Tea at Trianon: The War on Elon Musk

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, April 13, 2025

The War on Elon Musk

From Amuse on X:

In politics, as in physics, action begets reaction. Elon Musk’s fifteen-point favorability decline did not happen in a vacuum. According to Nate Silver, Musk’s popularity dropped 14 percent compared to Donald Trump’s 5 percent in the same period. That fact might seem to suggest Musk has become politically radioactive by his own hand. But it is Musk himself who best explains this phenomenon: “The inevitable outcome of having a political propaganda war waged against me while I have almost no countervailing campaign and, at times, digging my own grave way better than my enemies do.” He is half right. He does dig. But the grave was dug long before he arrived with a shovel.
To understand Musk’s collapse in public favor, one must understand the architecture of attack that surrounds him. This architecture is neither spontaneous nor benign. It is not simply a matter of critics online or the backlash of market sentiment. It is the result of a coordinated, well-funded, digitally networked, multi-platform propaganda and protest apparatus that has made Elon Musk the central symbol of the Left’s war on free enterprise, masculinity, decentralization, and dissent.
Musk is not merely a billionaire. He is a billionaire who dared to criticize the cathedral. He mocked sacred cows, opened the gates of Twitter to previously banned accounts, and embraced Donald Trump. He embodies, in one man, too many heresies for the Left to tolerate. That is why he is the subject of a relentless campaign, not simply of criticism, but of coordinated delegitimization. (Read more.)