Clarence Page: In Wisconsin, Elon Musk turned fame and wealth into votes but not victory
We used to hand it out annually on the public affairs show 'The McLaughlin Group,' among other deliberately dubious honors, as a snarky salute to the formerly powerful and influential who, in the inevitable way that Washington cycles through its luminaries, had outlasted their sell-by date.
With the passing of longtime host John McLaughlin in 2016, the show faded away, just before Donald Trump's first presidency could provide us with a seemingly endless supply of new contenders for the Olympics of political stardom.
That process came back to mind as rumors began to circulate that Musk, the oligarch behind Tesla, X and SpaceX, among other business ventures, was going to exit his controversial role in Trump's administration and return to private sector concerns. Responding to these rumors, the White House issued a statement saying Musk will stay on to complete his DOGE assignment.
Musk, as everyone knows, has dominated headlines this year after Trump empowered him to slash the federal workforce as head of DOGE, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.
This came after Musk spent $290 million in 2024 to elect Trump and other Republican candidates.
As Trump's right-hand man, he has wielded his unsupervised power like a chainsaw to eliminate thousands of government jobs and sow chaos in many federal agencies. Unfortunately, Musk's minions have given the boot to lots of long-tenured workers with what seems to be shockingly little consideration for the valuable services those workers have provided.
Not that government should not do everything possible to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse. That worthy goal has been raised like a hardy perennial at least since the birth of our nation, when presumably it was calculated with quill pens.
Unfortunately, Musk's army of DOGE data wizards has shown questionable abilities to distinguish real waste, fraud and abuse from what many of us would call essential services.
Horror stories abound of lawsuits filed by government workers abruptly locked out of their offices and email accounts, and Musk set off alarm bells with a series of false claims about 'fraud' that DOGE discovered in the Social Security system.
Musk chose to propagate these falsehoods on his influential social media platform, X, which had already become notorious among Democrats and others of the political center and left for amplifying disinformation from right-wing extremists.
Not surprisingly, a backlash against Musk and his enterprises has spread like wildfire, even leading to vandalism and arson targeting his best-known business, Tesla. But the truly painful manifestation of distaste for Musk has been entirely legal, as consumers have shunned his cars. Owing to Tesla's tanking sales, Musk reportedly lost more than a fourth of his total net worth since January as the company's shares plunged.
Yes, losing $121 billion in three months is enough to put anyone in a bad mood. But Musk had more losing to do, as he traveled to Wisconsin to don the obligatory foam Cheesehead hat to campaign for conservative Judge Brad Schimel in a special election for the state's supreme court.
Why did Musk care enough about this election to blow $20 million and a lot of time and effort on it? Because the party that controls Wisconsin's Supreme Court also controls the drawing of congressional districts, and also (potentially) controls the U.S. House after the next election. And thus, as Musk put it, it will control the fate of Western civilization.
Even though it was an off-year election, a surprisingly high turnout gave liberal Judge Susan Crawford enough votes to win handily. Thanks to Schimel's unabashed fealty to Trump and the patronage of Musk, who stooped to handing out million-dollar checks to supporters of a petition against 'activist' judges, Wisconsin voters had the pleasure of articulating the nation's evolving opinion of Musk and DOGE.
Musk's defeat in Wisconsin last Tuesday night was a new sign of energy on the political left. Importantly, Democrats won special elections for state legislative seats in Iowa and Pennsylvania and defeated a handful of Republican-backed state referendums in Louisiana.
The victories resonated nationally as the first burst of good news for Democrats since Trump beat Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in the presidential race.
Wisconsin Democrats couldn't be happier, as the state's high court is expected to consider cases related to abortion rights, union rights and voting rules, in addition to congressional redistricting.
And what about Musk? The Beatles sang, 'Money can't buy me love.'
Perhaps Musk, more unloved than ever, has learned money can't always buy you votes, either.
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