Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) obtained an enormous response when he mentioned “fire Elon Musk” right into a bullhorn at a rally exterior the U.S. Division of Labor in February.
It was chilly, cloudy and a number of other different Democrats had already spoken, however the crowd of anxious federal staff cheered loudly for the concept of firing Musk, the architect of President Donald Trump’s efforts to intestine the federal workforce, and did just a little call-and-response chant with Casar.
It was a second of readability for the second-term Democrat and new chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
“In that moment, when there were just hundreds of union workers who just couldn’t stop chanting and yelling and stomping their feet after I said just those three words, after that, I knew that this is the direction we all had to go,” Casar informed HuffPost.
(The one lawmaker who obtained a louder response that day was Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.). His applause line? “Fuck Elon Musk.”)
Musk has accomplished a outstanding job inflicting pointless chaos in federal companies whereas shredding his personal public picture, with nationwide polls placing him 10 factors much less widespread than the president, and his high-profile intervention on behalf of a Republican candidate seemingly serving to a Democrat win a Wisconsin Supreme Court docket race earlier this month.
Democrats weren’t at all times united round villainizing Musk, who, not too way back, was an admired determine recognized extra for constructing space-age automobiles and rockets than for sharing conspiracy theories and blindly slashing important authorities packages. Now, he’s a important a part of their plans for seemingly each race between now and the midterm elections, 19 months away.
Kayla Bartkowski by way of Getty Photographs
However there’s a possible hiccup on the horizon: Musk’s relevance may decline sooner relatively than later. For one factor, he’s a brief worker of the White Home, and DOGE is meant to wrap up by subsequent July, in accordance with Trump’s govt order establishing his “18-month DOGE Agenda.” Trump has hinted at Musk’s eventual departure, Musk has been feuding with Trump’s commerce advisor over tariffs, the president’s signature financial coverage, and the White Home has pulled again on Musk’s controversial anti-fraud work on the Social Safety Administration.
Musk is unlikely to vanish utterly ― his social media utilization is borderline compulsive and he’s already instructed he desires to spend $100 million extra backing Trump’s agenda ― however the tariff-centric previous week has proven how shortly even the world’s richest man who additionally occurs to be a prime White Home adviser can disappear from the information cycle.
“There is some concern in some quarters that Trump’s going to kick him to the curb, and then we spent all this time sort of building this guy up as a focal point, but he’s gone,” Glenn Ivey (D-Md.) informed HuffPost.
Ivey mentioned Trump himself, and the financial injury he’s doing with tariffs are advantageous targets for Democrats: “We just need to kind of remind people it’s there and kind of point it out.”
Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) is a veteran lawmaker who has served within the Home since 1999. He remembers the second-term overreach of a earlier Republican president, George W. Bush, whose bid to denationalise Social Safety propelled Democrats to an enormous victory within the 2006 Home midterm elections. Fairly than choose a villain, Larson mentioned Democrats ought to preserve their deal with Trump’s threats to Social Safety and federal well being packages.
“The very things that they’re after in trying to attack Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are going to remain the core base ― that is the numero uno Democratic policy, the banner issue of which Franklin Delano Roosevelt took us out of the Depression into modern day politics,” Larson mentioned.
Musk’s DOGE group has triggered havoc on the Social Safety Administration and pushed for mass layoffs on the Division of Health and Human Companies, which oversees Medicare and Medicaid. Trump has vowed to not help precise profit cuts in these packages, however Democrats have staged a number of press conferences to focus on the turmoil, particularly at Social Safety, and insisted it’s all a prelude to privatization.
Now, even lawmakers comparable to Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who had praised the prospect of Musk taking up authorities waste, particularly within the bloated protection price range, informed HuffPost they’re disillusioned in his “Department of Government Efficiency” undertaking.
“If the goal is to combat waste, inefficiency and bureaucracy, that is a noble goal,” Sanders mentioned. “The way DOGE has operated is totally illegal, outrageous, and counterproductive. What they’re doing now to Social Security, to the Veterans Administration, is totally disgraceful.”
However Khanna nonetheless doesn’t agree with making Musk right into a villain, saying, “We should keep it to the issues.” Different rank-and-file Democrats have their doubts, too. Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) mentioned Democrats want “a positive vision for the future” and to confess they had been flawed about border safety throughout Joe Biden’s presidency.
Casar mentioned Democrats ought to get off their outdated Social Safety speaking factors. In his view, there’s no substitute for villain.
“If we’re willing to say, ‘Fire Elon Musk, because he’s stealing Social Security dollars to enrich himself, and after we fire Elon Musk, we need start taxing billionaires like him so we can expand Social Security for every single senior In this country,’ then people might actually hear us,” Casar mentioned.
The choice for a extra combative public relations technique is frequent amongst youthful Democrats like Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) and Jasmine Crockett (Texas), and a distinction with former president Joe Biden’s nostalgic musings about his friendships with Republican senators.
If Musk does go away, Casar mentioned Democrats would have a good time the win and remind voters on the midterms, very similar to they did earlier than retaking the Home in 2018 in Trump’s first time period.
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“When Democrats saved the Affordable Care Act during the first Trump administration, we still were able to campaign on the fact that we saved the Affordable Care Act when Republicans were trying to take people’s health care away,” Casar mentioned. “If we fire Elon Musk, we’re still gonna be able to say that, yeah, we’re against billionaires stealing your money for themselves.”
