rembrandt’s path, become bored with his art, spend too much money and become bankrupt. At this point, I’m leaning towards the Rembrandt trajectory.
My favorite part of the Epstein thing is Bondi trying to say “Yes, I had the Holy Grail on my desk but I never looked at it to ensure that it was the Holy Grail.”
She was saying someone told her the box on her desk CONTAINED the Holy Grail, but the FBI just said there is no such thing as a Holy Grail, so she’s going to throw the empty box out unopened.
The two most dangerous people in this administration are Stephen Miller and Hegseth. It is becoming more and more apparent that Miller is actually running things in the WH, and now we find out it was Hegseth that unilaterally stopped the shipment of weapons to Ukraine and never even told the WH let alone had concurrence. This should be used to ridicule trump and his lack of control
Y'all ought to tread quite lightly around a Machiavellian, Realpolitik type play when it comes to Musk.
On the one hand, in that cold part of my heart where my darker self sharpens daggers for political opponents, there is an opportunity here. On the other hand, we have to remember the Elon Musk is a nazi-saluting booster of the far right neo-Nazi AfD party in Germany and white supremacist elements in South Africa, that he routinely undermines the safety of his workers and customers to line his pockets, and he is so chuffed that Grok keeps getting woke that last week they released an update that briefly lead to AI Chatbot praising Hitler and threatening to kill the president of Turkey. Musk is not someone you want on your side. Not least of which because he also has terrible, narcissistic, main character syndrome, and will make whatever he gets involved in about himself.
For readers of conscience, just let Musk do Musk. AOC's "The girls are fighting again!" is the perfect response.
For the cynical readers with sharp, serrated teeth...
The **classic** political play is the "wedge issue." The public are used to hearing about these but not understanding them. A wedge is anything your base agrees on, but your opponent's disagree with each other on. If you can make the campaign (or even part of the campaign!) about that, you can win because your opponents fight with each other as much as you, and your united front steam rolls through over tribal divisions on the other side. Bada-bing, bada-boom. For successful wedge issues used against Democrats, see: trans sports bans, the War in Gaza, etc. For successful wedge issues used against Republicans, see... well, that's the point. Democrats suck at this realpolitik stuff.
BUT, even then, there are lots of wedge issues for someone who has an air-tight hazmat suit that could fracture the maga base. You just need more political skill than the Democrats (so that means, most anyone except the Democrats could easily do this). The conspiracy theory stuff is one of them.
There are also wedge issues that don't require PPE. Like pointing out the cruelty of Trump's immigration policy that seems to be working (see Rogan, barstool Sports complaining about ICE rounding up abuelas and hard-working construction workers and farm workers). The debt is another one of them, flip the script and run agains the national debt. You don't **need** to make 2026 about Epstein's client list. But yeah, the Maga Maoists and Trumpists are very cooked if they are fighting about whether or not Turmp is suppressing Epstein news because he was a client. And there sure as hell is a kind of karmic poetry to conspiracy theories being the thing that causes Trump's movement to implode or spontaneously combust.
So, just to be careful, please be very careful. Love y'all and your commentary.
You think Dems going conspiracy is gonna work? Come on, these people believe JFK Jr is still alive and was gonna be Trump's running mate. You cannot outcrazy crazy. Especially when you are sane. MAGA thinking is more twisted than rotelli pasta.
And frankly if it's so easy, why hasn't "everyone else" done it?
Musk doesn't have to start a new party to show his displeasure with Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill".
He could help defeat Republicans who voted for this bill by contributing money to their opponents in the mid-term elections. These Republicans are beatable:
SENATE
AL- Dan Sullivan, IA-Joni Ernst, ME-Susan Collins, NC- OPEN, TX- John Cornyn, OH-John Husted
HOUSE
CA: Ken Calvert-41, Young Kim-40, John Duarte-13, Mike Garcia-27
MI: Tom Barrett-07, Bill Huizenga-04, John James-10
PA: Scott Perry-10, Robert Bresnahan-08, Ryan MacKenzie-07
AZ: Eli Crane-02, David Schweikert-01, Juan Ciscomani-06,
Post that to his X account! Appeal to his ego: Musk wants to be a hero....righting the American ship by dethroning the Republican party is one way he could move toward that hero status.
Musk has no interest in righting the American ship. He was against the big ugly bill because it didn't cut enough and didn't hurt enough people. Any opponent he may back with be the crazier far right candidate. This is all just wishful thinking. Trump threatened to denaturalize Elon once and you can be sure lil Marco would be happy to do if Trump so ordered. It's all just bad theater.
I would dearly love it if we could rid Maine of my senior Senator, Susan Collins, but, alas, she has devotees in all the rural areas of Maine -particularly Aroosook County, & in all the old mill towns along Rte 2, from Newport to Skowhegan.
Did you know that when Collins first ran for the Senate, she told us that if she won, she would only serve 2 terms! In 2020 she won her 5th term, & she's already announced that she'll be running for her 6th in 2026.
Wouldn’t it be great if someone could have a chance to run in a primary and campaign about issues? Instead, we have the hope that an even crazier candidate, someone who has no connection to the real world, and might even want to destroy it, is the only one who can defeat someone who is just crazy, stupid, and cruel.
Regarding Musk feuding with trump again, seems to me that in the Trump-Musk binary star system that their orbital revolutions are so rapid, within another few days they'll be back to allies again. Let's see how long this story will have been forgotten by in, say, 14 months as the 2026 elections come into focus.
Interesting to hear about the recent tactic by the Democratic state parties in Nebraska and Utah. That may be worth trying in Florida at this point. Couldn't be any worse! Every state has its own unique voter population and for some reason many states' voter majorities will never vote for an 'official' Democratic candidate, no matter how hard volunteers work to turn out the vote.
the 60% threshold is not new, we've had a 60 vote threshold in Florida for constitutional amendments since 2006 (source: am Florida man).
But what's also not new, is even with the 60%+ threshold, we did pass medical marijuana, $15 minimum wage pegged to inflation, Felon voting re-enfranchisement, solar power, required budget for land and water conservation. Reactional marijuana and abortion missed by single digits in 2024, but the majority of voters supported both.
Apparently, a lot of voters supported these amendments while for some reason not voting for the Democratic candidates on their ballots. Not sure what this means, other than the D label doesn't stand a chance in Florida these days
(speaking again as a Florida man) the state Democrat party here is extraordinarily incompetent.
I like state chair Nikki Fried, but they still haven't, for instance, gotten community folks out to canvass and start registrations up again after COVID. DeSantis loves to make hay about how Republicans have a voter registration advantage, but there's been zero investment in trying to get folks registered here since 2018. The state Dems don't have a set of policy goals, or a platform for the state. They're ineffective about communicating to Floridians what our insane single party Republican rulers are up to in Tallahassee (they passed a bill to ban Chem trails this year, failed to do anything about Condo fees and insurance, most people don't even know they wasted time doing that).
The state Dems also don't have a bench of candidates. Their primary voters keep nominating passionless, feckless, uncharismatic duds.
Case in point: in 2018, Nikki Fried was the only statewide elected Democrat that year, she won commissioner of agriculture. She won on a platform of explicit marijuana reform, clear as day. In 2022, she ran for governor. In the primary, the Dems nominated not proven winner Nikki Fried, but nominated instead Charlie Crist. Crist, by the way, is the former REPUBLICAN Governor (2007-2011), former INDEPENDENT candidate for senate (2010), who now has multiple failed statewide bids to his name. Crist ran as an independent in 2010 after losing the REPUBLICAN primary to Marco Rubio. Crist spent ALL OF HIS MONEY winning the primary, and then failed to raise funds after the Primary, and couldn't buy airtime or pay staff to canvass, ceding control of the airwaves and streets to DeSantis. Crist sucks, he fully sucks, he is a complete ass. But the Dems nominated him anyway, because the party is criminally incompetent and lost in the woods.
It seems to be the only tactic that works with that percentage of voters who don't actually think but just reflexively check off the box by any candidate who has an (R) by his or her name, regardless of what the candidate proposes to do while in office.
For those voters the Democratic name is just toxic, but they will at least give a look at an independent - and possibly vote for him or her.
Unless they are going to caucus with Dems—and they can't say that out loud and win in these places—it's moot. Otherwise they are just "conservatives" by another name.
Really? The won't vote for tax cuts and cutting govt? REALLY? And what happens when they caucus with the Dems? What does it do to their popularity back home? They are either going to disappoint the Dems who vote for them or disappoint the never Trump types.
Look at the trouble Manchin and SInema took (and rightly so) and they were Dems (well, until SInema was challenged), voting against popular issues or getting them watered down to vote for them. I, theory, it's a good idea, but ultimately, I think this just results in more cynicism.
It's still better than the tried-and-true alternative that always fails. Democrats run a candidate statewide who gets all the Democratic voters and still always loses. Sure, most of these D voters wouldn't bother to vote if their choices were a Mega-MAGA or a conservative type who differed on too many topics for them to stomach, but the non-MAGA Repub voters in the state might JUST outnumber the MAGAnauts enough to keep one less extremist out of Congress. If this occurred in enough deep-Red states, the toxic extremism might just start to ebb.
I disagree. The only thing that will make this start to ebb is when Trump is finally gone—if then. Hopefully those who were never interested in politics “until Trump” Will go back to being apathetic and some of the moderate republicans will find their spines again. But the politics of the party is driven by the base and right now they are cray.
Even when he’s gone there will be that 30 percent cadre that will always miss him and yearn for a successor like him. They are mostly gone z(never say never) no matter what a Dem does. And doesn’t it piss you off just a little bit about how successful the demonization of dems has been? There are lots of things broken in our society, and voters are just one of them.
You forget that many never-Trumpers and non MAGA conservatives don't always automatically favor tax cuts. some of them actually care about paying down the deficit.
I'm sorry, but that is ALL that conservatives have championed since 1980 and the election of Ronald Reagan. What is happening now is extremist, but they have always wanted limited government, deregulation, and yes, tax cuts.
Paying down the deficit comes from those cuts to services, not from raising taxes.
No, no, no, no, no! The enemy of my enemy is NOT MY FRIEND! Have you seen the anti-sematic garbage spewing from his "AI" Grok? Not to mention the people who are dying because USAID is gone, and the rest of the DOGE destruction. No, nothing for Musk, he can fuck all the way off.
The concept of the enemy of my enemy is my friend has been around for millennia. But it ultimately never works, because to have an alliance you need some kind of shared values. That said, if Musk wants to blow up MAGA, fine. But we need to avoid the delusion that Musk is ever going to be a friend of rational democratic governance and the rule of law.
It should be revised to, “The enemy of my enemy is my tool.” Not a friend, but an instrument to be manipulated, keeping one’s true goals in focus.
^This.
Totally! One doesn’t need to participate or even interact with this development to take advantage of it.
It worked in WWII with the Soviet Union. Desperate times sometime call for desperate measures. I'm not saying we should be nice to Elon or endorse his toxic beliefs, but encouraging him to divide the crazy MAGA coalition? I'm all for it.
This is one of the most interesting cases in history. The Soviet Union was one of the key perpetrators in starting World II, along with Nazi Germany and Japan, invading Poland, Finland and the Baltic nations (Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia) and providing Nazi Germany with large amounts of war materials prior to the 1941 invasion by Germany. Yet the Soviet Union emerged as one of the winners when it deserved defeat and dismemberment, in my opinion. They ended up annexing large swaths of territory and eliminating the Baltic nations for 50 years, along with occupying Eastern Europe and creating mayhem around the world. The Soviet Union likely would have collapsed in 1941-42 without critical US aid. One of my great uncles was a merchant marine sailor in World War II delivering aid from the US to Murmansk in the Soviet Union. I’ve always wondered if the allies would have been better off letting Germany and Russia bleed themselves to death and then pick up the pieces. One of those alternative histories for the fiction writers.
Interesting thought exercise. In fact that is kind of what postwar Soviet propaganda tried to convey, that the US was waiting to see who would win out between Germany and the USSR before committing to the war effort, and jumped in late on the side of the Soviets in order to end up on the winning side (this completely ignores the fact that the US entered the war in 1941). It also reminds me of the George C. Scott Patton movie (not sure how true this was), where he was of the mind that the Allies should have continued advancing against the Soviets once they'd occupied all of Germany and not stopped until they'd taken Moscow.
Yea, I never knew if that was true with Patton either. The Soviet and current Russian government propaganda conveniently leaves out the Nazi-Soviet Pact of August 1939 and then then secret protocols carving up Eastern Europe, as well ad the wholesale massacres of Polish and Baltic nations civilians and key leaders.
My wife is Russian, and my father-in-law, who received a good Soviet education, literally thought that the US entered the war in 1944 with the invasion of Normandy! And yes, they completely ignore the events of 1939 through May 1941, and are silent regarding all the US materiel aid which as you mention was critical to their eventual success on the Eastern front.
The Soviets kept the Allies in the fight while the US was still getting its shit together in 42-43. Germany recklessly engaged in a war on two fronts, perhaps because they had forced the Tsar's forced to capitulate in WWI. Soviet resistance to the invasion forced Hitler to commit a huge amount of his army and airforce to the eastern front, which made fewer aircraft and crews available for the air campaign against Britain.
I generally agree with your comment and I could respond in great detail, having studied World War II history in college and after. Let me just say this as an addition and an alternative. Prior to the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, the Nazis could not defeat the UK navy and air force, so they could not conquer the UK. Even if Germany conquered the Soviet Union in 1941, once the US entered World War II, the Nazis were done. The US produced more war materials than all other countries in World War II combined. The war almost certainly would have taken longer, but there is no objective doubt the US and the UK would have been victorious even without one Soviet soldier entering the fight, even apart from nuclear weapons. Even if the Soviet Union allied with Germany, they never could have defeated the US and the UK, although that would have been an even longer and bloodier war. Of course once the US had nuclear bombs combined with the best bombers, the US could have destroyed all German and Russian cities and manufacturing capabilities and ended any war.
I agree with your conclusion about eventual victory, but even if Operation Sealion was just 'vaporware' for Hitler to dream about, would Britain have been able to stay in the fight? Britain was hanging on by a thread, both in terms of military capability and civilian morale, with cities being bombed and cargoes sunk left and right. "Barbarossa" gave the RAF breathing space to build fighters aircraft and train pilots to limit success of German bombers, imho. (Noe: not an expert on mil hist)
And at Treaty time in Croatia, both Churchill and Roosevelt were too ill to successfully prevent Stalin’s demands for dividing up Europe. The Poles had been key to winning the war in Europe, but Poland went to the USSR. A travesty in my view.
Soviet (not "Society" - c'mon, spellcheck, read my mind, not my typos) forces were the occupying power in the west; Roosevelt had the Pacific theater to contend with and the planned transfer of troops and materiel for the invasion of Japan (in case The Bomb was a fizzle).
And as you (I think it was) noted, both old men had nearly killed themselves with work and worry through the war.
We should take note of this in light of our current Prez's age & condition; the NC+SC is supposed to be carrying some of the weight but its staff has been reduced and may not have much say in planning. No man should be permitted to make these decisions concerning the life & death of the entire nation, in my NOT humble opinion.
We heartily agree with you.
Churchill was in favor of that, but Stalin was threatening peace talks with Germany if the allies didn’t invade Europe.
How much encouragement do you think he needs? Seriously, the man impulsively bought twitter for $40 billion to turn it into his personal megaphone. Better to just buy popcorn (lot's of popcorn!), and watch the spectacle.
I'm defintiely stocking up on the popcorn! Elon is so loony that I don't think anyone knows what the hell he's going to do next. Most likely he'll just apologize again to Trump and give up as soon as his government contracts and subsidies are threatened. Although if he really believes all the Epstein stuff maybe there will be some staying power to this.
As an example: Iranian democratic moderates who allied with radical Islamists to overthrow the Shah. Then, well, we all remember what happened (at least those of us of a certain age).
“Shared values”. You are correct.
And when push comes to shove, I think an overwhelming number of MAGA will stick with their cult favorite, DT.
Elon himself will probably fall into line again. His last "revolt" against Trump lasted all of a week.
Agree- look at how much they've happily gone along with for the past 10 years. Elon is insane enough to try this alternative party retribution gimmick. But he also has drug-assisted ADHD. So how long will he persist? Also, Trump is threatening to axe his government contracts. And WOW! - maybe even try to deport him.
That won't succeed, obviously but it further insults and fires Elon up. Elon's clearly in a white hot rage right now. But to say he's mercurial is like saying the Titanic had a bad day in the North Atlantic 113 years ago. He's an emotionally volatile boy-man. IMO, take great care in enemy of enemy alliances. More often, the cure was more deadly than the disease.
Because he’s, umm…a successful businessman??
Absolutely!
But, the enemy of my enemy can be my Useful Idiot, seems to me.
I’d also say be careful of what you wish for as in the end it may not blow up MAGA but end in a hostile takeover.
I get your point but your missing the big picture. We aren’t supporting Musk, just supporting the chaos.
Think of it as supporting an incumbents most hated competitor in a Republican primary race; you aren’t supporting the nut job running against the incumbent, as much as you’re hoping he will win the primary knowing he’d find it difficult to win the general, or to inflict enough damage on the incumbent to muddy to waters during the general.
Trump is the epitome of the “Chaos Agent.” To fight fire with fire, we need to rein chaos on the chaos agents so we can control the narrative. In short, we’re not supporting Musk, we’re supporting the chaos, or more aptly, the controlled chaos. IMHO…:)
Correct. We are not supporting (f)Elon just the damage he can inflict on the Felon and MAGA land, which (f)Elon is already doing by getting royally under the notoriously thin skin of the Orangutan (no insults to simians intended), and making him focus on this new shiny object that he does not like.
This is a good way to look at it. Support the dysfunction!
Mostly, support the splitting off of votes from Republicans in 2026 and specifically from Trump in 2028.
If Elon could peel off the Q-anon freaks, he'd ruin Trump's chances for reelection.
I will laugh at it and make fun of it, but I will not support it. They are capable of ratcheting the chaos up to 11 without my support.
Agreed, but like I said, we aren’t supporting it; we’re not giving resources or money…:)
"Release Chiang Kai-Musk!"
We don't need to become "friends" with Elon, we just need to take advantage of his enormous platform to sow discontent among the MAGA masses. That should be on the minds of all Dems and the resistance. Keep stoking the fire. With luck, those fools may burn their own house down.
Agreed... I see this as a 'please proceed' moment.
Well played, sir.
The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy. No more, no less
Well, if Thug # 1 is intent on kicking my butt, and Thing #2 comes along and begins thunking #1's melon, I'm sure as hell not going to stop him.
Nope. But I’m also not going to ask him to have a beer with me if he’s got swastika tattoos either
Yep. Me neither.
Musk America Party or no Musk America Party, it might all be irrelevant if elections are corrupted or canceled. The underlying debate assumes regular elections which seem very much in doubt.
Agreed he can fuck all the way off. No collaboration or condoning anything he does.
But if he's going to keep lobbing bombs at maga and their dear leader, let him go nuts and we can sit on the sideline and enjoy the fallout.
I worry that anything Musk does will strip away votes not ONLY from MAGA wackadoodles, but also actual centrists that are frustrated with Democrats seeming failures.
Regardless of what you might think, this wouldn't work the way anyone thinks.
What failures? You mean at the polls? How will grabbing Democratic voters away from the party make the Democrats win? That seems like losing to me.
there's principles and values, and there's realpolitik. I personally don't think the realpolitik play here is worth the moral cost and moral hazard (so I agree with you), but I think anyone talking about using Musk to wedge the MAGA base is probably not making a moral or values-based argument.
Re: "Such criticisms of Trump are extremely rare in MAGA media."
Yes. Yes, they are. And they are to be nurtured.
I saw a clip of Alex Jones in tears over the Epstein stuff last night. Megan Kelley lost her damned mind. All the kooks and weirdos who've been pushing this stuff for years have just heard the gravy train pull up again. The story was getting stale. Now it's fresh as a daisy again. Now it's even BIGGER. Now they can see how deep and wide the rot really is. Dan Bongino's in on it. So's Kash Patel. And Pam Bondi and ... heaven forfend ... Trump himself. He's hiding something! Who? Why? Let's go back to the tapes. There's a minute missing. Where did it go? There are anomalies. Questions need to be asked and answered. Ghislaine Maxwell is in prison. No one can talk to her. She KNOWS something, which is why they've locked her away.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg! Whistleblowers silenced! Threats! Intimidation! The Deep State has gotten to them all!
It would be interesting to know what, if anything, Alex Jones actually believes.
He believes in 1) protecting what he has and 2) making more money.
He can't go on the air and say, "well, I guess I was wrong. Epstein killed himself. There's nothing on the tapes. There is no list of Johns. Clinton wasn't involved. Obama wasn't involved. It's all just a story of human tragedy."
That doesn't achieve 1) or 2) above.
What WOULD help is saying something like, "Folks, it's worse than we thought. It's worse. It's much worse. You have no idea how insidious this all is, folks. The Deep State will stop at nothing. Nothing! Kash Patel, Dan Bongino, Pam Bondi, they've either all been in on it the whole time or the Deep State has gotten to them. They've got something on all these people and they're being told -- this is how deep the rot is, folks -- they're being told that if they speak the truth, if they name names, then they will be destroyed. It's so clear. Ghislaine Maxwell. She's their example. No one can talk to her. She was run through a sham trial, convicted and sent away to the deepest hole in the federal prison system. Why? Because they needed an example. See? This is what happens to you when you go up against these powerful people. We need to stay on this. There are anomalies in those tapes. There are people who know the truth!"
That gets the mouth-breathers tuning in and buying supplements from his store. Goals 1) and 2) achieved.
The bottom is down there somewhere Alex. Keep striving!
They're going to dig all the way down until they discover that the 'deep state' is God.
Jones is a former Bircher turned Snake Oil salesman/carnival barker.
So, for Alex Jones, it's a mix of extremist reactionary stuff that's genuinely felt, and anything he can say to sell more quackery and junk to his audience.
Like his mentor, Felon Trump, it’s the Benjamins!
Money.
It is Deep States all the way down …
If they come to the conclusion that Trump himself is part of the 'deep state', their heads are going to blow clean off.
They don't care.
They will if they do indeed come to that conclusion. Otherwise, you're right... they won't.
Oh how I wish for that day when the scales fall from their eyes...
dcicero - Love your reconstruction of what is going on behind the curtain.
Nailed it! 🎯
Welcome to the ouroboros, the dragon that eats its own tail: Musk outloathing and outgreeding Trump, in their lust for money, influence and power. If the past is any guide, both will fall into history's pit, locked in this unwinnable duel. Soon we will see the ongoing spectacle of other elements in the regime of the orange narcissist-felon attacking each other.
The problem: they are destroying a great nation in the process.
The nation would survive if it could excise those two tumours...
There are quite a few more tumors that would also need to be removed: Vance, Miller, Thiel...
...and many, many of their followers into whose minds the Trump cancer has metastasized.
Get rid of Trump and Musk and those secondaries wither...
I'm not so sure they're secondaries. I think Miller and Thiel are actually the real powers behind MAGA, and they are just manipulating Musk and (especially) Trump. Get rid of Musk and Trump, and it's possible that they just seize power outright - and if Miller controls ICE and the military and Thiel (using Palantir) controls an effective internal surveillance network, who is going to stop them?
They're the real decision-makers behind MAGA, but they are far too unlikable (Miller is especially loathsome) to have any success in politics without latching onto Trump and his cult of personality like remoras. Even Trump himself is nothing without his cult.
Trump is just their useful idiot. It wouldn't surprise me if we found he was wearing an earpiece that tells him what to say--with, of course, the usual inane digressions about gold leaf (yesterday).
They are a symptom, not the disease. MAGA would not exist if a lot of Americans had not been eager to buy the grievance and hatred that Trump was selling. (Literally as well as figuratively.) Fortunately I don’t see anyone else with Trump’s “charisma” (hey, I don’t feel it, but a lot of people apparently do) on the horizon to take over when he shuffles off these mortal coils.
I like the thought and hope to see that happen.
Sorry no, the entire cabinet has to go! Not to mention the entire republican congress! And of course the rest of the Executive branch. Maybe the whole West Wing.
Props to you for using 'the ouroboros' in a sentence. Gawd, how good it is to be able to read comments written by intelligent people, instead of the semi-literates populating the comments section of my hometown rag.
I'm not sure I deserve your kind comment, R Hodsdon. I calls it as I sees it, as I watch in (relatively) slow-motion horror as I perceive 250 years of a global beacon of hope being reduced to rubble by the ignorati. Sic transit gloria mundi, and all that.
Man, I am right there witcha. I can only shake my head and say, What a shitshow!
Thanks for the Latin, which my dogeared 6th grade "Fractured Latin" handbook translates as, "Gloria rides the bus on Mondays".
Ah yes, fractured Latin. A bit like the terrific fractured French. "Honi soit qui mal y pense" = "Honey, your silk stocking is hanging down."
Or, to dig deeper, translate this nursery rhyme(I know you can!):
Un petit d'un petit ca t'en ce voeul.
Un petit d'un petit a degres t'folle.
Ors les quinze ors seize ain hors les quinze semaines
Que donc peut d'un petit tu gaie terre aguenne.
(forgive the lack of diacritical marks-[-aigu, grave, circumflex, etc., which are seemingly beyond Substack's scope).
Oh, Man you are hitting all of the "Greatest Hits" of my misspent you. YOUTH doggone it! (ed.)
Your quote is of course the Humpty Dumpty parody rhyme from "Mots d'heures, gooses, rhames" - a very silly book which is even funnier after you've finished off the second bottle of plonk.
Funny, even without the plonk. Don't get me started, mate.
I keep thinking the military will enact a coup, jail or just fire everyone in the cabinet.
For chapter two, watch Designated Survivor. It is streaming right now.
Isn't it ironic, at the Governors Ball, trump arranged for the Army chorus to perform the Finale from Les Mis ? Did he just not understand what it was about??
As it was pointed out, Felon Trump goes after everyone at some time. Does anyone know if he actually has friends, real friends? All he ever had were enablers, who took whatever they could get, until their time was up. So why is there any concern for his mini-me Elon Musk. Musk does whatever he wants because he is too rich to fail. He is too rich to have any understanding of the problems he caused, or their solutions. Has he ever done an altruistic anything? Felon Trump created a so-called charity that was really a piggy bank for his whims, what has Musk done?
Musk should be left alone. Today, he might be useful. But tomorrow? With no real understanding, except to make a lot of money, Musk is a danger to democracy. He has lived here for decades, and has no understanding of how democracy works.
trump is an amoral sociopath, he simply does not care about people dying, frankly neither does musk
A man that tramples over every friend he's made in his lifetime isn't going to have friends.
Enablers, sycophants and grifters. In that, Trump and Musk are alike.
Re. the discussion in these comments about the way Trump has treated his friends vs. has he ever had any friends, I go with the second. Although mental health professionals always hasten to say they can't diagnose someone they have never personally met and evaluated, there seems to be overwhelming evidence that he is a malignant narcissist. It is not possible for a person with that mental health issue to have real friends because their one and only motivation when dealing with people is how they can use them to get what they want. (Transactional is the word often used.)
From what I have read in the literature about narcissism, there is a combination of nature and nurture in the making of a narcissist. It is likely that Trump was born with some type of brain-based issue that, combined with what looks like a probably emotionally abusive father, resulted in him becoming what he is. As far as I know from what I have read, narcissism is not something with which people are born. However, as a lifelong special education professional who loves to observe people, I have long thought he probably has some type of learning disability that impacts his ability to read and/ or comprehend information by reading. (Look at the widely accepted issue with him not reading briefings from his aides, and his almost total reliance on TV to get his info.)
He probably also has other brain chemistry-based issues, perhaps attention deficit disorder or some brain chemistry issue that leads to poor impulse control. It appears to be documented that he had behavior problems even as a young student (there is the story about him punching his third grade teacher) and we know for sure that he was sent to military school pretty young, maybe middle-school age? Although he has bragged about liking military school, it's pretty clear that his parents wouldn't have sent him away to something this drastic without some pretty serious reasons.
Anyway, all of this doesn't excuse his horrendous actions throughout his life; as many have commented, he still chooses the things he does. I just think it's good practice to try to understand why powerful, destructive people do what they do
I listen to an excellent podcast called "Shrinking Trump" with two psychologists who analyze Trump and all his personality disorders.
Thanks, I'll look for it.
I know the answer to your first two questions: No and No. Trump has been a poor ...make that destitute, if we're talking about warm personal relationships... little rich boy his entire life. A portion of the blame for this is obviously the influence of his father, but Trump has done the rest of the damage to himself all by himself. He's very obviously not even friends with his present purported wife. Nor was he with her predecessors. Let's put it this way: His best friend and closest companion is at the end of his right arm.
Thank you for your comments. I get a little crazy reading about Felon Trump’s father’s influence over his son. Yes, that is real, but only up to a point. This man is 79, and has father issues? No. This man is wallowing in his victimoness so he doesn’t have to acknowledge his failures.
Really? People are dead and lives are ruined because of Elon and DOGE and people think we should work with him? There will be no savior from on high. The problem is waiting for those who benefit from the rigged system to save us. We have to save ourselves and that means absolutely no working with Musk.
He’s not saying we should work with Musk. He’s saying we stand back and watch as the two t-rexes fight (or the raptor jumps on the t-Rex and starts biting).
Good analogy, Linda, but you forgot about throwing raw meat in between them, like "What about that missing minute?" "Why not give up the REAL autopsy?" "Why can't Blondi find some gonads and give us the report herself? Oh, wait, I forgot."
It is dangerous for thought leaders not to say clearly that Musk is a drug-addled sociopath from whom nothing good can come.
If the feud keeps up, we might actually learn something about what data Elon has captured and what backdoor systems he has in place. I can't imagine he doesn't have info on regime members and he is unhinged enough to one day leak if he gets provoked enough.
IF he has the "data" and "backdoor systems in place", why doesn't he just release the report himself?
Crazy as he is, if he does have the info and releases it, he probably knows it would tank his businesses and he would need to go into exile.
Perhaps he just wants Trump to think he has the goods. Just like Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.
If the report includes anything dangerous to him, why not just excise it or Sharpie it out of existence? He's the tech wizard (or has them on his payroll), not Blondi or the Felon.
I think it is the retribution that would be dangerous
Seems to me that the report's contents are 1000 times more likely to be dangerous to the Felon and his cohorts than any "retribution" they would have the time or energy to waste on (f)Elon. When your ship is sinking, no one stops to hunt the rat that gnawed the hole in the hull.
First comment that made sense.
I guess we can hope!
I propose that we take Blofed's advice from the beginning of "From Russia With Love." Blofeld admired the Siamese fighting fish that waited while two other fish attacked (and weakened) each other. Let Don and Elon fight all they want!
Nice! I am sure you can find some appropriate quote from Auric Goldfinger.
Goldfinger had one of the best lines in move history, when he had Bond strapped to a table, with the laser beam inching closer to cutting him in half:
Bond: “You expect me to talk?”
Goldfinger: “No Mr Bond, I expect you to die.”
Goldfinger did use the word "pussy" often. 😀
I dunno. Seeing Musk as a useful foil against DJT feels more like wishful thinking. I'd liken it instead to putting one raging drunk alcoholic in the room with another raging drunk alcoholic. They may hate each other, but at the end of the day you're stuck with two raging drunk alcoholics. What then?
Yup. All either cares about is hoovering up as much cash and power as possible before death...without caring what happens after. Trump and Musk the same thing.
If they direct all their energy to fighting each other, so much the better for the rest of us.
As long as they don't wind up running on parallel tracks and causing double the trouble.
Somehow I have a problem seeing those two doing ANYTHING in parallel in the future.
Let’s see what Musk will/can do in the midterms. And Texas is the place to watch. Will he run in the middle and endorse John Cornyn? Ken Paxton has a large lead over Cornyn in the primary, I think grandpa John will fold if he’s about to get blown out by Paxton. Who will Trump endorse? Or will Elon tap someone crazier than Paxton. Yikes! There are crazier options than Ken Paxton. Or, could Elon try to tap Chipper Roy, the supposed protector of a balanced federal budget, to run for the senate. It sure would make the Texas senate race a tasty treat.
Me and a million others predicted the Musk/Trump blow up was inevitable. It can't be anything other than a death match between the two of them. Dems should just run the popcorn concessions.
Trump and Putin does surprise me. Putin had to have said something that punched one of Trump's core triggers because by tacoing on arms for Ukraine, Trump is punching back. It could also just be Trump realizes Putin is in real trouble at home and is no longer a winner.
Putin, Musk, Trump, Bibi, Epstein, this newsletter was just jam packed with shining examples of masculine toxicity.
Colleen, I take offense at the phrase "masculine" about any of the sorry excuses for taking up air that you named, even if it is only as an adjective. There are so many others to choose from, e.g., narcisstic, power-hungry, soulless, inhumane....
True. How can people with no balls ever be described as masculine?
But she didn't say simply "masculine"—she said "masculine toxicity". It's like if I say someone is "politely malevolent" or "eloquently dishonest". That doesn't mean that being either polite or eloquent is a bad thing per se. They are adjectives that can describe both good and bad things, but to the extent they can describe bad things they offer unique challenges in combatting those bad things.
Being masculine, in and of itself, isn't a bad thing; accordingly there is a such thing as masculine virtuousity. I agree that people sometimes over-apply the term "toxic masculinity", so as to make it seem as though everything coded masculine is toxic. But that doesn't mean toxic masculinity isn't a real thing to be taken seriously.
In fact, I would go so far as to say there is a such thing as feminine toxicity as well. We all know the many legitimately positive aspects of what we traditionally think of as femininity. The nuturing, the empathy, the more gentle and thoughtful approach to resolving problems, the general tempering effects on masculinity, etc. Some women understandably bristle at the burden of expectations this can place on women, but a general descriptor doesn't have to serve as a requirement.
Regardless, I'm willing to bet that most of us have known women who exhibit a distinctly feminine form of toxicity. Unlike masculine toxicity, which is far more overt in its brute intimidation and threats of forceful, physical violence, feminine toxicity is manipulative and psychologically abusive, taking undue advantage of people's sympathies to effect forceful action on its behalf.
Furthermore, despite the general gender coding, women can exhibit masculine toxicity and men can exhibit feminine toxicity. I would argue that Kristi Noem and Pam Bondi are masculinely toxic, whereas feminine toxicity is as easily embodied by someone like Jussie Smollett as it is by Tara Reid.
Is feminine toxicity a real problem today? Somewhat. To the extent that there are legitimate excesses in the application of "woke" principles—and even as someone who considers himself progressive, I would definitely agree that there are—they rely on a form of feminine toxicity for sustainance. People are afraid to speak out for fear of being branded x-ist or y-phobic, and either hurting or being shunned by their friends belonging to the corresponding identity categories.
But when we're talking about MAGA, it's masculine toxicity all the way. And I think we're all here because, whatever we may think about problems on the left, we all agree that MAGA is by far the worse, more urgent problem right now. Toxic masculinity is the crisis du jour of our times, and we ought not look away from it.
So at the risk of somewhat over-thinking Coleen's original intent, I'd say there is no need to be offended by "masculine toxicity", any more than than there is to dislike the color red or the elephant—both things with which I generally have positive associations—simply because they are at times used to signify the Republican Party.
"Masculine", like "feminine", is an inherently neutral descriptor potentially applicable to a great many things, and those of us who like to think of ourselves as embodying a virtuous form of masculinity ought, in my opinion, be joining those calling out its toxic counterpart.
I suppose I could have made it a gender neutral statement, but Kristi Noem wasn't in the article and Pam Bondi is toxic but super submissive.
Except, apparently trump did not stop arms shipments to Ukraine, evidently that has Hegseth all on his own with no coordination with the WH. Defense is a major dumpster fire that is getting worse. Right now trump is pissed at Putin for making him look like a fool. If we had a congress instead of potted plants now would be the time to vote more weapons for Ukraine.
No, it was either Hegseth or one of his lackeys, but Trump didn't object when it was pointed out to him. DoD, DoJ, HHS, FBI, Homeland Security, ICE, so many fires and no FEMA.
Does that mean we may be seeing the rear-ends of both Hegseth and Bondi?
(Yes, completely, to aid for Ukraine! And no more pauses!)
I seriously doubt it, they are both MAGAt favorites because of their low IQ and incompetence, run of the mill MAGAts identify with them
Premise #1: The favorite "influencers" whom a vast number of "followers" choose to identify with ultimately define us as a culture.
Premise #2: Hegseth and Bondi are favorite influencers with whom a vast number of followers identify.
Conclusion: Hegseth and Bondi define us as a culture.
Oh, F---. we are indeed lost as a culture.
Nah. Trump rarely asks Vlad for anything, and when he told him to stop bombing Ukraine, Vlad said, nope. Trump is just having a hissy fit and taking his ball and going home. For now.
I’ve been consuming all things Rubens and Rembrandt the past week. And it hit me, will Elon follow Rubens path and excel beyond his art and become an influential royal court advisor and diplomat. Or will he follow Rembrandt’s path, become bored with his art, spend too much money and become bankrupt. At this point, I’m leaning towards the Rembrandt trajectory.
I vote Rembrandt. Although if he bankrupted himself, that would be quite the accomplishment itself.
My favorite part of the Epstein thing is Bondi trying to say “Yes, I had the Holy Grail on my desk but I never looked at it to ensure that it was the Holy Grail.”
She was saying someone told her the box on her desk CONTAINED the Holy Grail, but the FBI just said there is no such thing as a Holy Grail, so she’s going to throw the empty box out unopened.
Run away, run away!
That rabbit's dynamite!
The two most dangerous people in this administration are Stephen Miller and Hegseth. It is becoming more and more apparent that Miller is actually running things in the WH, and now we find out it was Hegseth that unilaterally stopped the shipment of weapons to Ukraine and never even told the WH let alone had concurrence. This should be used to ridicule trump and his lack of control
Personally I would add RFK, Jr. to that list.
Yes.
"The Ruthless Ambition
of Stephen Miller..."
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/07/opinion/stephen-miller.html?unlocked_article_code=1.VE8.qL9Y.pGuEjE8n9Lxi&smid=url-share
Why did it take the Times this long to notice?
Y'all ought to tread quite lightly around a Machiavellian, Realpolitik type play when it comes to Musk.
On the one hand, in that cold part of my heart where my darker self sharpens daggers for political opponents, there is an opportunity here. On the other hand, we have to remember the Elon Musk is a nazi-saluting booster of the far right neo-Nazi AfD party in Germany and white supremacist elements in South Africa, that he routinely undermines the safety of his workers and customers to line his pockets, and he is so chuffed that Grok keeps getting woke that last week they released an update that briefly lead to AI Chatbot praising Hitler and threatening to kill the president of Turkey. Musk is not someone you want on your side. Not least of which because he also has terrible, narcissistic, main character syndrome, and will make whatever he gets involved in about himself.
For readers of conscience, just let Musk do Musk. AOC's "The girls are fighting again!" is the perfect response.
For the cynical readers with sharp, serrated teeth...
The **classic** political play is the "wedge issue." The public are used to hearing about these but not understanding them. A wedge is anything your base agrees on, but your opponent's disagree with each other on. If you can make the campaign (or even part of the campaign!) about that, you can win because your opponents fight with each other as much as you, and your united front steam rolls through over tribal divisions on the other side. Bada-bing, bada-boom. For successful wedge issues used against Democrats, see: trans sports bans, the War in Gaza, etc. For successful wedge issues used against Republicans, see... well, that's the point. Democrats suck at this realpolitik stuff.
BUT, even then, there are lots of wedge issues for someone who has an air-tight hazmat suit that could fracture the maga base. You just need more political skill than the Democrats (so that means, most anyone except the Democrats could easily do this). The conspiracy theory stuff is one of them.
There are also wedge issues that don't require PPE. Like pointing out the cruelty of Trump's immigration policy that seems to be working (see Rogan, barstool Sports complaining about ICE rounding up abuelas and hard-working construction workers and farm workers). The debt is another one of them, flip the script and run agains the national debt. You don't **need** to make 2026 about Epstein's client list. But yeah, the Maga Maoists and Trumpists are very cooked if they are fighting about whether or not Turmp is suppressing Epstein news because he was a client. And there sure as hell is a kind of karmic poetry to conspiracy theories being the thing that causes Trump's movement to implode or spontaneously combust.
So, just to be careful, please be very careful. Love y'all and your commentary.
You think Dems going conspiracy is gonna work? Come on, these people believe JFK Jr is still alive and was gonna be Trump's running mate. You cannot outcrazy crazy. Especially when you are sane. MAGA thinking is more twisted than rotelli pasta.
And frankly if it's so easy, why hasn't "everyone else" done it?
SK - Re: "You just need more political skill than the Democrats (so that means, most anyone except the Democrats could easily do this" .
There are plenty of skilled Dem politicians, but they aren't distributed evenly across key districts.
Dissing your allies in the midst of a fight is a good way to lose them AND the war.
By the way, "chuffed" means "pleased", so "...he is so chuffed that Grok keeps getting woke...." is incorrect. Thus:
Elon was totes NOT chuffed about Grok wokery.
( I know that sounds like babble but it makes sense if you know the code).
You're welcome.
Musk doesn't have to start a new party to show his displeasure with Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill".
He could help defeat Republicans who voted for this bill by contributing money to their opponents in the mid-term elections. These Republicans are beatable:
SENATE
AL- Dan Sullivan, IA-Joni Ernst, ME-Susan Collins, NC- OPEN, TX- John Cornyn, OH-John Husted
HOUSE
CA: Ken Calvert-41, Young Kim-40, John Duarte-13, Mike Garcia-27
MI: Tom Barrett-07, Bill Huizenga-04, John James-10
PA: Scott Perry-10, Robert Bresnahan-08, Ryan MacKenzie-07
AZ: Eli Crane-02, David Schweikert-01, Juan Ciscomani-06,
IA: Zack Nunn-03, Ashley Hinson-02, Mariannette Miller-Meeks-01,
FL: Cory Mills-07, Anna Paulina Luna-13, Maria Elvira Salazar-27,
VA: Jen Kiggans-02 WI: Derrick Van Orden-03, TX: Monica De La Cruz-15, KY:Andy Barr-06,
NJ: Tom Kean Jr.-07 NB: OPEN-02. OR: Lori Chavez-DeRemer-05
NY: Mike Lawler-17, TN: Andy Olgas-05, AL: Nick Begich
Post that to his X account! Appeal to his ego: Musk wants to be a hero....righting the American ship by dethroning the Republican party is one way he could move toward that hero status.
Musk has no interest in righting the American ship. He was against the big ugly bill because it didn't cut enough and didn't hurt enough people. Any opponent he may back with be the crazier far right candidate. This is all just wishful thinking. Trump threatened to denaturalize Elon once and you can be sure lil Marco would be happy to do if Trump so ordered. It's all just bad theater.
I would dearly love it if we could rid Maine of my senior Senator, Susan Collins, but, alas, she has devotees in all the rural areas of Maine -particularly Aroosook County, & in all the old mill towns along Rte 2, from Newport to Skowhegan.
Did you know that when Collins first ran for the Senate, she told us that if she won, she would only serve 2 terms! In 2020 she won her 5th term, & she's already announced that she'll be running for her 6th in 2026.
Add for the House: NE: 02 (open) Don Bacon isn't running again, and he voted for the BBB.
And (a tougher battle) for the Senate: NE: Pete Ricketts.
Wouldn’t it be great if someone could have a chance to run in a primary and campaign about issues? Instead, we have the hope that an even crazier candidate, someone who has no connection to the real world, and might even want to destroy it, is the only one who can defeat someone who is just crazy, stupid, and cruel.
Regarding Musk feuding with trump again, seems to me that in the Trump-Musk binary star system that their orbital revolutions are so rapid, within another few days they'll be back to allies again. Let's see how long this story will have been forgotten by in, say, 14 months as the 2026 elections come into focus.
Interesting to hear about the recent tactic by the Democratic state parties in Nebraska and Utah. That may be worth trying in Florida at this point. Couldn't be any worse! Every state has its own unique voter population and for some reason many states' voter majorities will never vote for an 'official' Democratic candidate, no matter how hard volunteers work to turn out the vote.
I believe Florida voted FOR an abortion rights measure 58-42. Which, of course, was a loss due to their recently passed version of "new math".
the 60% threshold is not new, we've had a 60 vote threshold in Florida for constitutional amendments since 2006 (source: am Florida man).
But what's also not new, is even with the 60%+ threshold, we did pass medical marijuana, $15 minimum wage pegged to inflation, Felon voting re-enfranchisement, solar power, required budget for land and water conservation. Reactional marijuana and abortion missed by single digits in 2024, but the majority of voters supported both.
Apparently, a lot of voters supported these amendments while for some reason not voting for the Democratic candidates on their ballots. Not sure what this means, other than the D label doesn't stand a chance in Florida these days
that's part of it.
(speaking again as a Florida man) the state Democrat party here is extraordinarily incompetent.
I like state chair Nikki Fried, but they still haven't, for instance, gotten community folks out to canvass and start registrations up again after COVID. DeSantis loves to make hay about how Republicans have a voter registration advantage, but there's been zero investment in trying to get folks registered here since 2018. The state Dems don't have a set of policy goals, or a platform for the state. They're ineffective about communicating to Floridians what our insane single party Republican rulers are up to in Tallahassee (they passed a bill to ban Chem trails this year, failed to do anything about Condo fees and insurance, most people don't even know they wasted time doing that).
The state Dems also don't have a bench of candidates. Their primary voters keep nominating passionless, feckless, uncharismatic duds.
Case in point: in 2018, Nikki Fried was the only statewide elected Democrat that year, she won commissioner of agriculture. She won on a platform of explicit marijuana reform, clear as day. In 2022, she ran for governor. In the primary, the Dems nominated not proven winner Nikki Fried, but nominated instead Charlie Crist. Crist, by the way, is the former REPUBLICAN Governor (2007-2011), former INDEPENDENT candidate for senate (2010), who now has multiple failed statewide bids to his name. Crist ran as an independent in 2010 after losing the REPUBLICAN primary to Marco Rubio. Crist spent ALL OF HIS MONEY winning the primary, and then failed to raise funds after the Primary, and couldn't buy airtime or pay staff to canvass, ceding control of the airwaves and streets to DeSantis. Crist sucks, he fully sucks, he is a complete ass. But the Dems nominated him anyway, because the party is criminally incompetent and lost in the woods.
It seems to be the only tactic that works with that percentage of voters who don't actually think but just reflexively check off the box by any candidate who has an (R) by his or her name, regardless of what the candidate proposes to do while in office.
For those voters the Democratic name is just toxic, but they will at least give a look at an independent - and possibly vote for him or her.
Unless they are going to caucus with Dems—and they can't say that out loud and win in these places—it's moot. Otherwise they are just "conservatives" by another name.
They may not be liberals, but what matters is that they are NOT MAGA. They will vote against MAGA crap!
Really? The won't vote for tax cuts and cutting govt? REALLY? And what happens when they caucus with the Dems? What does it do to their popularity back home? They are either going to disappoint the Dems who vote for them or disappoint the never Trump types.
Look at the trouble Manchin and SInema took (and rightly so) and they were Dems (well, until SInema was challenged), voting against popular issues or getting them watered down to vote for them. I, theory, it's a good idea, but ultimately, I think this just results in more cynicism.
It's still better than the tried-and-true alternative that always fails. Democrats run a candidate statewide who gets all the Democratic voters and still always loses. Sure, most of these D voters wouldn't bother to vote if their choices were a Mega-MAGA or a conservative type who differed on too many topics for them to stomach, but the non-MAGA Repub voters in the state might JUST outnumber the MAGAnauts enough to keep one less extremist out of Congress. If this occurred in enough deep-Red states, the toxic extremism might just start to ebb.
I disagree. The only thing that will make this start to ebb is when Trump is finally gone—if then. Hopefully those who were never interested in politics “until Trump” Will go back to being apathetic and some of the moderate republicans will find their spines again. But the politics of the party is driven by the base and right now they are cray.
Even when he’s gone there will be that 30 percent cadre that will always miss him and yearn for a successor like him. They are mostly gone z(never say never) no matter what a Dem does. And doesn’t it piss you off just a little bit about how successful the demonization of dems has been? There are lots of things broken in our society, and voters are just one of them.
You forget that many never-Trumpers and non MAGA conservatives don't always automatically favor tax cuts. some of them actually care about paying down the deficit.
I'm sorry, but that is ALL that conservatives have championed since 1980 and the election of Ronald Reagan. What is happening now is extremist, but they have always wanted limited government, deregulation, and yes, tax cuts.
Paying down the deficit comes from those cuts to services, not from raising taxes.