Elon's Experiment

The very public feud between President Trump and Elon Musk is almost too public. Both men are larger-than-life personalities, so a blowup of this magnitude isn’t necessarily unrealistic. Regardless, the melodrama makes for great television, and television is notorious for being an unreliable source of truth and fact. These are two men who know how to work the media. The blowup, authentic as it may be, could very well be a smokescreen for a more ruthless scheme. This could very well be fantasy, but just go with me on this.

Since 2022, Elon Musk has shifted dramatically rightward from previous political and financial support of prominent Democrats such as Barack Hussein Obama and Hillary Clinton. He has denounced the "woke mind virus," which he frames as the bastard brainchild of the left, and he has labeled the Democrats as the party of "division and hate." He was the largest donor to President Trump’s 2024 re-election campaign. His explicit rationale for splitting with our president is the fiscal irresponsibility of the recently passed "Big Beautiful Bill." He has burnished his conservative bona fides and shunned the left in a short period of time.

Good for him.

President Trump has consistently lambasted the Democrats and the radical left for their anti-American extremist agenda. Speaking in September of 2024, he said of the previous "puppet presidency" of "Crooked Joe Biden": "This is the most divisive presidency in the history of our country. There's never been anything like it. They're destroying our country." This remark is not an isolated comment; The Man has been unabashed and prolific in his anti-left pronouncements.

Politically, there appears to be little daylight between Trump and Musk; their differences are fiscal. It’s a matter of dollars and cents—lots and lots of dollars and cents to be sure—but their assessment of the anti-American left is uniform.

So what gives? What’s up with Elon Musk seeking to establish a viable third party to challenge the hegemony of the Democrats and the Republicans? Is he such a fiscal hawk that he’s willing to go to war with MAGA at the risk of handing power back to the "party of division and hate"? Musk is erratic, but he’s certainly not stupid. He understands the fate and well-being of our nation and national future is contingent upon the Democrats never again taking power.

The Democrats are on shaky ground. Poll after poll has shown their approval ratings in the toilet. The country doesn’t trust them with power, and on a personal level, people just don’t like them. The left wing has become an enclave of effete elitism. Their identity politics and gender ideology have alienated normal folks from the party. The phony, do-nothing presidency of Joe Biden was a lame duck farce at best, a disaster at worst. The stalwarts who would never vote for Trump or any Republican are disgusted and not sure what has become of their party. They hemorrhaged support among almost every single major demographic in November of 2024. The Democratic Party is a living, breathing catastrophe, a political Superfund site.

Suspend your disbelief for a moment and go with me here.

The best-case scenario is this: Elon Musk’s America Party is just left enough of the political center to be utterly repulsive to the right, but just left enough of center to be attractive to liberals disenchanted with the Democratic Party. The Democrats can’t afford to lose any more support, not after losing in every corner of the country in November, not after Trump trounced them among new voters and gained substantial ground among Blacks and Hispanics. If Elon’s America Party voices any support for gun control, abortion, or any other garden-variety liberal hot-button issue, they stand a damn good chance of stripping a hell of a lot more votes from the Democrats than they would from the Republicans. Which party stands a better chance of surviving the loss of more voters?

This could be a total fantasy. Musk might have the world’s biggest chip on his shoulder and, with his nose firmly out of joint, believes he’s going to teach The Man a lesson. But if this gets away from him, and the America Party becomes a safe space for disaffected liberals, he’ll destroy the Democrats and hand the biggest win yet to MAGA.