The Billionaire Who Stole Christmas

Glad holidays! Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa are proper across the nook—cultures all around the globe have fun festivals of sunshine right now of yr. However the Republican Occasion appears to have opted for the darkly humorous, Seinfeld-invented vacation of “Festivus,” finest identified for “the airing of the grievances.”

For anybody nonetheless mourning Donald Trump’s reelection: Please get pleasure from your vacation season whereas the GOP airs its grievances and tears itself aside. Schadenfreude makes a scrumptious aspect dish on any vacation desk.

To recap: After Speaker Mike Johnson introduced a bipartisan deal for a seamless decision that might maintain the federal government open into subsequent yr, shadow president Elon Musk trashed it, posting on Xitter 150 occasions in opposition to the spending within the invoice on Wednesday. To not be outdone by Musk, Trump instantly trashed the deal, too, and included a brand-new demand that Congress raise, and even abolish, the debt ceiling.

“Growing the debt ceiling shouldn’t be nice,” Trump mentioned, “however we’d relatively do it on Biden’s watch.” See? He is aware of lifting the debt ceiling is unpopular together with his MAGA base, however he thinks they’re dumb sufficient in charge it on Joe Biden. Possibly they’re; perhaps it’s going to play that manner within the right-wing echo chamber, however the remainder of us see it because the craven try and raise the debt ceiling so he can prolong his budget-busting tax cuts and run the deficit ever increased.

Politico analyzed the Musk-Trump two-step this fashion: The Tesla billionaire “obtained waaay out over his spending-slashing skis and backed Trump right into a nook.” I see it a lot the identical manner.

In case you’ve forgotten the struggling brought on by earlier shutdowns: Social Safety and Medicare funds would proceed, however funds to some army personnel can be suspended. “Non-essential” federal employees will go with out pay; in the course of the 2019 shutdown, unpaid federal employees crowded Washington, DC–space meals banks.

The dutiful and doubtless doomed Mike Johnson, just lately heard bragging about his cool textual content chain with Musk and fellow DOGEr Vivek Ramaswamy, went again to the drafting board, crafting a invoice that met a few of Musk’s calls for, with spending cuts that included slashing funds for pediatric most cancers analysis, plus a two-year debt ceiling hike to please Trump. Nevertheless it failed, with 38 Republicans voting in opposition to it and all however two Democrats doing the identical.

“We should unequivocally reject the illegitimate oligarchy that seeks to usurp the authority of the US Congress and of the American individuals,” longtime Connecticut progressive Consultant Rosa DeLauro mentioned. On this invoice, Democrats did precisely that.

Some Republicans balked at Musk’s outsize position. Pennsylvania Consultant Glenn Thompson, chair of the Agriculture Committee, informed reporters that he “didn’t see the place Musk has a voting card,” including, “I’m undecided he understands the plight of the conventional working individuals proper now.” The invoice Musk torpedoed contained farm assist Thompson supported.

However others welcomed their new Afrikaner overlord. “I’d be open to supporting @elonmusk for Speaker of the Home,” Consultant Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote on social media. “The institution must be shattered similar to it was yesterday. This could possibly be the best way.” It needs to be famous that Musk is eligible to be speaker: Not being a Home member and having been born and raised in South Africa shouldn’t be an impediment.

With the invoice he opposed defeated, and no resolution in view, Musk turned his consideration to his different massive precedence: applauding Nazism.

Weighing in on German politics, he praised the Nazi-adjacent, far-right, anti-immigrant Alliance for Germany (AfD) vying for management within the coming February 23 election.

“Solely the AfD can save Germany,” Musk posted on X.

Additionally this week, Nigel Farage, head of the far-right Reform UK get together, posted a photograph of himself with Musk at Mar-a-Lago. Musk needs to do greater than reduce authorities spending; he needs to remake the Republican Occasion within the picture of Europe’s scariest gamers. Is Trump on board? Most likely. He’s hosted Farage, and brazenly praises Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. He’s a buddy of dictators across the globe.

There’s numerous hypothesis that by transferring out forward on sinking the Johnson invoice, Musk overshadowed Trump and made it clear he’s the chief—and finally, Trump’s ego gained’t enable that. Bear in mind, in his first time period, Trump banished his marketing campaign supervisor and prime adviser Steve Bannon when Bannon was getting—and taking—an excessive amount of credit score for Trump’s strikes. Democrats have taken to calling Musk “President Musk,” served by “Vice President Trump,” hoping to interrupt up the dynamic duo. (The place does that go away JD Vance—espresso boy?)

This is perhaps totally different. Bannon introduced a microphone to the get together, however he didn’t deliver billions that might enable Trump to make good on threats to “major” disloyal Republicans. With sufficient solicitude towards Trump, Musk might nicely survive because the president’s enforcer.

In the meantime, in a Hail Mary go Friday morning, roughly 12 hours earlier than the federal government is ready to shutdown, Mike Johnson mentioned that he was getting ready a brand new invoice: “We’ve obtained a plan,” he informed Politico. However Trump, who is claimed to be weighing the ROI of a shutdown, doubtless doesn’t care.

“If there may be going to be a shutdown of presidency,” he posted, “let it start now, underneath the Biden Administration, not after January twentieth, underneath ‘TRUMP.’”