Muskenfreude

When an oligarch confronts an autocrat, guess who wins?

So the Senate has passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. True, it could still be blocked if House Republicans stood by their principles. But they won’t. This monstrosity will become the law of the land, and tens of millions of Americans will suffer so that billionaires can pay lower taxes.

Looking forward, those of us who care about a decent society will have to do what we can to make sure that Americans understand who ruined their lives and make the people responsible pay a heavy political price. But there will be plenty of time for that, so I thought I’d devote today’s post to a more pleasant topic: The humiliation of Elon Musk.

Does taking some satisfaction in Musk’s demise make me a bad person? Maybe, but I’m only human. Should I go easy on Musk because he came out against the terrible bill that just passed? No.

For one thing, Musk’s opposition predictably made no difference. Musk and other oligarchs will soon learn just how little political power their wealth gives them in the political environment they helped create. More on that in a minute.

Beyond that, Musk was against the bill for all the wrong reasons.

The whole DOGE story remains remarkable on a couple of levels. It’s not just that Donald Trump temporarily gave immense power over federal spending to someone who had no legitimate basis for that power — he was neither elected by voters nor, as is normally required for senior officials, approved by the Senate. Beyond that, Trump gave that power to a man who clearly understood nothing about what the government does and what it spends money on — but who, in his arrogance, assumed that he could eliminate trillions of dollars in waste, fraud, and abuse.

He couldn’t, of course, and he should have been fired on the spot after making the absurd claim that millions of dead people were receiving Social Security checks. But he wasn’t. For months after that episode Musk remained in a position to create chaos and degrade the functioning of the government — oh, and condemn large numbers of children to death.

Now he’s on the outs — but he still lacks the honesty and courage to admit what he got wrong. Here’s Musk condemning the Beautiful Bill:

What is the “insane spending” and “pork” of which he speaks? If there’s huge wasteful spending going on, well, Musk had months of unprecedented power and access to find it — and came up empty. The truth is that this bill will explode the deficit because of the huge tax breaks it’s offering to the wealthy and corporations. But Musk can’t handle the truth.

What about Musk’s threat to form a new political party? It will go nowhere if he tries. But I don’t think he’ll get anywhere near making good on that threat. As Trump might say, Musk just doesn’t have the cards. My prediction is that very soon one of two things will happen. Either Musk will slink off, tail between his legs. Or he will see his wealth destroyed, faster than he imagines possible.

Most immediately, Musk’s business interests are unusually dependent on federal support, and hence on the good will of whoever is running the government. I’m not sure whether Musk is really the most subsidized businessman in history, but Trump basically got it right here:

Beyond that, even great wealth offers little protection from the people in power under an authoritarian regime.

Three years ago NPR’s Planet Money newsletter published a article titled “How Putin conquered Russia’s oligarchy” that people like Musk really should have read before throwing their support behind Trump. As the article explained, Russian oligarchs played a large role in Vladmiri Putin’s rise to power. But a few years after his ascent, Putin summoned the wealthiest among them to the Kremlin to explain who was in charge:

Putin offered the oligarchs a deal: bend to my authority, stay out of my way, and you can keep your mansions, superyachts, private jets, and multibillion-dollar corporations (corporations that, just a few years before, had been owned by the Russian government). In the coming years, the oligarchs who reneged on this deal and undermined Putin would be thrown into a Siberian prison or be forced into exile or die in suspicious circumstances.

And oligarchs who refused to come to heel were replaced by

a new breed of oligarchs, who have accrued wealth and power under Putin: the siloviki, which translates roughly to "men of force."

It can’t happen here, you say. Trump can’t arbitrarily punish wealthy men or seize their property. After all, that would be against the law. And the rule of law still prevails in America, doesn’t it? I mean, we’re not the kind of country where masked men claiming to be government agents kidnap people off the street. Oh, wait.

Still, Musk is a U.S. citizen, which gives him protection, right? Except the Department of Justice has already announced that it will soon be seeking to revoke citizenship for many naturalized Americans. And Trump is already fantasizing about sending Musk back to South Africa.

OK, I don’t expect things to go that far for Musk or any of the other Trump-backing oligarchs who may be having second thoughts — not because I think there are limits to what Trump is willing to do, but because I don’t think any of these guys will have the courage to stand up to him.

Just to be clear, much as I hate what Musk has done, I don’t want to see him exiled or falling out of a window, because I don’t want to live in that kind of country. But if we do become that kind of a country, people like Musk will bear much of the responsibility — and, whatever they imagine, may pay part of the price.

NONMUSICAL CODA

July 2 was the second, crucial day of the battle of Gettysburg, the day America was saved by the heroic stand of forces defending the flanks at Culp’s Hill and Little Round Top.

But are we still allowed to honor Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, who seems to have been a DEI kind of guy?