Here today gone tomorrow
There are a number of highly relevant things playing out in politics. We’re still dealing with the fallout from the Supreme Court’s ludicrous assertion that federal judges can’t issue federal injunctions. We’re still fighting against Trump’s “big beautiful bill” which is working its way through the Senate. But this morning I want to address the opposite topic: irrelevance.
When the month began, Elon Musk was running the federal government. He got to decide which federal employees got to keep their jobs. And he was indirectly deciding the budget for each federal agency, by determining each agency’s total salary base. Musk was, in effect, the President and Congress at the same time.
Yesterday the Republican Senate decided to make Trump’s budget bill even worse by raising taxes on all new wind and solar projects, because that’s what Republicans do. Here’s the thing: Elon Musk is throwing an absolute fit about this on Twitter, or whatever he’s calling his platform this week. Musk is right for once. But the real story here is that Musk now appears powerless to stop his own political party from doing this to him. And this is a guy who was running the entire government just a few weeks ago.
It’s a testament to just how fast someone can go from relevant to irrelevant in the political arena. All it took was Elon Musk losing his imaginary political title, and suddenly no one – not even the GOP – cares what he thinks or wants anymore. And this happens a lot more often than gets pointed out.
Take, for instance, Tucker Carlson. He was one of the most relevant people on cable news. He set political agendas. He forced the Republican Party to bend to his will. Then one day he didn’t have his title anymore, and suddenly he became irrelevant overnight. It’s also true of Steve Bannon, who was running the Trump White House back in 2017. Once he lost his title, he lost his influence and became an also-ran outsider begging for attention.
The list goes on. The point is that while some people in politics have actual built-in sustainable influence and relevance, others are merely a product of the title or position that they hold at the time. Imagine if Donald Trump, whose health has been faltering before our eyes for some time, became too ill tomorrow to continue serving as President and had to resign. What relevance would a fading Trump even have over a JD Vance administration? Apologies for even typing the words “JD Vance administration” but you get the point. Few things in the political landscape are permanent. And oftentimes the most relevant of people can become irrelevant and powerless overnight.
