In Memoriam: The America We Knew — Can It Be Revived?
Trump took a giant wrecking ball to a great if contradiction-ridden nation. Much of the edifice is gone, but the foundation is deep and may yet endure.
RUSS BAKER
MAY 24
On this Memorial Day, as we remember those who lost their lives for this country, I wonder how they’d feel about what this country has become, ruled by a regime that cares nothing about them and their comrades who gave everything.
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Did Elon Musk Steal the 2024 Election for Trump?
I don’t know how closely you follow the drama around Elon Musk’s energetic romantic life or his various baby mamas, but a new wrinkle may in particular be worth our scrutiny.
One mama, former conservative influencer Ashley St. Clair, went on TikTok to mention, almost in passing and while applying her cosmetics on-camera, that Elon told her things on election night 2024 that made her believe he had helped rig Trump’s victory.
Oh.
Let me repeat, in case you were reading quickly:
St. Clair claims Elon basically told her that he was involved with rigging the 2024 election for Trump.
St. Clair says she was at Mar-a-Lago on the night of November 5, hours before the election was called, when Musk texted her:
I knew hours ago that Trump won, my team has the best real-time data.
Exactly what that means — including how Musk’s people would have information no one else does — is unclear. Bear in mind that a tiny swing of a mere 115,000 votes in three tight states, out of over 153 million votes cast nationally (that is, 0.075 percent), would have given Kamala Harris an Electoral College majority — and proven Musk dead wrong.
St. Clair associates this with earlier Musk assertions. She claims that Musk had in the past shared internal data from the political action committee America PAC, which he created to influence the 2024 election.
Musk, St. Clair says, attributed his election prowess to something from “space technology” — seemingly referencing his globe-encircling network of communication satellites.
Wondering on election night how Musk could possibly have voting information that no one else did, she says he replied that it was “not a piece they’ll see on the chess board.”
She told him not to tell her more, noting that she didn’t want “to be deposed” — i.e., face any legal liability for the information. To which he purportedly replied, “Very wise.”
Now, if he did agree that this was dangerous information, it’s hard to see how he will claim it is all a misunderstanding — and entirely benign.
Someone “close to Musk” already has disputed that (if indeed the texts are real), leaving us to ponder if he could have been bluffing, or hallucinating, or making relatively trivial things sound much more ominous and substantial.
Perhaps we’ll learn more. St. Clair stated on her TikTok that she has taken measures to protect herself and what she knows. She says she has the backed-up messaging with Musk safely stowed somewhere, and that others have instructions on what to do with it should anything unfortunate happen to her.
This “revelation” has received breathless attention from some few in the social media hothouse — but so far been generally ignored by legacy media.
The right way to do this is to stay agnostic and dig in. It’s important to note that St. Clair, who has renounced her role in MAGA, has generally not sought publicity, and that is exactly the kind of thing one looks at in determining whether to take such a claim seriously.
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You’ll be hearing more from me regarding what can be done to fix this “state of affairs.” For one thing, it’s time to recognize that no Big Daddy is going to save us. Not the largely performative political class, and not the tech-bro oligarchs.
No, we are going to have to organize ourselves, patronize and support and encourage all manner of entities and initiatives that seek to expose the largely veiled nature of our reality.
The good news is that there are untold thousands of bright spots and innovative operations looking to go deeper — even if we rarely hear about them.
To be sure, this particular item must be considered in tandem with Trump’s postelection nod to Musk for his “win” in Pennsylvania, framed something like “[Elon] knows those vote-counting computers better than anybody.”
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