EVERY YEAR I WRITE A REVISED VERSION OF THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS.
HERE IS THIS YEAR’S VERSION.
T’was the night before Christmas and all through the House not a MAGA was stirring except Elon Musk.
Blue stockings were hung by the chimney with care with hopes that the laws would all soon disappear.
Billionaires nestled all snug in their beds
With visions of tax breaks that danced in their heads.
And Musk with his newly bought red MAGA power
Tweeted out his demands on X hour after hour.
“Kill the funding!” he tweeted, “Shut down government!”
House MAGAs obeyed Musk, their new president.
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter
Musk sprang from his couch to see what was the matter.
Away to the window he flew in a flash
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow
Revealed a group that had gathered below.
And then to his wondering eyes he was stumped
To see folks in red caps who had voted for Trump!
Their leader below was so lively and quick
Musk knew in a moment it must be Saint Nick.
More rapid than eagles the cult members came
Saint Nick whistled and shouted and called out their names.
To the top of the porch! To the top of the wall!
Now climb away climb away scale it all!
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly
When they meet with an obstacle mount to the sky
So up to the roof top the cult members flew
With some sacks full of coal and some empty sacks too.
And then in a twinkling Musk heard on the roof
The shuffling and moving and tread of their boots.
As Musk drew in his head and was trying to hide,
Down the chimney Saint Nickolas came with these guys.
Their clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot
They were hungry and hopeless and angry to boot.
Instead of receiving what Trump said they’d get
Billionaires had destroyed their social safety net
No more Medicaid, health care or chance to succeed
Just more AR15s and a whole lot of weed.
The rich got much richer and bought their next yacht.
While Trump voters who helped them to win went to rot.
Saint Nick spoke not a word but went straight to his task
Taking all of Musk’s money and filling their sacks.
The coal they had brought they dumped next to Musk’s couch.
Cause that’s what you get when you’ve been such a louse.
“You bought Donald Trump so that you’d be the chief
You’re a self-centered rich guy–corrupt and a thief.
You don’t care if Americans live well or die.
Just like Trump you pretend you’re a wonderful guy.
But we know who you are. You should both be ashamed
More Trump voters will soon learn they too were betrayed.
I’m taking the money you made with your greed
And giving it out to these people in need.
They voted for Trump. Thought he cared. They were dumb.
Now they’re learning the rich won the last election.”
And laying a finger aside of his nose
And giving a nod, up the chimney they rose.
They sprang to the sleigh, the whole team gave a whistle.
And away they all flew like the down of a thisle.
Musk heard them exclaim as they drove off the grounds:
“You’ll be sorry, Elon. We don’t like being conned!”
HOW WE KNOW TRUMP IS A PHONY POPULIST: What Happened with the Funding Bill in the House Says A Lot
You can tell a lot about a president and his bedrock beliefs by the people he chooses to lead the government cabinet posts and be his advisors. Here is what you can tell: Trump is a friend of the ultra wealthy, not the friend of the working man or woman. He is not a populist. He played one on TV for the sake of winning this election. Trump voters were conned. But they don’t know that yet.
Take a look at who Trump has put in power. Elon Musk is the richest man in the world. Musk invested heavily to get Trump elected. And in return Musk is currently more in charge of what is going on in Washington, DC than Trump is. Trump has taken a back seat to Musk at least so far.
This played out in the most recent mess involving the passage of the House bill necessary to fund government. Speaker Johnson had worked hard to craft a bipartisan funding bill with Democrats, which is what you have to do in a divided congress in a democracy- you have to work together for the good of the people you represent to fund the government. I have heard it described as a Christmas tree with ornaments. The ornaments representing the things you add to the funding package that help things like children in need or Veterans, or in this case- Musk.
Musk didn’t like the bill because it didn’t protect his business interests enough. So he set about trying to kill the bill. He tweeted about 100 times to get his followers to tell their representatives not to pass this legislation. And he succeeded in killing that version of the bill. That led to the potential of a government shut down. And the Republicans also looked like a bunch of clowns who couldn’t run government. Next, the Republicans tried to pass a funding bill that gave Musk what he wanted. And Trump jumped in to try to get what HE wanted which is a 2 year hiatus on the debt ceiling. Why? Because Trump’s plan is to continue the big tax breaks for the wealthy that he passed in his first term in office. They are about to expire. However, that funding bill giving Trump and Musk what they wanted for Christmas was voted down. Around 40 Republicans nixxed it despite being threatened by Trump that they would be primaried. (Wow! An little itty bitty show of spine by Republicans there.)
However, the deadline to pass a funding bill was looming at this point. The clock was ticking towards a government shut down right before Christmas. Speaker Johnson went back to the original bill and, working with Democrats, cut and pasted enough to get that bill back to the floor for a vote before the stroke of midnight- the deadline for passage. Johnson had to work with Democrats and give them some of what they wanted- which is democracy in action, y’all. But we can see from this near disaster for the incoming administration that Trump was all in on his rich buddies and Musk was all in for himself. The fact is the next House will have an even smaller majority for Speaker Johnson to work with. He will be forced to work with Democrats because he only has a 2 seat majority in the next House. This might actually bode well for democracy. The MAGAs including Trump and Musk will not be able to get everything their hearts desire despite what Trump is falsely calling a mandate.
But that leaves us with a question: Who is our real president? Is it President Musk?
It’s useful to track how Musk got into his role as the shadow president-elect. The short version is this: He bought his way in.
CBS News Reports:
In March, Musk posted on X, the social media platform he owns, that he would not donate to either presidential candidate. And then on July 3, he made his first contribution of $5 million to America PAC. Ten days later, he publicly announced his endorsement of Trump and quickly became a key figure in the former president’s campaign.
Elon Musk spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars to back President-elect Donald Trump and other Republican candidates, campaign finance records filed Thursday show.
The sum makes Musk, the world’s richest person, the largest donor in the 2024 election cycle to either party, Federal Election Commission filings show.
The bulk of Musk’s spending was through his own America PAC, to which he contributed $239 million. But filings also showed that Musk was also behind a political action committee using the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s namesake — “RBG PAC” — in advertisements with misleading claims that Ginsburg held views on abortion that were similar to Trump’s.
Ginsburg’s granddaughter, Clara Spera, told The New York Times in October that the PAC was an “affront to her grandmother’s legacy,” and it was “nothing short of appalling” that Ginsburg’s name was being used to support Trump’s reelection campaign. Ginsburg openly supported abortion rights, whereas Trump put three conservative justices on the Supreme Court who were part of the majority opinion in the case striking down the federal right to an abortion.
Musk put $20.5 million into the PAC, the only contribution it received. The group ran advertisements emphasizing Trump’s statements that he would veto a national abortion ban if elected, and pointing to Ginsburg’s statements that the decision in Roe v. Wade went too far.
Musk also donated $10 million to the Senate Leadership Fund, which supports Republican Senate candidates, and $3 million to the MAHA Alliance PAC, a group affiliated with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” message.
Through the America PAC, his main campaign vehicle, Musk and a handful of other donors funded a get-out-the-vote effort through door-knocking, texting, phone calls, mailers and advertisements.
By far, America PAC’s biggest expense was a $40.5 million payment to United States of America, Inc, a company registered last month with an address associated with Musk. It’s unclear how exactly those funds were used.
In October, Musk also pledged to give away $1 million a day to a registered voter in Pennsylvania who signed his petition. The sweepstakes were challenged in court, but a judge ruled that they could proceed. Musk’s lawyers said the winners were not chosen by chance, but instead based on their personal stories, and the funds were part of a contract they signed to become spokespeople for his America PAC. Musk is now facing multiple lawsuits from participants who claim it was falsely billed as a lottery.
At a rally Musk held in Pennsylvania for Trump on Oct. 20, he reiterated a message featured in many of his X posts.
“This is the most important election in your lifetime,” he said. “If there’s any election where you ever vote, it should be this one.”
After Trump’s victory, the president-elect tapped him to lead a new initiative called the Department of Government Efficiency with former Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy, advising the president on cutting $500 billion in annual spending and reducing federal government positions.
NOW LOOK AT WHO TRUMP WANTS TO LEAD OUR GOVERNMENT
Let’s look at who is getting into power if Trump gets his picks approved by Congress. Almost all of them are billionaires or mega millionaires. Do you think they are going to go all in for the people? If you think that I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.
- They’ve been picked to lead the departments of Treasury (Scott Bessent), Commerce (Howard Lutnick), Education (Linda McMahon), Interior (Doug Burgum), the Small Business Administration (Kelly Loeffler) and NASA (Jared Isaacman).
- Financier Stephen Feinberg has been nominated for the No. 2 position at the Pentagon. Trump family in-laws Charles Kushner (ambassador to France) and Massad Boulos (Middle East adviser) were tapped for diplomatic roles, alongside billionaire donor Warren Stephens (ambassador to the U.K.).
- An additional four top appointees are hundred-millionaires: celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz (Medicare and Medicaid administrator), Fiserv CEO Frank Bisignano (Social Security commissioner), real estate executive Steven Witkoff (Middle East envoy) and fracking CEO Chris Wright (Energy Department).
And let’s not forget Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk are in charge of something that is being called DOGE the Department of Government Efficiency. These two are going to try to massively cut government spending.
In social media posts, podcasts, op-eds, books and speeches, Musk and Ramaswamy have sketched out what they have in mind: a 75% reduction in the federal workforce, a $2 trillion cut to federal spending and the elimination of entire agencies such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
To make cuts that deep, given the fact that 2/3 of the government budget is mandatory spending, these cuts -if they go through- will have to affect America’s social safety net programs such as Medicaid, Social Security, Medicare, Veteran supports and other programs that Trump’s blue collar voters heavily rely on to stay afloat. Not what Trump voters thought they were voting for.
