Amazing.
Apparently, Elon Musk and President Trump are at odds over the action to be taken — or not taken — on the comprehensive spending bill winding through Congress. (RELATED: Five Quick Things: The Rescission Cometh)
Now. In this tussle between the president and Elon Musk? At first, I was set to say “No big deal. These disagreements over legislation happen — now and all throughout history. As someone who had a Washington career, I can attest that there’s nothing new here.
Yet there, out of the blue, is Elon Musk saying this on X: “Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate. Such ingratitude.”
In another tweet, Musk had seen this from someone out there: “President vs Elon. Who wins? My money’s on Elon. Trump should be impeached and JD Vance should replace him,” reads the post to which Musk replied, “Yes.”
Let me start with this. I don’t know Elon Musk, but I like and respect him.
But this is a moment to stand up for President Trump and say the obvious. Which is, plainly put: “No, Elon, you did not elect President Trump. The American people did.”
And feeding the fires by saying “yes” to some Trump Derangement Syndrome crazy calling for impeachment is hardly productive or healthy.
To say the least, Elon Musk may know his way around rockets and computers. But here in this corner? When it comes to the nitty-gritty of American and Washington politics, ol’ Elon is, to say the least, decidedly naive and inexperienced.
I have spent a lifetime in American politics, introduced to it by my very politically active parents who held local and county offices in Massachusetts. When we moved to Pennsylvania when I was a teenager, I took the plunge here. Learning every last square inch of Pennsylvania politics as a political aide to, successively, a state senator, U.S. congressman, U.S. senator, the co-chair of the winning 1984 Reagan–Bush campaign, and then finally into the Reagan White House as a White House associate political director for President Reagan.
And also, in that D.C. time, I spent time working for that congressman in his role as a member of the House Budget Committee — and have seen close up the crazy budget and spending woes Musk is seeing for the first time.
In the course of that career, I crisscrossed, first, Pennsylvania, then eventually America. Working with local, state, and national Republicans on the campaign of the day.
To be clear, there are plenty of Americans who have done their version of the same for either the Republican or Democrat Party.
And one thing is certain. If anything was learned in all of that, it was that presidential elections — and state and local elections — are won at the grassroots level by those grassroots party activists. They are the ones who do the grunt work. They are the ones who compile the voter lists, use whatever is the latest in electioneering equipment, and do the most basic of tasks that win elections — like going door-to-door to speak in person with neighbors and others.
Yes, for sure, money counts. Whether it comes from Elon Musk or anyone else. With enough of it, an election can be won.
But there is no guarantee. American political history is littered with examples of wealthy candidates or wealthy supporters of candidates spending oceans of money — and losing.
Here’s but one of a zillion examples, this one from Maryland, written up in the New York Times. The headline: “David Trone Torched $60 Million of His Own Money. He’s Not the Only One. It is a time-honored tradition in U.S. politics: wealthy people burning through their fortunes to ultimately lose an election.”
The Times story reports in part:
The costly realm of campaign politics has claimed its share of the fortunes of yet another business magnate with aspirations to higher office.
Representative David Trone, Democrat of Maryland who co-owns the largest wine retailer in the country, poured more than $60 million of his personal fortune into his Senate campaign in Maryland, according to campaign finance reports filed to the Federal Election Commission. He lost the Democratic primary this week to Angela Alsobrooks, a county executive whose campaign had spent about a tenth of that amount.
It is a time-honored tradition in U.S. politics: wealthy people burning dizzying sums of money to fuel their political ambitions through long-shot candidacies, or — as in Mr. Trone’s case — campaigns with good odds that simply don’t end up working out.
In short?
Just because private citizen Donald J. Trump was a literal billionaire or had wealthy supporters like Elon Musk, there was not the slightest chance that he could win any election — most notably including the presidency — because of that fact.
What elected Donald Trump as President Trump was because he was — make that is — a seriously talented individual human being who has demonstrated repeatedly — throughout a lifetime — his ability to launch successful ventures. Whether they were in the private sector of the real estate world or as a candidate for president or now as the sitting president of the United States, President Trump has demonstrated his repeated ability to get things done — and if he encounters a problem, to go around and try again until it’s mission accomplished. This ability has been repeatedly on display both in American domestic politics and on the world stage, notably with his peace efforts in the Middle East.
Which brings us back to Mr. Musk. Yes indeed, Elon Musk is a smart, extremely capable, wealthy businessman. But his latest remarks make it clear that he is breathtakingly naive about American politics, a problem that doubtless comes about because he is coming late — very late — to the American political process.
And not to put too fine a point on it, but Musk’s apparent nod to some crazy’s tweet on Thursday about impeaching the president reveals a massive streak of seriously bad political judgment. Not to mention standing close to blowing a seriously possible chance to move history forward in a considerably historic and positive fashion.
It isn’t too late, of course. If Elon Musk is the smart guy he appears to be, there is still time aplenty for him to learn about the mistakes he has made both in Washington and with Donald Trump.
Is Elon Musk up to the task — or will he blow it?
Stay tuned.
READ MORE from Jeffrey Lord:
Conservatives Have Reason to Admire Kennedy