There has been some good news from US in last few days. First was repudiation of Trump’s insane Tariff policy although it has now gone into Court appeal. Second good news is infighting between Trump and Elon Musk. Although i enjoyed the mudslinging by these scoundrels against each other, i don’t have much hope that it will actually undermine Trump regime in a major why. I will get to the reasoning on this in a bit. But first understand some basic picture about Trump regime.
Trump regime is a paradox - a combination of fire and water, alliance of despicable crony factions that even hate each other, unstable gaggle of idiots who cannot think long term, paranoid delusional narcissists who have little inclination for strategic cooperation. Only thing that has brought them together is their common will to plunder America. They hate America more than they hate each other.
Why Trump regime is so chaotic? For two reasons. First is daily whims of big boss Donald Trump himself who is a highly erratic and unstable moron. Second is that the crony factions in the regime have little coherent planning to achieve any long term objectives. It’s a regime of chaos and anarchy. While it’s doing so many bad things, its also doing these things in disorderly and senseless ways.
Many people had speculated that there will be constant infighting among these factions of Trump regime which was also a feature of first Trump regime. You have already seen some small trailers of infighting in 2nd Trump regime. The tantrums of Laura Loomer against Musk. Pro-Trump billionaires like Bill Ackman airing their grievances against Trump tariffs. Elon Musk just few months ago attacking anti-immigrant hardliners of Trump regime. Bannon bad mouthing Elon Musk earlier and now even calling for his deportation.
To be sure, there’s no substantive basis of these fights as nobody here is fighting for some superior moral virtues or a righteous cause or for national interest of America. These are gaggle of idiots & fanatics where fights are purely on vendetta or self serving interests (commercial, political, personal etc). Now Elon Musk basically says that Trump’s ‘big beautiful bill’ is steaming pile of bullcrap. Why did Musk say so? Is it because Musk is genuinely against the fraud and cruelty of this bill? No! Actually, Musk is against this ‘big beautiful bill’ because it’s not ugly enough to his liking. Meaning - the bill doesn’t impose a more severe and more mindless austerity on American people. We have seen this script before in Republican party Congress.
The extreme right wing factions of Republicans - the so called freedom caucus - are often against Trump regime’s legislative agenda. Not out of any sensibility or reasonable critique or genuine concern over humanitarian impact of bad pieces of legislation. They oppose legislation because they are not extreme enough, destructive enough and brutal enough for freedom caucus fanatics. Recall that Republicans can’t pass their own legislation because of their fratricidal extreme factions which kill their own party’s legislation at vote floor.
But back to present crisis. The Musk threw up his bile by saying Trump is in the Epstein files (which he is), Trump’s tariffs will cause recession (everybody knows that), Musk ensured Trump’s victory in 2024 elections (Musk’s financial & AI algorithms support to Trump is an open secret). In return, Trump attacked Musk on billions of $$$ of government contracts & subsidies which Starlink, Space X, Tesla etc enjoy. Here, i like to emphasize that it’s not just Trump & GOP that helped built mega empire of Elon Musk. It’s also the Democrats. Nurturing billionaires - feeding them special favors, subsidies, monopoly positions, government contracts etc - this is bipartisan feature of US politics. Democrats built Elon Musk as much as Republicans.
Now to the question which everybody is thinking. Will we see the divorce of Musk and Trump? Will Musk pull financial plug on Trump regime? Will Trump pull the plug on Musk’s government contracts? I don’t think so. Why? For two reasons. First is that all these scoundrels are shameless opportunists. Recall the days when almost every conventional Republican politician from Romney & Rubio to Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz hated Donald Trump with every bone in their body. Recall what they said about Trump in 2015 and 2016 when he was entering GOP politics.
In return, Trump also gave them bitter & brutal response. Do you remember the things Trump said about Ted Cruz’s wife and father? What about Rubio? Now all is forgotten and forgiven. That’s politics. Also recall the short lived divorce of Republicans and Trump in wake of Jan 6 riot. Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell & many others strongly criticized Trump for violence until they went back in bed with him soon after.
Secondly, as i already said. These factions of Trump regime hate America more than they hate each other. In other words, their basic survival instinct will kick in, which is about need for plundering America. To continue the plunder, they will digest insults and banter. It’s not a difficult thing for these people. They are in it for the money and don’t wanna risk of getting off from this gravy train. So Musk faction and MAGA faction can do Kayfabe banter for a while but soon they will patch up. Musk will be back at Mar-a-Lago just like he used to reside there.
However, i am more curious about another possibility. What if Musk decides to make a different kind of political play? Like financing a 3rd national party. He can wean off some ‘moderates’ from Republican party, some opportunists from Democratic party (think of politicians like Fetterman) and also bring fresh outsiders into American politics. Think of an American version of ‘Reform UK’ Party. Now some American analysts say that it’s a good thing but it may not be.
American analysts say that Political rift between GOP will split the party and greatly undermine its national influence. Two things on this. First, the new party won’t be based on any real ideas and visions for America. It will comprise of same old hacks from GOP and possibly some Democrats who will have nothing constructive to offer (on the contrary, they will only be a destructive force). Secondly, I do not like the risk of US falling into multiparty politics like that of UK. It will be more paralyzing, destabilizing and unproductive. So a multiparty politics, in it’s current settings, may change the game of traditional US politics and for the worse.
Overall, it will be interesting to see how Trump Musk feud pans out. A quick patch up or a bitter protracted conflict? My guess is on the former.
Musical Coda
Creed (2015) theme ‘if i fight, you fight’