| | Demosthenes
I agree with Paul Krugman, who wrote this today on his new Substack page:
“So, I have a fully written piece ready to post about the destruction of U.S. science. But who would read it today? It will hold, while I talk about Trump and Musk.
Now, Trump and Musk deserve whatever is coming, good and hard. But don’t let the schadenfreude of this psychodrama distract you from the fundamental point — America has fallen into a deep pit of corruption.
Musk believes that he delivered the presidency to Trump, and may well be right. He gave Trump and his allies a lot of money; he helped Trump regain confidence after his disastrous debate; he brought in the bro vote.
And Musk clearly believes that this entitles him to receive special favors from the White House — not policies he likes in general, but contracts and specific actions that benefit him personally. He even seems to have imagined that he was effectively co-president. That is, he simply assumed that U.S. policy was for sale, and thought he had bought it.
Trump, for his part, hasn’t responded by saying “How dare you suggest such a thing?” Instead, he has threatened retaliation — again, not in the form of general policies Musk won’t like but in the form of specific actions aimed to hurt Musk’s bottom line. Steve Bannon is even calling for Musk’s deportation.
The point is that both men start from the presumption that the U.S. government is an entirely corrupt enterprise, with the president in a position to hand out personal favors or engage in personal acts of vengeance.
And everyone takes it for granted that both men are right. Musk’s only mistake was in underestimating the depths of Trump’s lack of principles, imagining that he was the kind of corrupt politician who stays bought, as opposed to a guy who always breaks his promises the moment it seems expedient to do so. |
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