Elon Musk and a Bucket of Pig Guts

Lessons from Last Night

Elon Musk’s money is the payday loan of politics.

Sure, there's plenty of it, and if you're already a desperate, soulless Trump cockholster, it might seem like a sweet deal—but like every kind of subprime lending, the interest rate is brutal, the terms onerous, and the penalties crippling. Brad Schimel learned that lesson last night, good and hard.

Musk made himself the star of the show, the gravitational center of Wisconsin's political attention economy—and national politics, for that matter. It failed, utterly. It was an ass-whipping for the ages, a savaging. He was dragged out back behind the barn and beat senseless. All that work, and what did it get you, Elon?

The Loser.

A normal man would’ve taken his lumps, knocked back a few too many hotel-bar cocktails, admitted defeat, and learned a lesson about political physics. But Musk—or one of his Twitter minions—spent the next six hours power-tweeting about SpaceX, Tesla, and robot catgirl sex dolls. (About the latter, hey—I don't judge what consenting billionaires do with their robotic sex slaves, but if you want a murderous robot uprising, well, that's how you get one.)

Here are a few takeaways from last night:

1. Elon Musk’s brand is raw, rancid political poison.
   
   Who knew being the gleeful face of gutting Social Security and veterans’ programs would play as well in swing states as a bucket of pig entrails left baking in a pickup truck bed on a hot summer day? Everyone, that's who.

   
   If Social Security is the third rail of American politics, Elon Musk licked it, caressed it, and tried to make it Baby Mama number 23. His outright, overt