The Trump-Musk feud that wasn't: Media distracted by another MAGA spectacle

[marmar]

The Trump-Musk feud that wasn't: Media distracted by another MAGA spectacle
Trump and Musk successfully drive focus away from the GOP's "big beautiful bill" and war on democracy

By Chauncey DeVega
Senior Writer
Published June 12, 2025 6:00AM (EDT)


(Salon) If one correctly understands the large role that spectacle and distraction play in the Age of Trump, then its full horror and ugliness are easily demystified and revealed. Unfortunately, too many Americans, especially those in the mainstream news media and the responsible political class, refuse to do so. Why? It is very frightening to wake up one day and realize that you are a stranger in your own country.

Billionaires Donald Trump and Elon Musk recently engaged in a major and highly publicized dispute. Its origins have been well-documented: ego, ambition, money and power.

The news media were predictably obsessed with this fight, labeling it a “divorce” and using other such dramatic language.

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What really matters is that this fight, be it real or not, is a distraction from Trump’s “big beautiful bill” and how it further guts the social safety net and gives trillions of more dollars to the richest individuals and corporations. It is critically important to emphasize how Donald Trump and his MAGA Republicans’ gutting of the social safety net, and further immiseration of the middle class and working poor to give even more money to the kleptocrats and plutocrats, is not separate and apart from the country’s rapid collapse into authoritarianism. These destructive forces gut and weaken democratic life. Moreover, such forces may bring a people closer to the authoritarian leader in an attempt to win favor as a protected group. Learned helplessness becomes a survival mode.

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Why is the American news media so easily taken in by the professional wrestling-like feud between Donald Trump and Elon Musk? On a basic level, this is a story that has heroes and villains, conflict and intrigue, an easy storyline to follow (and therefore is comparatively easy to write), and is “fun” for mainstream liberals, progressives, and “centrists." Perhaps most importantly, the Trump versus Musk narrative attracts attention (the clicks and downloads that drive the 21st-century media) and ad revenue. In so many ways, Trump versus Musk is a type of sugar high for the news media (and those pro-democracy Americans who are desperate for some good news to distract them from the reality that their side is getting rolled over, rather easily, by MAGA). ..................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/06/12/the-musk-feud-that-wasnt-media-distracted-by-another-maga-spectacle/