Punch a Confederate weirdo today!

There was a violent crime in Belfast: a black immigrant stabbed a white man. It’s a common kind of crime, horrible and deserving of condemnation, but trust Elon Musk to fan the flames of hatred and turn it into a cause celebre, and the city was consumed with violent riots.

As the bedlam raged in Belfast after the stabbing—resulting in far-right rioters torching cars, buses, and even the homes of immigrants—Musk egged it on. Using X—the platform he acquired precisely for moments like these—he posted locations for groups of rioters to congregate. He elevated vile, overtly fascist and white-supremacist exhortations. When one far-right British politician called for the prosecution of officials who “placed dangerous third world savages in our communities,” Musk replied: “This is the way.”

These developments graphically illustrate the future that Musk truly envisions. They also demonstrate that Musk will use his stratospheric wealth and influence to incite untold levels of global fascist violence going forward. Which leads to an unavoidable conclusion: At some point, friends of liberal democracy throughout the advanced democracies—including future liberal governments—will simply have to come together in a concerted and deliberate way to constrain Musk and all he’s unleashing. Whenever Democrats take back power in the United States, this must be squarely on the agenda.

The article has a lot to say about Musk’s outrageous fascism, and don’t deny it: it’s fucking fascism of the kind Hitler would have endorsed, combined with the same crazy ignorance of actual genetics, and he has a plan that Donald Trump would recognize.

It’s instructive that amid the violence, Musk endorsed a call for “Reconquista,” an allusion to Christian military campaigns to retake the Iberian peninsula from Islamic forces. (Modern-day keyboard fascists have long rather pathetically imagined themselves to be akin to Charles Martel, who turned back the Muslims at Tours in 732.) And Musk boosted a call for the removal of millions from the U.K.

I was wondering what Democrats could possibly do against a trillionaire. Here are some suggestions.

Then there’s what a future Democratic Congress can do. The Musk problem will have to be on its agenda in a serious and meaningful way. Claire Finkelstein, a professor of national security law at the University of Pennsylvania, points out a core problem here: His many government contracts, and his access to privileged information, pose a “national security threat,” even as Space X itself is in many ways a “national security asset.” We need to know a lot more about what Musk’s contracts actually translate into in terms of his personal influence inside the government.

“Congress has to do rigorous oversight of Musk’s government contracts as well as his entire financial empire,” Finkelstein tells us.

Other ideas abound. Brian Beutler has urged the next Democratic administration to closely scrutinize the murky circumstances of Musk’s own immigration to the United States. Beyond such things, we’ll need a coordinated effort across liberal democracies. Appropriately, the targeting of apartheid in Musk’s native South Africa provides a model. We need an international consensus that recognizes the threat Musk poses and works against it with boycotts, with the withdrawal of support and funding, and with whatever creative tools are available. Politicians and publics alike need to think internationally.

OK, let’s strip him of his government contracts, and then turn his own plans against him: deport Musk. Maybe we can seize all of his assets and turn SpaceX into a subdivision of NASA, too. And that’s a mild response: he really ought to be jailed for incitement.

And the winner is…

I can’t say that I’m particularly upset at our defeat — it was an unjust attack, a war of aggression instigated by our right wing and Israel, and it was doomed from the start — except that we killed a lot of people for no good reason. Fortunately, now Trump has signed what is called a “Memorandum of Understanding” that ought to be more accurately labeled our terms of surrender.

He signed it at Versailles.

On social media, the historian Kevin Kruse reacted with disbelief to the president signing the agreement to end his war in the same location where Germany was forced to sign the humiliating treaty of Versailles in 1919, accepting its loss in the first world war.

“He signed an unconditional surrender at Versailles?” Kruse wrote. “Come the fuck on.”

It is most definitely a surrender. Look at point 6 of the memorandum.

6. The United States undertakes, together with its regional partners, to create a comprehensive plan agreed upon by both parties for the rehabilitation and economic development of the Islamic Republic of Iran, While ensuring financing of at least $300 billion. The implementation mechanism of this plan, as part of the final agreement, will be formulated within 60 days.

The US also agrees that “frozen or restricted funds and assets of the Islamic Republic of Iran will be released and made fully available”. There are no concessions to the US other than the promise that Iran will never produce nuclear weapons, a promise that was in place before we started bombing everything. We’re paying $300 billion in reparations!

The war might be over, except for one little clause.

The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States, together with their allies in the current war, declare upon the signing of this Memorandum of Understanding an immediate and permanent end to the war on all fronts, including Lebanon, and undertake that from now on they will not launch any hostile action against each other, and will refrain from the threat or use of force against each other. The final agreement will confirm the provisions of this Article and the remaining Articles.

Our “ally” in this war was Israel. Netanyahu has already declared that they aren’t leaving Lebanon. He’s going to start firing missiles everywhere, isn’t he?

The MAGA rationalizations are going to be epic.