The corporate media and other Democrat advocacy groups have been desperately casting about for a way to create tension between President-elect Trump and Elon Musk. They know that much of the progressive agenda is in serious danger if the affinity that exists between these two men endures for very long.
What really happened here is that the Democrats rolled Speaker Johnson … and they counted on the corporate media to cover up its worst provisions.
Beginning well before the election, numerous “news” stories alleged that Musk’s support of Trump created horrendous conflicts of interest. No one outside the Beltway paid any attention. Then, the demise of the 1,547-page “continuing resolution” last week inspired a new narrative — the senior partner in the alliance was Musk rather than Trump.
Wednesday evening, after Musk and countless other critics had vociferously denounced the bill as a legislative abomination jam-packed with pork, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) took to X and thundered, “Are Republicans beholden to the American people? Or President Musk?”
Likewise, when it became obvious that the original CR was a goner, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) chimed in, “Welcome to the Elon Musk presidency.” Not coincidentally, Democrat operative Julie Roginsky appeared on CNN and parroted the party line: “Elon Musk is puppeteering Donald Trump.” Mike Allen at Axios absurdly claimed that Musk was “the most powerful person in politics” and that he had “single-handedly” killed the spending bill.
Never mind that Trump, J.D. Vance, Vivek Ramaswamy, and three dozen House Republicans collectively declared that a government shutdown was preferable to passing the monstrosity that House Speaker Mike Johnson presented for a vote. The legacy news media, however, was interested in only one facet of the CR story — that Musk had the temerity to shine a spotlight on the scam and suggest that voters should contact their representatives in Congress and share their feelings about it. In other words, he did what a truly free press corps would have done itself had it not been co-opted by the Democratic National Committee. Thus, Bloomberg’s Nia-Malika Henderson portrays Musk in the following portentous terms:
Musk, with his billions and his global reach via X, is unlike anyone else in Trumpworld. Casting off cabinet secretaries and the likes of “Sloppy Steve” Bannon was much easier. Those people didn’t have Musk’s reach or celebrity — or his billions.
They were sycophants who needed Trump more than he needed them. By contrast, Musk confers status on Trump by being by his side. He broadens Trump’s reach and his power. Put simply, Musk makes Trump bigger. Some Republicans have suggested that Musk should be the next speaker of the House, yet this would be a major step down.
The obvious strategy of such claims is to get under Donald Trump’s skin and this subtext has permeated the news coverage of the CR, even after the original monstrosity was replaced with a 118-page bill that passed both houses of Congress and was signed into law by alleged President Joe Biden.
It’s an article of faith among the denizens of the corporate media and their Democrat partners that Trump is unable to share the spotlight with anyone who might outshine him in the eyes of the public. They believe Trump’s narcissism will eventually cause him to banish Musk to outer darkness once he is ensconced in the White House. But they don’t really get how Trump will utilize Musk to achieve his second term goals.
It will be similar to Ronald Reagan’s appeals to the voters when he needed them to put pressure on Congress to pass important legislation. Newt Gingrich described the results of those appeals on Democrats in a recent newsletter, “Speaker Tip O’Neill complained of ‘a telephone blitz like this nation has never seen.’”
During Reagan’s tenure, he simply announced that he wanted to address the country during prime time and the major networks opened up a slot for him. The networks won’t extend this courtesy to Trump. Thus, he must circumvent them via social media where Musk, et al., will amplify the message. Congress just got a taste of how effective this can be, yet even the Wall Street Journal is whining about Musk’s role:
All Congress had to do was pass one last government-funding bill to keep the lights on and go home for Christmas. House Speaker Mike Johnson had spent weeks negotiating with Democrats, carefully cobbling together the compromises it would take to secure a majority vote in the narrowly divided chamber. It was a delicate construction, a house of cards, that had already begun to teeter when Elon Musk emerged Wednesday to stomp all over it. By Friday, the government was spiraling toward a shutdown after a series of failed and aborted votes as Republican members bickered and excoriated each other.
The Journal is beginning to read like the Bulwark. This measure was obviously an omnibus spending bill masquerading as a continuing resolution. Moreover, it wasn’t Musk that “stomped” all over the bill. It was countless voters contacting the offices of their congressional representatives. And it worked, despite the reluctance of the media to report the tsunami of calls and texts that really made the difference.
To quote Newt Gingrich again, “Shrinking the continuing resolution from 1,547 pages to 118 pages is a major victory for President Trump and shows that the election did matter and he is really the de facto President while President Biden was absent and passive. A good start to real change in Washington!”
What really happened here is that the Democrats rolled Speaker Johnson on the CR and they counted on the corporate media to cover up its worst provisions. Moreover, in the absence of Elon Musk and X, the voters wouldn’t have learned about the dirty work that went on behind closed doors in the House and Senate. This is why the DNC and their propagandists see the alliance between Trump and Musk as a threat.
Trump will try to clean up the mess created by the people who actually run the Biden administration, and Musk will provide the only space that allows transparency and free expression. The Democrats must drive a wedge between these two men or they will spend a long time in the political wilderness.
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