And So It Begins...

    In the beginning, one of the few glimmers of hope, if it can be called that, was that eventually Donald Trump's outlandishly bloated ego would reassert itself and he'd start to turn on Elon Musk when he got the perception that Musk was stealing his thunder. That first indication has finally come.

    Trump held a Cabinet meeting today and essentially told Elon Musk that he was overstepping the bounds of his illegitimate authority to fire federal workers. Trump may be incipiently demented but even he's still savvy enough to know when things are falling down around his ears.

     Practically from the moment Musk gave a Nazi salute on Inauguration Day, he's been gutting the federal government with the speed and industry of a honey badger on amphetamines. Not only that, he's been systematically axing regulatory agencies and officials that had once had oversight over his various companies like SpaceX, Tesla and others. Obviously, Musk's goal was to not only remove all oversight of his corporate entities but to free up enough money to continue getting outlandishly huge contracts for said companies.

     The result was something you could typically expect. This ketamin-addicted psychopath essentially threw the entire government into a state of turmoil and even right wing lawmakers are getting furious pushback from their own constituents at town halls. (Naturally, these profiles in courage are now opting to avoid town halls entirely.)

     The reason these Republican voters are so angry is perfectly understandable. Many of them lost their jobs with the government or know or are related to others who had. Republican voters, like Democratic and Independent ones, vote with their pocketbooks. Just like Democrats and Independents, they. too, voted largely because of their concerns for the economy. When you take away their revenue stream, when you cripple their ability to pay their bills and then simultaneously needlessly raise prices so it makes it even harder for them to keep body and soul together, of course they're going to be angry.

     The reasons for Trump's reversal on Musk are probably manifold and have absolutely nothing to do with concern for his fellow Americans, or even his own voters. Musk is embarrassing him and revealing his administration for the rancid shit show that it really is. Trump views everything through a self-interested PR lens and he's dimly beginning to come to the conclusion that maybe putting Musk in charge of the Civil Service and basically the whole government was one of his worst ideas.

     Again, Republican voters are justifiably furious over the chaos that Musk had started. Air traffic controllers, nuclear regulators, health care professionals and other highly-vital employees have been thrown out on the unemployment line. In several cases, employees have been fired, then rehired (if they can reach them after they were locked out of their email accounts), then refired only to be rehired again. The 6000 workers at the USDA who were originally axed can tell you all about that. Our government is administratively insane.

     So, Trump today reasserted his nominal control over Musk and the government by telling him to use a scalpel instead of a hatchet. Still, 76,000 VA employees are facing imminent termination and the Social Security administration is next. There's no indication so far that Musk is taking Trump's guidance under any serious advisement. He's probably telling his juvenile delinquents, "Carry on and forget what Trump said. You all know who's really in charge." Musk, after all, is paying them.

     Don't forget, Musk is a guy whose own four year-old son knows who's really in charge ("You're not the president and you need to go away," as he picked his nose and wiped his boogers all over the Resolute Desk.). Don't expect Musk to take this lying down. Just because he seemed to accept Trump's new edict, it doesn't mean he'll heel to any more than Trump is obeying the courts to unfreeze Congressionally-allocated aid to foreign countries.

     And, of course, Trump's cynical about-face on Musk's nonexistent authority to fire federal workers doesn't necessarily carry any weight. After all, firing much of the Civil Service and much of the federal workforce was one of the cornerstones of his campaign and Project 2025 last year. It's just inconceivable that so many American voters decided to go with the guy who vowed to destroy this country, this government and to breezily say this would all somehow Make America Great Again without once explaining how.

     But, after just six weeks of this clown show, the wheels are falling off the wagon that's barreling toward the edge of the cliff and even a fucking idiot like Trump knows the bridge is out up ahead. Courts have forced Trump to reinstate workers he'd fired. The people are fed up with the economic ruin and chaos. Even the supine mainstream media are beginning to notice how bizarre and ruinous all this is.

     For the first six weeks, Trump and Musk have been joined at the hip like Chang and Eng Bunker. They gave interviews together, had a joint press conference at the Oval Office, Musk was allowed to sit (or stand) in on Cabinet meetings. It's a miracle that Musk contented himself to stand in the gallery at the State of the Union instead of sitting between JD Vance and Mike Johnson.

     However, even Trump is beginning to see the light of day, even if it's just the harsh glare of bad PR. There's a major power broker in Washington who's even more insane than Donald Trump and it's Elon Musk.

      Think about that for a moment.