Democrats, Let Trump and Elon Fight

Ro Khanna, a Democrat who represents Silicon Valley in Congress, was quoted in that piece and has spoken up about starting a “dialogue” with the billionaire. “We should ultimately be trying to convince him that the Democratic Party has more of the values that he agrees with,” Khanna told Politico, in a separate piece. “A commitment to science funding, a commitment to clean technology, a commitment to seeing international students like him.”

At Wednesday’s WelcomeFest—a kind of Coachella for centrist politicians and consultants, if Coachella was more annoying and significantly less popular—the festival’s co-founder Liam Kerr pushed the idea that Musk returning to the party could be good. “You don’t want anyone wildly distorting your politics, which he has a unique capability to do. But it’s a zero-sum game,” he said. “Anything that he does that moves more toward Democrats hurts Republicans.”

Embracing Musk is, even for this iteration of the Democratic Party, a phenomenally stupid and self-defeating thing to do. Yes, the feud between him and Trump is good for them. Democrats should help it continue—not by embracing Musk but by … letting it continue. “Let them fight” is a well-worn political strategy because it works. Musk and Trump’s feud causes division within the Republican Party, imperils one of the worst pieces of legislation in modern history, and makes everyone involved in it look like a childish idiot. It is literally drawing attention to Trump’s ties to Epstein, which have been well known for years but have never really landed with his base. Every second that the two of them are fighting is good for Democrats. But it’s especially good because they are fighting over the direction of the Republican Party.