Trump 2.0 is blowing up on the launchpad, which makes complete sense considering the proximity of Elon Musk to these proceedings. In fact, you can’t find a better metaphor for 2025 than the Tesla cybertruck which blew up in front of the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas on New Year’s Day. That’s pretty much where we are going folks. Fate has given us a sign. And that’s not the only one. Here is Trump himself doing a 180 on immigration and then saying, no, this has always been his stance. Well, did we hallucinate the videos below?
🚨BREAKING NEWS🚨
Trump switches party affiliation before swearing in. ‘We need a lot of people coming in’ said New Democrat Donald Trump.
— ᖘ (@_pinkrantz) January 1, 2025
So I guess these videos are the results of mass hallucinations, because I do recall seeing them. Don’t you?
He’s a habitual, shameless liar. As this shows. And thousands of clips before this showed. But everyone knew that already, so Shameless Habitual Liars is the American Brand now. Make America Full of Shit Again. https://t.co/Yu6zzA6L93
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) January 1, 2025
There it is. So it appears that Vivek and Elon win round one. But don’t be too sure about this. Steve Bannon has basically declared war on Elon Musk and Bannon knows a good foil when he sees one. Bannon will play this hypocrisy to the hilt to keep MAGA riled up.
The irony that we’re about to see is that the Democrats have always been accused of having purity struggles within the party to our detriment — and this I have seen. This is real. I have on many occasions typed the words, “We’re going to purify ourselves into extinction like the dinosaurs if we keep this up.”
But now the shoe looks to be on the other foot and Trump has to figure out how to appease all the competing factions. Which is impossible. So where is MAGA headed? Are the razor thin margins in both chambers of Congress going to be further hamstrung by a MAGA civil war? The fact is that these internecine squabbles are hilarious on their face, they’re so self contradictory.
A populist coalition led by billionaires is absurd, and so absurdity is unavoidable in its internal squabbles.
That explains how the richest human in history came to spend Christmas this year engaged in a debate that featured observations like “why are people in India still sh–ting in the water they bathe and drink from?”
It began on Sunday when Donald Trump named Sriram Krishnan as a senior White House adviser on artificial intelligence. Krishnan is a venture capitalist, an Elon Musk ally, and a U.S. citizen. But he was born and educated in India and has called for lifting country caps on American green cards.
As that fact circulated on Twitter, holiday cheer among the populist right began to sag. “Did any of yall vote for this Indian to run America?” one user asked alongside a photo of Krishnan.
Setting aside that serving as a “senior White House adviser on artificial intelligence” is a far cry from “running America,” the next 48 hours devolved into a remarkably bitter gang war over high-skilled immigration between grassroots MAGA OGs on one side and Silicon Valley Trumpists like Musk and David Sacks on the other. Krishnan and his country of origin were the target of numerous racist jabs, leading some Indian immigrants looking on to wonder if their alliance with the GOP had been a mistake. At one point Matt Gaetz, whose nomination for attorney general had been touted by Musk, jumped in to warn “tech bros” that their membership in the right’s coalition didn’t entitle them to set immigration policy.
Here lies the essential rub: Trump has been bought off. Vivek and Elon grasp that all too well, especially Elon, since he’s the one that did it. Trump’s task is to spin the billionaires’ self serving manuevers into somehow comporting with MAGA principles and being a fulfillment of what he has promised MAGA. Since we’re talking black and white, apples and oranges, that won’t happen.
And Steve Bannon knows it won’t and so he’s going to bank on the continuation of MAGA and RWNJ world. Bannon knows Musk isn’t up for the fight and that Ramaswamy is a chickenshit who talks too much and says the wrong things. So expect plenty of fireworks.
The only question is, what happens when MAGA becomes disillusioned, when they go to the market in February, March, the summer, the fall and the prices haven’t plummeted and they still see brown faces and hear foreign languages spoken? And worse yet, if the tariffs do begin to happen and the prices skyrocket up?
Get ready to rumble.
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Friends, I am forced to self-promote and ask you for money. We had a bad year compared with 2023 and the end of the year has been catastrophic. Traffic died on November 5. We are a small blog and completely self supporting by ad revenue, donations, and subscriptions. If you can afford a monthly subscription that would help us out. If you can make a small donation, likewise. Our only goal is to stay in business and give you the best content we can generate. I do not want to have to put a certain number of stories behind a pay wall. I want our work to be available to all. Help if you can. And thank you once again to those who subscribe and donate regularly. You are the wind beneath our wings. Thank you. Ursula
You’re right, Ursula, your content is excellent and I’ve been freeloading for far too long. I’ve now corrected that and my soul is far less guilty! Happy 2025!! 😃
I’m not surprised to learn your clicks count fell after 11/05. I was in a deep blue funk, not browsing my news feed for over a week after the Mango Moron was announced as victoious, and I guess that some of your readers took it even worse.
I hope everyone gets over their funk, and PZ continues to inform as it has since I discovered it (when I loaded the Opera browser on my tablet, the home page news feed included PZ articles, and I was hooked once I began reading them).
Thanks and best regards.