Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

Trump should be leading, not lying.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

How stupid are these people?

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Let’s show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / Trusk & Mump take some Ls (open thread)

Trusk & Mump take some Ls (open thread)

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Last night, Rachel Maddow* reported on some embarrassing Ls taken yesterday by the pair of loathsome oligarchs who are trying to destroy the U.S government. Here’s a quick summary of the coverage:

  • Tesla sales have absolutely TANKED in the EU. I’m not sure how much that matters, but the Bond villain (and shareholders) can’t be happy about having sales fall by nearly 60% in Germany and more than 60% in France, the two largest markets in the EU.
  • In the U.S., public approval of Musk’s meddling is already worse than approval of GWB after the economy cratered in 2008. Around a quarter of Republicans approve of what Musk is doing, and only 6% of Democrats and independents do.
  • Musk and his DOGE douchebags were scheduled to menace the Department of Labor onsite yesterday, and when word got out, protesters rallied at the building. The DOGE derps didn’t show up after all.
  • A court order temporarily blocked Musk and the kinderchud from accessing DOL data until a hearing scheduled for today.
  • A federal judge paused the deadline on the federal employee “resign or else” offer, which was supposed to be midnight last night, noting that the government can’t spend buyout money it hasn’t allocated.
  • Another federal judge, (a Reagan appointee!), blasted Trump’s attempt to overturn birthright citizenship by executive fiat, writing, “The rule of law is, according to him [Trump], something to navigate around or simply ignore, whether for political or personal gain. There are moments in the world’s history when people look back and ask, ‘Where were the lawyers? Where were the judges?’ In these moments, the rule of law becomes especially vulnerable. I refuse to let that beacon go dark today.”

To state the obvious, this doesn’t mean we’re winning. These kleptocratic pricks are causing chaos and death every day by illegally shutting off critical aid abroad, interrupting government-funded services at home and terrorizing government workers.

But after being seemingly caught flat-footed by the ferocious Musk assault, folks rallied, and the opposition racked up some successes yesterday. I think that’s important to acknowledge and evaluate for lessons on how to push back successfully in the future.

Open thread.

*MSNBC posts random clips from its shows on YouTube, but here’s a link to another YouTube user’s recording of the last night’s entire episode on that platform. Or you can listen to it as a podcast, which is what I do when I have time.

Reader Interactions

76Comments

  3. 3.

    gene108

    For people looking for elections to support keep an eye out for NJ and VA. Both have governor races and state legislature races going on this year.

  4. 4.

    opiejeanne

    They remind me of the Clever Girl in the first Jurassic Park movie, constantly testing her cage to check if the power was off so she could break out of her compound

    They’re testing the restrictions to see what will hold and what will break.

  5. 5.

    MomSense

    Apparently Maddow mentioned a protest at the Tesla charging station that is in the same mall as my grocery store. Sorry I didn’t know about it.

  6. 6.

    NotMax

    @Ten Bears

    See: Mumpsimus.

    “someone who obstinately clings to an error, bad habit or prejudice, even after the foible has been exposed and the person humiliated; also, any error, bad habit, or prejudice clung to in this fashion”

  7. 7.

    Spanky

    On topic, for a change:

    Since I posted this AM about my Social Security deposit not arriving today, I can now say that The Eagle Has Landed. Repeat: The Eagle Has Landed.

    Now I have a full month to worry about the next one.

  11. 11.

    ewrunning

    For an church going juicers out there, (there must be a few of us), I offer below the petition I’ve written for this Sunday’s prayers of the people at our congregation. I’m retired Foreign Service, so I chose to focus this on my former USAID colleagues, but it could equally be appropriate for immigrants, trans people, and many others.  (As I’m one of those subversive Lutherans Flynn and Musk were targeting a few days ago, the Martin Niemoller reference seemed obligatory.):

    We pray today for the public servants being illegally purged from their careers by a lawless president and an unelected plutocrat. We pray especially for the US Agency for International Development employees being wrenched from their homes and work overseas, and for those for whom their departure means the abrupt end to access to life saving medications, food and clean water. May we not forget  to apply the words of Pastor Martin Niemoller – First they came for the USAID employees, and I did not speak out—because I was not a USAID employee . . .

  12. 12.

    Spanky

    It truly sucks that we’re going to have to monitor this daily going forward until who the hell knows when. I hate that our government turns out to be so so brittle.

  13. 13.

    Matt McIrvin

    A court order temporarily blocked Musk and the kinderchud from accessing DOL data until a hearing scheduled for today.

    Have they actually stopped doing so, or are they doing the “He has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it” thing?

  17. 17.

    RaflW

    @Steve LaBonne: Yup.

    Just got off a supporter townhall with a beloved U.S. NGO. The one I traveled to Kenya with almost a year ago.

    They are reeling because of the State Dept.’s “stop work” orders. But their CEO, VP of Ops, and two top development folks were very clear that the org, while absorbing a great deal of anguish, will not quit.

    And during the call with well over 200 attendees, $55,000 was raised basically instantly, on top of $100,000 raised after a similar more limited call with upper-tier donors Wed.

    They’re still facing a huge money gap, but it was clear that this attack on decency from Trump isn’t going to wipe them out.

    It was also clear that no one at Rubio’s shop has even the vaguest idea what’s going on. The ’90 day review’ is 9 days old and every contact this NGO has reached out to has no info on what to do, what the criteria is, or frankly anything. I’m sure these are career State Dept folks who are just as miserable in not being able to answer, but it is — of course — a clusterfuck.

    My personal sense is, the 90 day review is utter bullshit. Apparatchiks placed by Trump will make arbitrary decisions with shallow justifications. Probably gonna have to be lots of lawsuits, but that’s a grinding mess and a crap shoot. I’m really pissed.

  18. 18.

    frosty

    Another L for the douchebags: Fetterman voted with the Dems on the OMB prick: 100% opposed. Today he said he’ll be voting no on RFK Jr and Gabbard. Maybe my calls and email worked! He got so many a couple of days ago that I couldn’t get through on the phone to any office.

  19. 19.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    More detail on Tesla sales in Yurp in Jan:

    https://electrek.co/2025/02/03/tesla-tsla-sales-are-dropping-like-a-rock-in-europe-but-its-not-just-because-of-elon-musk/

    That was a week ago prior to getting numbers out of Germany.  With those:

    https://electrek.co/2025/02/05/tesla-sales-dropped-60-in-germany/

    Their take:

    This is pretty nuts. Obviously, Tesla will use the Model Y transition as an excuse, and there’s some truth to it. However, Tesla was transitioning the Model 3 around the same time last year, which also negatively affected 2024 sales.

    Now, it’s true that Model Y is more impactful than Model 3, but I think it’s also clear that the Musk effect is at play too, it’s just impossible to tell by how much.

    But I do think it will be quite disastrous, especially considering the Model Y refresh is not significant enough to convince people who are on the fence.

    It feels like the negative sentiment toward Tesla is still gaining momentum rather than slowing down. Europe represented 325,000 deliveries for Tesla in 2024. I think Tesla would be lucky to deliver 300,000 vehicles in Europe this year.

    That’s not good for the EV industry. At least they have more options in Europe. It will hit even harder if we start seeing a similar impact on Tesla in the US.

  20. 20.

    JoyceH

    @ewrunning: one piece of advice from the Dem Punditocracy that I strongly disagree with is the suggestion to not fight over USAID because it’s unpopular. On the contrary – it’s unpopular because the right lies about it and people are misinformed about it.

    I recall a poll from several years ago about foreign aid – the respondents were asked what percentage of the budget did they think foreign aid took up and what did they think the percentage should be. The answers – 25% and 5-10%! When it sinks in that it’s less than 1%, all but the simply mean say oh heck, alright then.

    Now we’ve got reporters out there, featuring the babies that will starve and the patients that will die that we were saving with less than one percent of the budget until the richest man on earth pulled the plug. I think it’s the right time to sell foreign aid, this is the best PR campaign it’s ever had.

  22. 22.

    rikyrah

    I can’t say that I’ve been despondent since the election, but, I have been down.

    Been thinking that it would be along two years.

    Then, I heard about those special Congressional Elections in Florida.

    The Democrats need to GO ALL PHUCKING IN.

    PERIOD.

    These ghouls have done so much AWFUL stuff SO FAST, that I do believe just telling the phucking truth about WHAT THEY ARE DOING can get through.

    They’ve done something. ACTUAL something. Not ‘theoretical’ where the Republican Leaning voter could cover themselves in denial before November.

    Needs to be boots on the ground and put everything we can into these special elections.

     

    And, I agree with the poster in the previous post who said that NY Dems need to play phucking hardball and delay that special election for as long as possible. PERIOD.

  23. 23.

    cmorenc

    Let’s use the legitimate fear of the US commercial-flying public over the role inadequate air controller staff contributed to the American Airlines crash and the indiscriminate inclusion of all non-military air traffic controllers in Musk / Trump’s federal workforce layoffs.  The possibility of sudden (but not necessrily instantaneous) death from mid-air collision is now on the mind of every airline passenger on initial takeoff climb and final landing approach.  And there’s enough public distrust of the imperfect record of self-driving cars to for the public to deeply distrust that Musk has any kind of ready, sound plan to replace the current system by a gee-whiz Musk-tech substitute.

  24. 24.

    Matt McIrvin

    @JoyceH: The electoral strategists are always going to tell us to throw things and people under the bus. I’m sure they’re telling Democrats to go transphobic and xenophobic too, because those are wedge issues where we lose votes. They were telling Democrats to throw the gays under the bus in the 2000s.

  28. 28.

    cmorenc

    @Matt McIrvin: Kamala Harris’s stunning rise toward pulling even and ahead of Trump stalled out at just about exactly the point around Labor Day when her campaign began to listen to the advice of the D consultant class, and instructed Tim Waltz to cut out saying such mean things about Vance and Trump.

  30. 30.

    trollhattan

    Buying Twitter then actively ruining Twitter while costing himself many billions demonstrates to me at least, Elmo would rather be taken seriously than make money, of which he still has way, way too fucking much.

    Destroy Tesla to make a point? On brand.

    Shareholders may disagree but we know how reliable those are.

  31. 31.

    John S.

    @Matt McIrvin:

    It baffles me why anyone would listen to all these Democratic strategists when they have such horrible track records.

    @cmorenc:

    The person who came up with the idea to embrace Never Trumpers and make them a centerpiece in the home stretch of the campaign should have no further career in Democratic politics.

  32. 32.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @A Ghost to Most:

    A quip I posted sometime over the last couple of weeks:

    Elon Musk has gone from being the Henry Ford of our time to being the Henry Ford of our time.

  35. 35.

    RaflW

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: I’m wondering what the Canadian market will do, too. Tesla only sold about 60,000 units in Canada in ’23, the last year I could easily find data. But I also saw a note that Tesla really amped up marketing in Q4 which suggested a slump north of the border.

    I’m thinking the people who booed two different NHL games last week, and a Premier who at least momentarily said he was nixing Starlink is not going to be a glowing sales spot for Muskmobiles in 2025.

  36. 36.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @NotMax:

    Give them some time to eff with the source code. Quoth the Wicked Witch, “these things must be done delicately.”

    Except the Muskrats are of the “move fast and break things” ethos. Already plenty of reports of them pushing code directly to live production systems without any sort of QA. Even if they’re not trying to break things, there’s plenty of ways they could easily end up doing so.

  37. 37.

    rikyrah

     

    Forbes (@Forbes) posted at 5:00 AM on Fri, Feb 07, 2025:
    AG Pam Bondi Targets DEI At Private Companies And Universities On Day One https://t.co/vCqO7QoYlF
    (https://x.com/Forbes/status/1887818640197579015?t=s7B1T7yJbxWaRNqvS-We5w&s=03)

    Longtime Black Man Here (@groove_sdc) posted at 10:54 AM on Fri, Feb 07, 2025:
    So her job is to stop Black people from getting hired or Black students from being admitted to schools?
    (https://x.com/groove_sdc/status/1887907857867120732?t=qnVYmJjMFgHKK9d8e2r-BQ&s=03)

  38. 38.

    Leto

    @Matt McIrvin: the issue is is that they were already in there for up to 5-7 days before the ruling was made? So… how much of the data have they copied over? How much have they pulled out of the system, moved to non-secure storage devices, and we no longer have control over? That’s something we need to know, but considering we can’t get any of the Wunderchuds in front of a panel… g/l!

  40. 40.

    Ohio Mom

    @Spanky: In the interim, we can keep eagle eyes on all our financial accounts, monitoring the best we can to catch any sign of identity theft.

  41. 41.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @John S.:

    I read somewhere years ago a piece that featured a lot of discussion with many political campaign people at federal, state and local levels.

    At the federal level, the main reason for what you describe is the inherent conservativeness of politicians and their abject fear of “making a mistake”.  According to the people in that piece, it means people never think outside the box, in fact, they crawl so far into the box, they can’t even peak over the edge.

    Thus, they go with what they know because in their minds, while it might have a problematic track record, they’re so scared of losing even one vote if they do something “different”, they simply reinforce failure.

    Apparently at the state level, there’s a bit more adroitness but there, it often comes down to lack of money and not necessarily knowing enough about the campaign landscape to look for “outside the box” approaches even if said candidate wanted to go that route.

  42. 42.

    Lapassionara

    @JoyceH: Ditto. I don’t think we’ve done enough to advocate for the way our fairly limited foreign aid spending benefits the US. We should do the same for immigration.

  44. 44.

    John S.

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage:

    In essence, it’s really not all that different from paid consultants in the business world.

    People seem to love throwing money at the most useless conventional wisdom — or the newest shiny object that is about to turn into the next piece of conventional wisdom.

    Orthodoxy, or orthodoxy masquerading as faux-change, seems to be at the heart of the consulting class.

  45. 45.

    Sister Golden Bear

    • Tesla sales have absolutely TANKED in the EU. I’m not sure how much that matters, but the Bond villain (and shareholders) can’t be happy about having sales fall by nearly 60% in Germany and more than 60% in France, the two largest markets in the EU.

    Honestly, Musk hasn’t given a shit about Tesla for several years now — and I say that as a Tesla owner. The product line has been stale without any major improvements. Yes, there’s small, and sometimes actually useful improvements* via software updates, but the cars haven’t really changed in years. In recent months Musk had been busy flogging the idea that Tesla is now an AI company rather than a car company. I mean Musk should care about Tesla’s sales because that vast majority of his wealth is tied to Tesla’s stock price (and his usable income comes from borrowing against that stock), but…

    *E.g. one of the latest updates now has the sound system chime from the direction of obstacles/traffic detected by the back-up camera.

  46. 46.

    brantl

    but the Bond villain (and shareholders)

     

    but the Austin Powers villain (and shareholders) … FTFY

  47. 47.

    Leto

    @rikyrah: from the previous thread where you posted about the wanted cuts to NOAA:

    DOGE apparently informed senior staff to plan to reduce its staff by 50% and funding by 30%.

    Again, non-legal entity trying to shape an agency’s personnel and budget. I guess this will be taken to court as well, but like… it’s going to be years before we see any results. By that point it just won’t matter.

  48. 48.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @RaflW:

    Canadian EV sales aren’t massive to begin with.  At last count, however, the #1 and #2 EVs by model in Canada were Teslas.

    That being said, Canada did announce prior to the tariff “pause” that if the Orange Far Cloud initiated what he said he would do, one of the first tariffs the Canadians were gonna impose was a 25% one on EVs from the US.

    Which is where Teslas sold in Canada are built.

    Canada also has a 100% tariff on Chinese EVs, ostensibly to stop the Chinese from product dumping but also to help it’s normally close trading partner to the south in terms of it’s EV industry.

  51. 51.

    sentient ai from the future

    @Leto: also, how much highly-targeted malware have they seeded those systems with?

    Look up “equation group hard drive malware”

    yes, originally part of the nsa but the shadow brokers ensured those tools were released a few years ago. So assume everyone else has them too (and have probably done innovative things with them)

  52. 52.

    John S.

    @sentient ai from the future:

    how much highly-targeted malware have they seeded those systems with?

    Knowingly or unknowingly.

    Musk and his dipshits are exactly the kind of people who watch porn, gamble or do any number of highly risky online activities when they should be working. They’re the same people who complain about fake phishing programs while being the ones to always fall for them.

  54. 54.

    frosty

    @frosty: I called my R Senator and Congressman and told them to stop enabling Trump and Musk. If they’re going to cede Congress’s power of the purse they should just go home. We don’t need to pay their salaries if they”re doing nothing.

  55. 55.

    sentient ai from the future

    @John S.: or procure their hardware from somewhere vulnerable to supply chain attacks. They are so out of their depth it’s beyond mere insanity.

  56. 56.

    Jeffro

    as many, many others have noted both here and places like TPM…Musk is not popular, and the idea of an unelected billionaire and his gang of pimply goons wrecking our government is even less popular.

    Dems should absolutely run. with. it.

    MUSK OUT OF GOVT is a simple message.

    NO ONE ELECTED MUSK is also simple.

    No need to add anything else…folks know what’s up, and who Musk is tied to.

    Build that resistance.  Build that awareness.  We’re going to need it!

    NO ONE ELECTED MUSK

  57. 57.

    Leto

    @prostratedragon: Key was reporting on this, this morning. I was pointing out, again, that skipping dipshits just walked in (“Get our of our way”) while MoC are being blocked. Security was impotent for the deplorables while they suddenly found their spine for MoC. /shrug.

  58. 58.

    Rusty

    @rikyrah: This has been a hot button issue for Republicans for a while.  The wealthy are the only ones that can realistically afford to sue the press, so it will be a way for them to bully the press to give fawning or no coverage.  Any mistatement, no matter how small is a chance for the wealthy and powerful to make the press knuckle under.

  59. 59.

    bluefoot

    @JoyceH: For those people who think “we’re giving money to the browns” re USAID, I reply with soft power extending the US’s reach & influence, and supporting our farmers through supplying aid abroad.  Since obviously trying to alleviate human suffering is not a sufficient goal for some people.

  64. 64.

    Citizen Alan

    @rikyrah: I knew this was coming. Clarence Thomas has hinted for years that he wants to overturn Times v Sullivan. As bad as it would be for the future of our nation, I will still cackle like a maniac if the NYT is sued out of existence in a post Sullivan world.

  66. 66.

    Geminid

    @gene108: Politico Playbook had a brief preview of upcoming Governor races a couple weeks ago. It included this year’s and next year’s. I remember they listed Virginia’s as a tossup. That was fine by me; let them underestimate Abigail Spanberger’s political skills. I am confident she’ll win and bring some extra Delegates in on her coattails. All 100 House of Delegates seats are up election this year.

    Unlike Virginia, New Jersey will have a hard fought Democratic primary. I’ll be rooting for Rep. Mikie Sherrill. Like Spanberger, Sherrill is a member of the talented House Class of 2018.

    Another Democrat first elected in 2018, former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, will run for Governor of New Mexico next year. Deb Haaland won Michelle Lujan Grisham’s seat when Grisham advanced to Governor. Spanberger and Sherrill beat Republican incumbents that year.

  67. 67.

    rikyrah

    @Jeffro:

    MUSK OUT OF GOVT is a simple message.

    NO ONE ELECTED MUSK is also simple.

    No need to add anything else…folks know what’s up, and who Musk is tied to.

    Build that resistance.  Build that awareness.  We’re going to need it!

    NO ONE ELECTED MUSK

    CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP

  69. 69.

    TBone

    Wish I hadn’t napped all through this post, but I really needed the sleep.  So much to say too late!

  70. 70.

    Ruckus

    @Spanky:

    Mine is deposited, not mailed but not for a few days. If I don’t see it I’ll make a comment on the day when it’s due. Last one came in on time.

  71. 71.

    sab

    @TBone: Old dead threads usually aren’t dead, just resting. They revive in the wee hours. North Americans with insomnia and Australians and Chinese wide awake.

  72. 72.

    Ruckus

    @cmorenc:

    elon is in it for the MONEY and that being the richest gives him power over others that only have any concept of anything but MONEY. MONEY is his motivation, his reward and his power.

    And he thinks his money is better than anyone else’s money, even all of ours put together (government) In his mind he is king of the world and calls all the shots. But he is also full of that which we call mammal exhaust, that comes out the lowest and most rear side port.

  75. 75.

    Kayla Rudbek

    @rikyrah: that would be great! And apparently Coke made in Mexico tastes better than Coke made in the USA (real sugar versus high fructose corn syrup as the sweetener) so if Coke starts losing market share in Mexico, it would serve them right

  76. 76.

    Kayla Rudbek

    @RaflW: and the Wankpanzers can’t handle Canadian winters, they have problems with their headlights getting all snowed over

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