Midnight Mutterings | Breaking up?

Each brought something essential to the relationship, and for a few months it seemed to work well for both, if not for us: Citizens of the United States and the World.

Donny has the best clubhouse. Actually two. In Florida he has an actual ‘club’ Mar-a-Lago, where he and his friends could meet, share a McDonald’s Happy Meal, and where he and his family could live with their best friends the Secret Service (who paid big rent from the nation’s coffers). Then there was his other club, the White House, newly acquired—for the second time-a big perk of his job. At Mar-a-Lago  Donny could keep his family, boxes of state secrets peppered with his golf shirts, which made the boxes seem like his personal possessions, at least to him. This club is big and White (in at least a couple of ways) and was built by slaves, as Michele Obama pointed out during her tenure there before Donny’s first term after the 2016 Presidential election. Construction of the White House began in 1792, though Congress moved the Capital to Philadelphia for a time before any Presidents actually lived in Washington, D.C.

I need to interrupt myself here to mention that neither Donny nor I are very good at history. That’s why we need Heather Cox Richardson to guide our typing hand. (Or Sharpie, in Donny’s case.)

Now back to The Breakup: If Donny has the best clubhouses and support staff, Elon has the best toys. That is if you think space ships are more fun than golf carts. And Elon could never live in the White House as President given that Pretoria, South Africa, is not part of the United States and his Canadian mother was in Pretoria when little Elon was born.

Nevertheless, Elon is said to be the Richest Man in the World. Much of that money is the result of US Government Contracts for his various businesses. And Elon shared a part of that money by contributing to Donny’s election war chest. Many say that without Elon’s contributions, that Donny could not have been elected in 2020. And that Donny paid Elon back by making him a major advisor in Donny’s presidency.

So Elon goes to Washington, D.C. with Donny and is responsible in large part for implementing DOGE, a newly created Department of Government Efficiency. Thus began the dismantling of much of the government bureaucracy. That is (it seems to me) the dismantling and defunding of all the offices that keep US citizens who are not as rich as Donny and Elon, alive and well.

Many of us and our families who are not as rich is Donny and Elon, but not destitute have been able to receive medical treatment (not to mention food and housing and schooling) that kept members of our families alive. My daughter received ten years of excellent medical treatment for her rare bone marrow disease that would have broken our collective bank in the first month. Many of us went to public schools and universities and even benefited for private schooling with scholarships and grants. I don’t know if Donny and his family benefited from government assistance prior to his presidency, but Elon, as mentioned before, owes at least part of his great wealth to government contracts. Possibly most.

I don’t really understand much about Elon’s and Donny’s breakup (or about their previous partnership, for that matter) but I hear as of today, Elon may be anxious to heal the breach.

They did say terrible things about each other in the heat of their disagreements, and Donny, at least, has never been eager to apologize or admit error, but they both have a lot to gain by making up, and we, the American citizens have a lot to lose if they heal their rift and proceed on their previous course. Bye, bye Department of Education, U.S. Post Office, US Aid….