Elon Musk: Governing While High

Though this column comes to you on April Fool’s Day, it’s no joke. By now, it’s likely that many of you reading this piece have seen enough of our de facto president’s behavior to wonder if he’s in his right mind.

On January 6 last year, The Wall Street Journal ran this headline:

Elon Musk Has Used Illegal Drugs, Worrying Leaders at Tesla and Space X

In this case, the drug in question is ketamine, a powerful anesthetic and hallucinogen known to be addictive. In answer to questions about his drug use, Musk has stated that he uses the drug under medical supervision to treat chronic depression, adding that he’s “almost always sober” when he writes posts on social media during the pre-dawn hours, and that he makes sure his drug use doesn’t get in the way of his 16-hour work days.

This is the man whom President Donald Trump has chosen to advise him and to oversee the workings of the federal government, nuclear weapons included. Is he “almost always sober” when he does it? This is the man who spoke at greater length than anyone else at Trump’s first Cabinet meeting, where the barely confirmed secretary of defense was present, and where neither he nor his newly concocted department of government efficiency (no capital letters for its title, please) has Congress’ blessing. Somehow he and Trump pulled it out of the thin air of an executive order. Never mind that the Constitution places the power to create federal departments in the hands of Congress. Apparently the Constitution is nothing but a silly formality as far as he and Trump are concerned.

Then there was that little infomercial party he threw with Trump’s approval when he turned the White House into a Tesla dealership. Maybe Trump collected a commission. As for his values, this is the man who refused to say whether he would allow hate speech on his social media platform. This is the man who made his sense of right and wrong plain when he said, “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.”

Now ask yourself: Would you allow this fellow to provide official cover and excuse for Trump’s tariffs, which are increasing the price of your food, fuel, and housing? Would you allow him to ignore or defy court orders whenever he wants, as he has already done? Would you allow him to rip apart Medicare and Social Security, on which many of you depend? Would you allow him to undo the effort to control the nationwide damage which climate change has done? Would you let him pry into your personal information? Would you allow him access to our nuclear arsenal, at a very time when the nuclear arms race has reached what the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has called its most dangerous point ever?

Evidently most of our resident billionaires would, as long as the money rolls in, now that the world’s richest man is in charge.

Maybe Mr. Musk is taking ketamine under medical supervision to treat chronic depression. For the moment, let us suspend disbelief and grant that point. Does it follow that he should be running the federal show at the expense of badly needed social programs, while Mr. Trump offers us his special brand of strange entertainment?

Meanwhile, those in charge of Congress are compliant, while those in charge of the opposition cave in and pray meekly for some sort of deliverance in 2026.

Such is the prank our leaders play on us on this year’s Feast of Fools.

Voters in Florida and Wisconsin Have a Chance Today to Stick It to Trump and Musk

If you live in Wisconsin or in the 6th congressional district of Florida, you’ll have a chance to do something today the rest of us only dream about doing—tell President Donald Trump and Elon Musk to go to hell.

In Florida’s 6th, House Republicans had expected an easy win to replace Rep. Michael Waltz, who became Trump’s national security adviser (but may not be much longer, given his role in Signalgate). Trump won the district by 30 percentage points last November.

But Democratic candidate Josh Weil has a real chance of winning there. If he does, the Republicans’ margin in the House shrinks to just two.

If there was ever a symbol of why we need to get big money out of politics, reform campaign financing, stop conflicts of interest, and tax great wealth, Musk is it.

In Wisconsin, the race is for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Democrat Judge Susan Crawford is clearly more qualified and more, well, judge-like than her opponent Brad Shimel, but their temperaments and characters are not the largest issues.

The winner in Wisconsin could well determine voting districts and, hence, the likelihood that the state provides more Democratic or Republican representatives in the 2026 midterms and swings Republican or Democrat in the 2028 presidential race.

Musk is a big factor. He’s already sunk a small fortune into backing the Republican candidate for Wisconsin Supreme Court—along with the same kind of million-dollar giveaway stunt he used in the presidential race.

Last night, Musk gave out two $1 million checks. One of the two recipients? The head of the Wisconsin College Republicans.

A new video released by Musk’s America PAC is further evidence that Musk’s massive cash giveaways are illegal vote buying. In the clip, a Wisconsin woman named Ekaterina Deistler, who won a $1 million prize, explicitly links her financial windfall to following Musk’s instructions—including voting.

The richest man in the world has no compunctions about throwing his wealth behind the worst possible candidates in America—as when he plunked down over a quarter trillion dollars to get Trump elected.

He has also used—or threatened to use—his wealth to back anyone who runs in a primary election against any Republican member of Congress who doesn’t totally support Trump. It’s an extortion racket that is not only helping to keep congressional Republicans silent and pliable, but has no legitimate place in our democracy.

If there was ever a symbol of why we need to get big money out of politics, reform campaign financing, stop conflicts of interest, and tax great wealth, Musk is it.

Not incidentally (speaking of conflicts of interest) Musk’s auto company, Tesla, has a case against Wisconsin pending in the state’s courts.

Polls opened in Wisconsin at 7:00 am CT and will close at 8:00 pm CT. If the margin of victory is large, the race could be called early. If close, it could come down to absentee ballots in Milwaukee, which are likely heavily Democratic and might not be fully counted until midnight or later.

The early vote appears more favorable to Judge Crawford than it was to Harris in 2024—which is good news for Crawford, although the GOP early vote has shot up relative to previous Wisconsin Supreme Court races.

One final and more general thought about these two elections today.

They’re extraordinary expensive and prominent. That’s because they’re both viewed as potential harbingers of what’s in store for Republicans or Democrats in future elections, both special elections and the 2026 midterms.

No one knows which direction the political winds are blowing and how hard, because America has never been in the place it’s in right now—with a tyrannical president aided by the richest person in the world.

Democrats have had reason to crow recently about flipping Republican-held state legislative seats in recent special elections in Iowa and Pennsylvania. On Saturday, voters in Louisiana rejected four proposed constitutional amendments backed by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry that would have overhauled parts of the state’s tax codes and toughened penalties for juvenile offenders.

A victory by Josh Weil in Florida and/or Judge Crawford in Wisconsin could put wind in the sails of the Trump resistance. Let’s all hope that Floridians in the 6th district and the good people of Wisconsin do what the nation needs them to do.

Trapped Between Authoritarians, Europe Must Fight, Not Retreat

The news of Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest surprised me.

It’s not that I doubted the former leader of the Philippines was guilty of the horrific crimes detailed in his International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant. Duterte himself boasted quite openly of the mass killings he’s been accused of. But I always thought that the prospects of bringing that brutal, outspoken politician to justice were remote indeed.

After all, Duterte’s daughter Sara is currently the vice president of the Philippines and that country is no longer a member of the ICC. On top of that, Duterte himself was so sure of his immunity that he was running for mayor of the city of Davao. In mid-March, after returning from campaigning in the Filipino community in Hong Kong, he suffered the indignity of being arrested in his own country.

The International Criminal Court’s arrest of Rodrigo Duterte should be a powerful reminder that justice is possible even in the most unjust of times.

Forgive me for saying this, but I just hadn’t thought the ICC was still truly functioning, given that the leaders of the most powerful countries on this planet—the United States, China, and Russia—don’t give a fig about human rights or international law. Sure, the ICC did issue high-profile arrest warrants for Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on war crimes charges, but no one expects those rogues to be taken into custody anytime soon. And the impunity for the powerful has only become more entrenched now that a convicted felon squats in the White House.

The specialty of the ICC has, of course, been arresting human-rights abusers in truly weak or failed states like Laurent Gbagbo, former president of Côte d’Ivoire, and Hashim Thaçi, former president of Kosovo. With the world’s 31st largest economy, however, the Philippines is no failed state. Still, without nuclear weapons or a huge army, it’s no powerhouse either. Indeed, it was only when the Philippines became ever weaker—because of a feud between President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. and Vice President Sara Duterte (accused of threatening to assassinate him)—that the ICC had a chance to grab its target and spirit him away to The Hague to stand trial.

The arrest of Rodrigo Duterte might, in fact, seem like the exception that proves the (new) rule. After all, the international community and its institutions are currently facing a crisis of global proportions with violations of international law becoming ever more commonplace in this era of ascendant right-wing rogue states.

In 2014, Russia first grabbed Ukrainian territory, launching an all-out invasion in 2022. Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, sent troops into southern Lebanon, and expanded its footprint in Syria. U.S. President Donald Trump has spoken repeatedly of seizing Greenland, absorbing Canada as the 51st state, and retaking the Panama Canal, among other things. Small countries like Taiwan can’t sleep for fear of a late-night visit from jackbooted thugs.

But then there’s Europe.

Transatlantic Divergence

In the wake of Donald Trump’s dramatic return to the stage as a bull in the global china shop, European leaders have hastened to replace the United States as the voice of liberal internationalist institutions like the ICC. Of course, the U.S. was never actually a member of the ICC, which suggests that Europe has always been more connected to the rule of law than most American politicians. After all, if Duterte had been sent to Washington today—not to mention Beijing, Buenos Aires, Cairo, Moscow, or New Delhi—he would undoubtedly have been feted as an exemplary law-and-order politico rather than, as in The Hague, placed behind bars and put on trial.

This transatlantic divergence was only sharpened in mid-February when Vice President JD Vance berated an audience of Europeans at the Munich Security Conference, singling out for criticism Europe’s support of feminism and pro-choice policies, its rejection of Russian election interference (by overturning a Kremlin-manipulated presidential election in Romania), and its refusal to tolerate fascist and neo-fascist parties (shunning, among others, Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland, or AfD). By urging them to worry more about internal challenges to “democracy” in Europe than the challenges presented by either Russia or China, Vance was effectively siding with illiberal adversaries against liberal allies.

In a certain sense, however, he was also eerily on target: Europe does indeed face all-too-many internal challenges to democracy. But they come from his ideological compatriots there like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Slovakia’s Robert Fico, and far-right political parties like Germany’s AfD, as well as ultra-conservative cultural movements that target immigrants, the LGBTQ community, and secular multiculturalists.

Vance opposes mainstream European opinion, which has directly or indirectly challenged Donald Trump’s MAGA proposals and policies, as well as his rejection of the reality of climate change. Europe has, of course, been stepping up its defense of Ukraine, remains committed to promoting human rights, and adheres to democratic principles in the form of regular electoral checks and balances, as well as safeguards for civil society. Above all, unlike the Trump administration, it continues to move forward on the European Green Deal and a program to leave behind fossil fuels.

These were, of course, fairly uncontroversial positions until Trump reentered the White House.

Can Europe sustain that fragile plant of liberalism during this harsh winter of right-wing populism? Much depends on some risky bets. Will U.S. foreign policy swing back in favor of democracy, human rights, and transatlantic relations in four years? Will the weight of a never-ending war, in the end, dislodge Vladimir Putin from the Kremlin? Will Ukraine overcome its own internal divisions to become part of a newly enlarged European Union (EU)? Will Bibi Netanyahu someday become Duterte’s cellmate?

At the moment, unfortunately, it seems more likely that Europe will be the last powerful holdout in a world entering a new political Dark Age. A dismal scenario lurks on the horizon in which democracy and human rights cling to existence somewhere within the walls of the European Union, much as monasteries managed to preserve classical learning a millennium ago.

Europe Steps Forward

After Trump and Vance humiliated Volodymyr Zelenskyy during his White House visit in February, an ideologically diverse range of European leaders raced to support the Ukrainian leader and his country. But defending democracy means all too little if that defense remains largely verbal.

So, no longer being able to count on U.S. power or NATO security guarantees in the age of Trump, European Union leaders have decided to visit the gym and muscle up. Shortly after Zelenskyy’s meeting, the E.U. readied a large military spending bill meant to contribute to the “security of Europe as a whole, in particular as regards the E.U.’s eastern border, considering the threats posed by Russia and Belarus.” About $150 billion more would be invested in the military budgets of member states. The E.U. will also relax debt limits to allow nearly $700 billion in such additional spending over the next four years.

Semi-socialist, DEI-loving, human-rights-supporting, Israel-skeptical, Europe is everything Donald Trump hates. Think of the E.U., in fact, as the global equivalent of his worst nightmare, a giant liberal arts campus.

Of course, in the past, Europe’s vaunted social democracy was largely built on low defense spending and a reliance on Washington’s security umbrella. That “peace dividend” saved E.U. member states a huge chunk of money—nearly $400 billion every year since the end of the Cold War—that could be applied to social welfare and infrastructure expenses. Forcing NATO members to spend a higher percentage of their gross domestic product on their militaries is a dagger that both Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are holding to the throat of Europe’s social democracy. Germany can still afford to engage in deficit spending for both guns and butter, but it presents a distinct problem for countries like Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, and Spain with high levels of government debt.

And when it comes to Europe’s future, it’s not just a military affair. While some European leaders have used intelligence assessments to focus on Putin’s territorial ambitions, others are more anxious about Russia’s assault on their values. Fearful of the way the illiberal values of Putin and Trump seem to overlap, Europeans have cast the fate of Ukraine in the loftiest of terms: the defense of democracy against fascism. However, given the connections between the European far-right and the Kremlin—thanks to Germany’s AfD, the two French far-right parties (National Rally and Reconquest), and Bulgaria’s Revival among others—the fight against fascism is now taking place on the home front as well.

Europe is also defending democratic values in other ways. It has long promoted DEI-like programs, beginning with France’s diversity charter in 2004, while the European Commission is committed to equality for the LGBTQ community. In 2021, to promote universal values, the E.U. even launched a program called Global Europe Human Rights and Democracy, which was meant to support human rights defenders, the rule of law, and election monitors across the planet. Typically, on the controversial topic of Israel-Palestine, European countries have condemned the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza and several have even recognized the (still-to-be-created) state of Palestine.

Semi-socialist, DEI-loving, human-rights-supporting, Israel-skeptical, Europe is everything Donald Trump hates. Think of the E.U., in fact, as the global equivalent of his worst nightmare, a giant liberal arts campus.

No wonder the MAGA crowd has the urge to cut the transatlantic cable as a way of targeting its opponents both at home and abroad.

Europe Divided

But wait: The MAGA crowd doesn’t hate Europe quite as thoroughly as it does Columbia University. After all, not all European leaders are on board with social democracy, DEI, human rights, and Palestine. In fact, in some parts of the continent, Trump and Vance are heroes, not zeros.

Hungary’s leader Viktor Orbán, for instance, has long been a friend and inspiration for Donald Trump. After all, he’s managed to translate the illiberalism of Vladimir Putin—anti-democratic, anti-LGBT, uber-nationalist—into a semi-democratic vernacular of great appeal to an American far-right that must negotiate a significantly more complex political landscape than the one that surrounds the Kremlin.

As Putin’s greatest acolyte, Orbán has worked overtime to undermine a common European approach to Ukraine. He initially opposed aid to Ukraine, a stance ultimately overcome by the pressure tactics of other European leaders. He pushed for a watered-down version of the most recent E.U. statement in support of that country, only to watch the other 26 E.U. members pass it without him. And he’s rejected Ukrainian membership in the E.U. Still, with elections scheduled for 2026 and the opposition now outpolling Orbán’s Fidesz party, the days of one man holding the E.U. hostage may soon be over.

While Orbán does have allies, most of them—like AUR in Romania and the National Alliance in Latvia—are sniping from the sidelines as part of the opposition. Several other far-right parties like the ruling Fratelli d’Italia in Italy don’t share Orbán’s odd affection for Putin. But if the AfD in Germany or the National Rally in France were to win enough votes to take over their respective governments, Europe’s political center of gravity could indeed shift.

Such divisions extend to the question of E.U. expansion. Serbia’s pro-Russian slant makes such a move unlikely in the near term and Turkey is too autocratic to qualify, while both Bosnia and Georgia, like Ukraine, are divided. It’s hard to imagine Ukraine itself overcoming its internal divisions—or its war-ravaged economy—to meet Europe’s membership requirements, no matter the general enthusiasm inside that country and elsewhere in Europe for bringing it in from the cold.

Nonetheless, E.U. expansion is what Putin fears the most: a democratic, prosperous union that expands its border with his country and inspires Russian activists with its proclamations of universal values. No small surprise, then, that he’s tried to undermine the E.U. by supporting far-right and Euroskeptical movements. Yet the combination of the war in Ukraine and the reelection of Donald Trump may be undoing all his efforts.

The experience of feeling trapped between two illiberal superpowers has only solidified popular support for the E.U. and its institutions. In a December 2024 poll, trust in the E.U. was at its highest level in 17 years, particularly in countries that are on the waiting list like Albania and Montenegro. Moreover, around 60% of Europeans support providing military aid to Kyiv and future membership for Ukraine.

For increasing numbers of those outside its borders, Europe seems like a beacon of hope: prosperous democracies pushing back against the onslaught of Trump and Putin. And yet, even if Europe manages to stave off the challenges of its home-grown far-right, it may not, in the end, prove to be quite such a beacon. After all, it has its own anti-migrant policies and uses trade agreements to secure access to critical raw materials and punish countries like Indonesia that have the temerity to employ their own mineral wealth to rise higher in the global value chain. Although, unlike Putin’s Russia and Trump’s America, it’s doing its best to shift to a clean-energy economy, it’s done so all too often by dirtying the nests of other countries to get the materials it needs for that shift.

Whatever its resemblance to a liberal arts college, Europe is anything but a non-profit institution and can sometimes seem more like a fortress than a beacon. As was true of those medieval monasteries that preserved the classical learning of the ages but also owned land and serfs, supplied markets with addictive products like chartreuse, and subjected their members to torture and imprisonment, saving civilization can have a darker side.

Exiting the Dark Age

The International Criminal Court’s arrest of Rodrigo Duterte should be a powerful reminder that justice is possible even in the most unjust of times. Brutal leaders almost always sow the seeds of their own demise. Putin’s risky moves have mobilized virtually all of Europe against him. In antagonizing country after country, Trump is similarly reinforcing liberal sentiment in Canada, in Mexico, and throughout Europe.

If the world had the luxury of time, holing up in the modern equivalent of monasteries and waiting out the barbarians would be a viable strategy. But climate change cares little for extended timelines. And don’t forget the nuclear doomsday clock or the likelihood of another pandemic sweeping across the globe. Meanwhile, Trump and his allies are destroying things at such a pace that the bill for “reconstruction” grows more astronomical by the day.

The gap between the fall of the Roman Empire and the first glimmers of the Renaissance was about 1,000 years. No one has that kind of time anymore. So, while long-term strategies to fight the right are good, those standing up to the bullies also need to act fast and forcefully. The world can’t afford a European retreat into a fortress and the equivalent of monastic solitude. The E.U. must unite with all like-minded countries against the illiberal nationalists who are challenging universal values and international law.

The ICC set a good example with its successful seizure of Duterte. Let’s all hope, for the good of the world, that The Hague will have more global scofflaws in its jail cells—and soon.

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