Will Elon Musk destroy government of, by, and for the people where it was born?

There's some debate about where the modern Republican Party was born.

We know that its birthdate was in 1854. That's when a coalition of Americans who opposed the expansion of enslavement decided an actual anti-slavery party was needed after Democrats passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act—which broke the Missouri Compromise and allowed for the admission of states that permitted enslavement north of what is now known as America's Sunbelt—and everyone decided the Whigs were useless.

The first meeting where the term "Republican" appears to have been suggested as a name for the movement was in a schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin, in late March 1854. In June, the influential editor of The New York Tribune, Horace Greeley, wrote that that moniker would "fitly designate those who had united to restore the Union to its true mission of champion and promulgator of Liberty rather than propagandist of slavery." Then in July, the first statewide Republican convention was held "Under the Oaks" just outside Jackson, Michigan, 44 miles from where I'm typing.

The party's three "foundings" parallel the "three foundings" of America. This often refers to the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights trilogy. But for me, the "three foundings" are the first one, the defeat of The Slaveholders' Revolt (resulting in the Reconstruction Amendments of the Constitution, which kicked off with the birth of the Republican Party), and what we call the Civil Rights Movement of the 20th century.

And it is the demise of the Civil Rights Movement—and the Supreme Court rulings engineered to reverse it, Citizens United, Shelby v. Holder, etc.—that gave us the rise of the Apartheid government of Elon Musk.

Reign or rein?

For the first time in American history, we have something like an unelected king ruling us and threatening us and destroying the things we've earned, like Social Security, while shoveling himself billions in spoils.

I have convincingly argued that he is forcing us to destroy his only public company, though we will never do as good a job of this as Elon Musk has. For our system gives us no other way to contain a man who stands outside our checks and balances smiting us—as the party that controls the government effectively acts as if one of the least impressive presidential wins in American history has voided the Constitution.

The next few days will give us a chance to give our first answer to the question that could define the rest of our lives, "Will we rein Elon Musk in, or will he reign over us forever?"

A tale of two takedowns, part 1

First, we all have a chance to tell Elon that we're not going to take it. No, we ain't going to take it. We're not going to take it anymore.

March 29th is #TeslaTakedown GLOBAL DAY OF ACTION. There's a pretty good chance you can find a place to show up and tell Elon to get his hell out of our government wherever there are Teslas.

How that day looks to the world will probably not affect Elon Musk, who has the three Rs fascists need to properly fascist until they are stopped—ruthlessness, relentlessness, and resources. But it could increase the shivers that are already crawling up Republicans' spines so far that they've even reached Donald Trump's brain.

A shock loss for a Republican in Pennsylvania's Amish country has given the GOP the sense that their tenuous control over us—the smallest House majority in 100 years!!—could slip away.

Destroying Musk's personal brand has direct political ramifications beyond hurting his car sales and tanking Tesla's stock value (which frankly is inflated beyond all sense both by irrational exuberance for the scam he and Silicon Valley have been hooking us with for decades and the monied interests of the global right that now have a vested interest in propping him up).

In NEXT COMES WHAT, the podcast that I produce, Andrea has spoken several times about why Musk is such a perfect target and why the Takedowns have been the most effective way to oppose Musk/Trump's authoritarianism anyone has figured out yet. In this week's episode above, she explains why emphasizing the peaceful nature of the movement by turning these Takedowns into dance parties is particularly genius.

Trump and Musk's increasing screeching about this movement shows that they get how singularly effective it has been to crack the veneer of their assault on our government. And let them screech because they're just inviting more people to the party.

On Saturday, we're not just taking down Tesla. We're making Elon Musk, the increasingly detested face of the GOP, the miserable visage of the GOP. And that has enormous value. It may be our only hope to stop his unchecked attempt to buy every consequential election for the rest of our lives.

A tale of two takedowns, part 2

The Wisconsin Supreme Court election on Tuesday, April 1st, shall decide if the nation's Tipping Point state remains a democracy or slips back into the gerrymandered hell that will ban abortion against the will of Wisconsinites. Without a victory by Susan Crawford that retains the pro-democracy majority in the state's court, winning Wisconsin could become impossible for Democrats.

No one needs to tell Elon Musk how important this race is because someone already did. He's dumping more money than most Americans will ever earn—which, to him, is just the change he finds between his hair plugs—into this race.

You can read Ari Berman or watch him tell Democracy Now! explain the abomination of what Musk is doing to drown out democracy in the Badger State.

Or you can watch this Daily Show summary:

It looks almost exactly like the "phishing attack" tactics he used to buy Donald Trump the presidency and install himself as Dork King.

And if these tactics that should be illegal still work now, on this much more informed electorate, after he's exposed his agenda to fleece working Americans to fuel his fraud-built fortune, they can work anywhere.

At the end of the Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln consecrated the burden that Americans who survived the Slaveholders' Revolt had on those who had been enslaved and those who had died to free them:

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

That's what is at stake in Wisconsin, where—let's say for the sake of symmetry—the movement that lifted Lincoln to power was born.

So get thee to a #TeslaTakedown if you can. Find some way to help elect Susan Crawford if you can. And absolutely get to the polls by Tuesday to defeat Elon Musk if you can.