Nationalism Lost the Election, Elon Musk Won.
As did the other techlords.
If Nationalism is supposed to mean anything to its adherents it means that "we the people" (as they define it) should be masters of our fates. "We" should direct the nation, "we" control the world stage, and "we" should reap the benefits. But on every front "we" lost power.
Law
Weeks ago the House had set up a budget agreement. The government would be funded, and by and large everything would continue until a new budget was made. Then Musk blew everything up by inventing massive raises for congress, spending for a DC stadium, and a host of other false things. The funding was stopped in its tracks. Once all was said and done and the fake crisis was averted the final bill was largely the same. The Stadium support (which actually cut federal spending) still passed and most of the other funding was unchanged. Most of it.
Stripped from the final bills were three things: funding to support research on pediatric cancer; restrictions on investments and tech transfer to China; and new rules to combat revenge porn. The only real winner from the farce was Musk himself who can continue to build factories in China, and has no responsibility to take deepfakes of Taylor Swift or your daughter down, or prevent Grok from making them. The losers were the American people, who had to endure a pointless crisis, sick children and their families, and young girls everywhere who have to worry that a pissed off incel will ruin their lives.
If we cannot protect our children from someone else's profit, what kind of a nation are we?
Money
Musk is also winning on the economy. After once calling bitcoin a massive scam Trump has now launched his own memecoin and wants to create a digital coin reserve. For the sake of Musk (whose wealth depends on more fake currencies) and all the other speculators Trump will spend real American Taxpayer dollars, to bubble up a fake digital prices.
Bitcoin isn't food or oil. You don't need to eat it or drive it to work.
It is just a random set of numbers that can be replaced at any time. All you can do is speculate with it, or use it to trade for drugs and murder online. But if Musk has his way we will *all* be responsible for propping up his wealth and keeping his competitors down.
Why should we all subsidize the 1%? How is that any better than a Wall Street Bailout?
But then again, we already do that. Musk, and the other techlords have skipped on paying real taxes for years. They benefit heavily both from special carveouts in the tax code which exempt their paper wealth, and from everyday tax dodging. The Democrats cut into that a bit with the 15% minimum rate and stepped up enforcement but Trump has been clear he plans to end all of that, and take their taxes lower still so he can rise even higher while we scrounge for change.
Government
Much of his actual revenue of course comes in from the government itself. SpaceX is one of the the largest government contractors. They and Starlink are basically government funded. This is why Musk hand-picked the administrator of NASA and has intervened so heavily to push Hegseth. There is no fatter wallet in America than the Department of Defense, and who better for a profiteer and an autocrat to have running it than a compromised and unprepared ideologue with a history of financial mismanagement? Hegseth will reflexively oppose what anyone who understands war tells him, and will not hesitate to send dollars to silicon valley and troops into our streets.
Paying for these fat contracts and tax cuts will be pricey, and that's of course where DOGE's efforts come in. Musk has already begun to place his teams in every federal agency with no oversight and no actual constraints. They've talked up direct cuts to everything from public health, and public education, to Veterans Affairs. They won't find 1 or even $2 trillion in savings but they will find plenty of teachers and the elderly to shaft.
There will also be plenty of things to privatize out of oversight and out of our hands. AI after all is a giant tool in search of money and open-ended and unaccountable service contracts is just what over-leveraged AI companies desperately need.
Enemies
Musk, and the other techlords have their opponents of course. Steve Bannon, arch nationalist most of all. Bannon swore he'd have Musk gone by the inaguration. But in the end it was Musk and the other techlords who sat on the front while Bannon wasn't even on the stage.
"We" lost, Elon Musk won.
Postscript On Nazism: Autistic people have trouble understanding the emotions of others. They do not revel in triggering or cruelty. Nor do they think Hitler jokes or calling people "retard" are funny. Therefore the most charitable interpretation of Musk's recent actions is that he is a troll who enjoys shocking other with his antics and with degrading others through fear, abuse, and childish cruelty.
Whether Musk is, in his heart, an actual fascist or merely someone who agrees with them online is almost immaterial. Even if he is not, he is working hard to make space for other fascists to creep out of the shadows and into our political life.