How Trump and Musk built their own reality

The putative president of the United States, Donald Trump, stood connected the White House lawn. In his hand, helium held a income transportation for Tesla cars. The astir almighty antheral successful America, Elon Musk, attired for a precise casual ceremonial and looking miserable, stood adjacent to Trump. As Trump spoke, promising to bargain a Tesla, Musk stood with his arms folded implicit his chest, giving the undeniable content of a sulking toddler. Later, Trump threatened to statement anyone vandalizing Teslas oregon Tesla dealerships home terrorists.

The full incidental was, successful its way, revelatory. A bid of protests had targeted Tesla dealerships and owners, arsenic Americans expressed their distaste for Musk, the unelected person of the US. The instinct, successful effect to existent behavior, was to make a media moment: a Tesla ad.

One of the bizarre hallmarks of the Trump epoch is simply a acceptable of elected officials who progressively cannot archer isolated spectacle and world — as good arsenic a radical of voters who look likewise confused. Take the Trump elector insisting that authorities agencies get taxation cuts for DEI initiatives, arsenic a baffled Sam Seder attempts to explain that, successful fact, authorities agencies are what taxes are for, and frankincense are not taxe …

Read the afloat communicative astatine The Verge.