The Arts... Damage Assessment

Art In An Age Of Trump and Techbros

Interesting article in Variety the other day, “John Lithgow Says Donald Trump’s Second Term Is ‘Pure Disaster’ for Arts: ‘First There Was Coronavirus, Now There’s This’” by Alex Ritman. In it, Mr. Ritman reports on Lithgow’s response to Trump and his enablers virtual shutdown of art in this country–as evidenced most recently by the White House’s takeover of the Kennedy Center.

It is a fascinating article, and you have to agree with Mr. Lithgow. But you also have to understand the mindset of the current White House and the people who run it. For the businessmen, tech bros, engineers, and “poorly educated” MAGAheds, the demise of the arts is perfectly acceptable. Indeed, it is praiseworthy. For them, Art was something that college-educated, decadent, effete coastal dwellers did. It wasn’t something that Real Americans did. It didn’t increase shareholder value. It didn’t fix trucks and hammer nails. It didn’t code billion dollar applications. It was…suspect.

And so, in The New World Order, we may expect more of this. There will be less public art…or any sort of art…and more crudity. We will have a society built to reflect the aesthetic values of boors and billionaires.

Which is to say, none at all…

Ms. Vivian Jenna Wilson…and America

I’m not normally a big reader of TeenVogue, but the most recent issue contains an article of real importance to us all, Vivian Jenna Wilson on Being Elon Musk’s Estranged Daughter, Protecting Trans Youth and Taking on the Right Online, by Ella Yurman with Photography by Andy Jackson. In it, Ms. Wilson comes across as an intelligent, thoughtful, assertive, and attractive young person of whom any normal dad would be proud. 

Except, of course, she is Elon Musk’s daughter, and Voorsitter (look it up) Musk is anything but a normal father. He has famously rejected her and says that she was “killed by the woke mind virus.”

One wonders how dreadfully hard it was (and is) to be his child. But there's a larger issue here, of course. Her Dad is now everyone’s Dad. That is, he is President or Co-President or CEO or Voorsitter or whatever for the whole country. Meaning that his attitudes and activities impact us all.

Which makes this article and interview with Ms. Wilson particularly important. It gives some insight into who Elon is and what he might do.

And, alas, unlike his daughter, we cannot fly to Japan to escape him.

Voorsitter Musk

Elon Musk is now either running the American government or trying very hard to do so. He seems to be calling the shots at the White House while his nominal boss heads out for another round of golf. 

But the question is, what do we call him? Co-President Musk? Prime Minister Musk? Grand High Poobah Musk? It’s a puzzle.

I, however, have a suggestion. Let’s call him Voorsitter Musk. That’s Afrikaans for “Chairman.” It’s from the Dutch voorzitter, which means the same thing.

I think Voorsitter would make a great title for our fearless leader. For one thing, Elon Musk is not of Afrikkans-descent, but he is of South African origin, and so there is a nice continuity there. And, besides, he just looks like a Voorsitter, don’t you think?

Oh, and if you added an “h” in just the right place…

Well, you get the point.

~mjt

He's A Robot

 One thing I don’t understand is why no one among the tinfoil hat crew has come up with a particularly bonkers theory to explain why Trump the Candidate is so very different from Trump the President. Back in 2024, he was promising the moon and more to everyone. Lower prices. Jobs galore. The Middle Class protected. White people respected instead of mocked by full professors of Advanced Postmodernist Studies. 

Now, in office, he’s done none of those things and is, in fact, taking measures that actively harm a good many of his supporters – for example, cutting back on affordable health care and imposing tariffs on industries that can’t afford them. 

You would think, then, that the MAGA and the QAnon crew (not much difference between them) would be searching for an explanation. Yet, they haven’t seemed to come up with anything yet.

So, let me see if I can lend a hand. Now, what could we say? Ah, I’ve got it! Donald Trump has been removed. He has been replaced by a humanoid robot by Musk and his billionaire buddies. That works. Rather well in fact.

So, to all the MAGAnons out there, start spreading the news. Your hero has been replaced by an automation, as synthetic and soulless as a Visit With Abe Lincoln in Disneyland.

His Majesty Musk, First Shogun

Speaking of the Trump/Musk relationship, the power of the latter seems enormously more real than the power of the former. It does feel like a Monarch/Prime Minister relationship. Or, as I’ve said before, if you want to use a chess metaphor, then a stationary king and an all-powerful Queen.

Actually, I suppose we’ve been working toward that…at least with GOP presidents…for quite some time. Reagan, by the end of his term, was largely a symbolic figure, wheeled out to make pronouncements, and then wheeled back in to resume his nap. Real governing was done by the powers behind the throne. Similarly, George W. Bush was more a head of state than a head of government, and genuine power devolved to Dick Cheney. Now, with the second Trump Administration, we’ve gone all the way to golfer-in-chief (Trump) and a national Corporate CEO (Musk).

But I wonder how comfortable Trump should be with that. Yes, it gives him lots of time to work on his birdie, but the position of do-nothing-king is not a long term profession.

One will recall that shoguns and majordomos and others have the interesting habit of deposing and replacing their kings.

And sometimes removing a royal head in the process. 

Heads Exploding

 There was an encouraging article in Politico a while back, “Congressional Republicans start backing away from Musk: The tech mogul hinted he might wade into spending negotiations again ahead of the next government funding deadline” by Lisa Kashinsky and Mia McCarthy.  In it, Kashinsky and McCarthy say that Republicans in the Senate and the House are getting enough pushback from their constituents that they may be, finally, slowly losing their patience with Musk and DOGE. In fact, they could…at last!...discover the courage to oppose him.

I hope this is true, but…well…I’ve not seen a lot of evidence for it on the ground. I’m very much afraid that the GOP will continue to be cowed by Trump’s MAGA and Musk’s money. I’m guessing that they’ll make a few vaguely defiant gestures, and then kiss the whip as they’ve done before.

Still…it would be wonderful if something like that did happen…and if the Congressmen and -women somehow found that they had a spinal column after all.

I mean, really, it would be worth it…just to watch while heads in the White House, the House, the Senate, and the Republican National Committee exploded with all the force and color of an outtake from a cheapjack ripoff of “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

They’re “sick” of Musk…as are we all

Amusing article in the New Republic today, “All of Trump’s Appointees Are Sick of Elon Musk: Donald Trump’s appointees are growing frustrated with DOGE’s dangerous shenanigans” by Edith Olmsted. In it, Ms. Olmsted reports on how Trump’s Cabinet members have had it up to here with Musk and his DOGE-bros and his meddling. And they are telling their staffs to ignore his notes, directives, and diktats. 

Which is doubtlessly true and understandable. Musk is a dork with all the people skills of a cherrystone clam, and I don’t care how many great companies he is “managing,” because he seems to have no idea how to run a government. 

But the thing is: will the Cabinet be able to find enough power and courage to stand up to Musk, who paid good money for Trump and owns him body and soul. I’m guessing that will be hard. Musk says sh*t. Trump is going to say what color and round or cubical?

On the other hand, here’s a question. Just for sake of supposing…well, what would happen if Trump were no longer in the picture? Suppose for reasons of health or the 25th Amendment or whatever, he were to retire or otherwise become less involved with the running of the government?

What happens then? And would some Cabinet members, and some staffers, be looking for a little revenge?

Poor Steve Bannon

Poor Steve Bannon.

Say what you like about him, but he does have an ideology. He does believe in something other than himself. That puts him far and away beyond some other figures on the Right.

And he worked like a champ for years to put Trump in the White House, not once but twice. I’m sure he saw Trump as his sledgehammer, the tool by which the old Liberal Institutions would be removed, leaving room for his carefully constructed National Conservative alternative.

Only, here he is, after all his labors…

And it turns out that the Prime Minister of his cardboard King is not himself, but Musk…who believes in quite a different utopia. If anything.

That must hurt.

A great deal.

Mesa, Jesus. "Steve Bannon Escalates Feud With Elon Musk, Calls Him ‘Parasitic Illegal Immigrant’." Newsweek, 19 Feb. 2025, https://www.newsweek.com/steve-bannon-escalates-feud-elon-musk-parasitic-illegal-immigrant-2032675.