Elon Musk’s energy seize is lastly energizing a resistance. But it surely’s already being undermined by the social gathering elite’s dependency on Silicon Valley.
Elon Musk’s ongoing coup, taking over the administrative state, has succeeded in doing one thing Democrats have struggled to do for a lot of months: remind voters why they hate Donald Trump a lot and why he must be actively resisted. Trump’s first victory in 2020 produced fast nationwide protests that roiled for weeks together with years of civil society agitation. The dismal sequel in 2024 has generated no fast wave of dissent. In sharp distinction to occasions eight years earlier, the anti-Trump coalition, already weary not simply from resisting Trumpism for a decade but in addition from having to defend the hapless presidency of Joe Biden, was surprised, demoralized, and withdrawn. Versus mass protests, there was a widespread disengagement from the news, an inner migration into non-public despair widespread to the onset of authoritarianism.
Musk’s energy seize has modified all that: the spectacle of the world’s richest man exercising extra-constitutional energy to evaluation and probably remake the interior laptop community of the federal authorities, whereas additionally arbitrarily placing federal staff on go away and threatening to close down entire businesses, raises the specter of huge corruption and authoritarianism to a right away risk. Musk’s transfer has been met not simply with the anticipated courtroom challenges (which, whereas welcome, may decelerate Musk, however as my colleague Elie Mystal cogently observes, are unlikely to cease him). Substantial protests are starting to break out again throughout America: in Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Michigan, Texas, Wisconsin, Indiana, California, Nevada, and Washington, DC.
Resistance 2.0 is being born earlier than our eyes—and there’s motive to hope it might be freed from the vices of the sooner Resistance: pro-establishment nostalgia, a slavish fealty to the management of the Democratic Celebration, and a propensity to elevate grifters and crackpot conspiracy theorists.
Reporting on the protests in Washington for The Nation, Chris Lehmann observed that the ire of the assembled activists was directed not simply at Musk and Trump but in addition the weak-kneed opposition of Democratic Celebration leaders, a few of whom, like Senate minority chief Chuck Schumer, spoke on the occasion. In response to Lehmann, a “hanging disjuncture between an aggrieved public demanding motion and a nationwide Democratic Celebration working on autopilot was the backstory to the Treasury protest.”
Prodded by their indignant base, Democratic leaders are beginning to grow to be extra vocal, however discovering themselves hobbled by the contradictions of their very own relationship to the Silicon Valley plutocratic class that Musk belongs to.
The clearest argument in opposition to Musk and Trump is simple class politics: This energy seize is a approach for the superrich to regulate the general public treasury, achieve entry to doubtlessly profitable knowledge that ought to correctly be beneath the safekeeping of presidency officers topic to congressional supervision, and put together the bottom for tax cuts to make the already rich even wealthier. Because the world’s richest man, Musk makes an ideal villain on this narrative.
Present Problem
Senator Bernie Sanders—not himself a Democrat, however an necessary ally of the social gathering—has been probably the most forthright on this line of assault. He’s lengthy urged, with solely partial success, for Democrats to focus on not simply Trump however the wider oligarchy.
On Saturday, Sanders posted:
Elon Musk, the richest man on the earth, goes after USAID, which feeds the poorest individuals on the earth. Subsequent, he’ll go after the packages that impression you: Medicaid, Medicare, group well being facilities, Pell Grants, reasonably priced housing. We are able to cease him.
This can be a message that Sanders has been repeating for a while—and it’s lastly beginning to take maintain. Showing on the podcast The Weekly Present on Friday, Home Democratic chief Hakeem Jeffries suprisingly sounded the identical note: “Republicans within the Home, the Senate, the administration, they need to enact huge tax cuts for his or her billionaire donors and rich companies. Observe the cash. That is the fact of what’s happening. And in that course of, they need to stick working-class Individuals with the invoice.”
This resonant class-war rhetoric rings hole, nonetheless, as a result of, as Politico reported that very day, Jeffries “quietly met with greater than 150 Silicon Valley-based donors final week in California—an early step in Democrats’ efforts to restore relationships with a once-deep blue constituency.” In response to one participant, “The singular focus was—how can we guarantee Silicon Valley stays with Democrats as a result of, proper now, Silicon Valley is feeling very purple.”
It’s laborious to reconcile Jeffries’s groveling earlier than Silicon Valley along with his harsh phrases in opposition to “billionaire donors.” As Politico notes, “the moneyed tech world that Musk hails from is essential to Democrats’ fortunes in 2026.”
The central contradiction is that electorally the very best hope Democrats have is financial populism—however the social gathering’s centrist management class is hooked on plutocratic cash. The one path out of this deadlock is thru adopting the Bernie Sanders mannequin of counting on small donors—however there’s little proof that the social gathering needs to comply with that mannequin. It’s at all times completely satisfied to make use of the mailing lists of politicians who know how one can attraction to small donors (other than Sanders, one other prime instance is Consultant Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez). However the principle result’s clogging these donors’ e-mail inboxes and DMs with more and more dire and annoying requests for cash. The bigger social gathering stays slavishly depending on bigger donors.
As knowledge guru Nate Silver notes:
Though the migration of a distinguished wing of billionaires towards Republicans considerably upsets the stability, Democrats have been on a long-term trajectory towards being the party of the well-off. Regardless of Musk’s assist, Harris obtained almost as much outside money as Trump last year. And she actually had her strongest performance amongst voters making $100,000 or extra per yr.
As Silver factors out, Democrats have to choose between a technique of both conserving their billionaires completely satisfied or embracing financial populism.
Democrats have lengthy tried to resolve this contradiction by obfuscating the difficulty of sophistication domination as a morality play that distinguishes between “good” billionaires and “unhealthy” billionaires. Ken Martin just lately ascended to the management of the Democratic Nationwide Committee thanks partly to the truth that he was seen as less beholden to billionaires than his major rival, Ben Winkler. However throughout the management race Martin also said, “There are lots of good billionaires on the market which were with Democrats, who share our values, and we are going to take their cash. However we’re not taking cash from these unhealthy billionaires.”
However this transfer from the financial to the moral is a spurious distraction. The query isn’t whether or not Musk is “unhealthy” and George Soros “good” (in spite of everything, Republicans suppose the alternative, so that is only a mirror picture of their politics). The query is: Do Democrats reject a wildly unequal society the place billionaires have immeasurably extra sway over politics than atypical residents? In the event that they do, they must push to rein within the only a few “good” billionaires together with the numerous extra “unhealthy” ones (who, being rich, naturally gravitate to the GOP).
Class politics is by definition polarizing, elevating the core query: Which facet are you on? Are you with the billionaires—or with the individuals?
Common
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Except Democrats can categorical this class politics with readability, they’ll don’t have any edge over Republicans on financial points. It will cut back politics to the infinite farce of culture-war antics—a farce whose theatrical conventions Trump mastered way back.
As Silver says, “this case requires what I describe as a raise-or-fold strategy: both Democrats must be with the billionaires or in opposition to them. The Martin-esque center floor of separating the world into naughty and good billionaires might be the worst choice.”
We’d add that the Martin and Jeffries technique of taking part in each side of the road can also be a great way to get everybody—pro-establishment individuals and anti-system insurgents—to hate you.
Musk is main the Republicans to disaster—however he may but be saved by the utter political incompetence of the Democrats.
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