Donald and Elon in happier days
This week we were treated to an object lesson in why corporations ought to be nationalized and our economy managed democratically. Last year we were taught an object lesson in how little human rights and “democracy” mean to either party, with only a few Democrats opposing a genocide enthusiastically supported by a senile president and his last-minute replacement.
We have likewise been treated to repeated examples of bipartisan budget balancing and imposed austerity for anything that benefits people — but near-universal approval of annual $150 billion increases in the war budget. For anyone paying attention, these object lessons come to us every day in the pages of ordinary newspapers, not in broadsides distributed by wooly-headed Marxists.
You just have to be paying attention.
At some level each of us knows what this stinking, collapsing system is really here for — exploitation — and the Trump presidency demonstrates it in spades. What we are witnessing in what feels like End Times for the American Dream is what Capitalism is and always has been. We have come face-to-face with a system so insane and base and vicious and transparently evil and perverse and predatory and embarrassing in all its ugly nakedness.
And now, as Capitalists in each country begin toying with the fascism they think is going to save their individual nation’s economy from global competition, erecting trade barriers, arming themselves for eventual war, slapping sanctions on each other, scrambling for resources and territory wherever possible, all these tin-pot emperors have discarded the garments which previously covered their nakedness and corruption.
In fact, the extent of corruption and exploitation is now so apparent, you don’t even have to pay attention any longer. You just have to obey.
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It seems only days ago that Donald Trump was hawking Teslas in the driveway of the White House and Elon Musk was hopped up on something, bouncing around in Trump’s thrall, alternating between Hitler salutes and delivering embarrassing sycophantic praises to the Emperor.
It was weird, but Musk obviously got something out of it — and, as for Trump, what dictator could sniff at all the billions Musk was throwing at him?
In return, the Rouged Caudillo gave Musk carte blanche to create a pretend government agency that took a chainsaw to federal civil service union jobs, even as it failed to deliver trillions in promised savings, instead creating damage that will take years and all that “saved” money (and then some) to repair.
In a typical Trumpian quid pro quo for his most generous benefactor, Trump restructured federal bandwidth initiative requirements to make Musk’s Starlink the more attractive option for rural internet access. Musk’s SpaceX, too, seemed poised to profit handsomely from the Space Force and NASA budgets.
So far, so good for a system that long ago shredded the Emoluments Clause.
Until last week everything was looking roses for this marriage of an increasingly mentally-disturbed fascist and a ketamine-soaked Nazi-saluting tech bro. What could possibly go wrong in such a relationship?
But then Trump created a Big Beautiful Budget giving his first love, Fossil Fuel, the lion’s share of energy subsidies and bupkes for electric vehicle manufacturers like Musk’s Tesla. Only then did a ballistic Musk decide that the Big Beautiful Budget was a “disgusting abomination.” The Führer then had no choice but to strike back.
What transpired was like the shlocky horror film, Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah in which a couple of oversized enraged monsters clash and manage to destroy Japan in the process.
Boys will be boys
In a meeting last week with German chancellor Friedrich Merz, Trump slammed Musk as “disappointing.” Musk fired back on his private social media platform X that “without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate.” Musk then called for Trump’s impeachment and hinted that the President could be found in the [late sex offender Jeffrey] Epstein files.
Whereupon Trump threatened to cancel billions of Musk’s contracts with the federal government. Whereupon Musk promised to suspend future shuttles to NASA’s space station by decommissioning his SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. Whereupon Trump’s jealous ex, Steve Bannon, told Politico that White House trade adviser Peter Navarro ought to be “drafting executive orders [to] implement the Defense Production Act to seize both SpaceX and Starlink and put them under government management […]”
Godzilla. Ghidora. Stomp. Stomp. Stomp.
But let’s go back to Steve Bannon’s comment. There’s already a tool the government can use to seize corporations for the public “good” (if any of Trump’s plans can be said to fall into that category). At least for “defense” purposes.
All of which begs the question: can anybody use tools like this?
Insanity and ketamine may be juicy gossip but they’re irrelevant. Week after week we observe how the same handful of parasitic über-Capitalists use corruption and authoritarian control, openly deal in self-enrichment, violate the Constitution, circumvent Congress — and trifle with the fates of hundreds of millions of working people. It’s less Godzilla and more like class war.
But it’s only class war if the other side really fights back.
Why should we not use all means available to shut down this perpetual cycle of self-enrichment, the endless tinkering with budgets that harm millions and the tax breaks that benefit only a handful of the super-rich?
if SpaceX is so essential to the American space program, and Starlink is so essential to public broadband, let’s just nationalize them.
If a government of billionaires can appoint a Fedex executive to privatize the Postal Service, maybe we should simply start nationalizing corporate assets — as none other than Steve Bannon has suggested (albeit for less noble reasons).
If a government of the billionaires, for the billionaires, and by the billionaires, can arbitrarily take a chainsaw to every social, medical, health, and environmental benefit that we have already paid for, perhaps we ought to return the favor by reviving the 91% tax rate of the Fifties — and no deductions.
Beyond Elon Musk’s businesses, every segment of our economy is too important to be left to the whims of petulant, insane, or drugged-out billionaires indulging their penchant for dick swinging and destructive public displays of power.
Every one of our essential economic sectors, including insurance, construction, housing, manufacturing, transportation, energy, technology, basic science and medical research, healthcare, education, and every step of every major supply chain — not to mention hotels and casinos, too — ought to be nationalized.
The sooner we jettison these greedy lunatics and the corrupt system that benefits only them, the better off everyone will be.
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