The seriousness of the threat that Donald Trump poses to liberal democracy was re-emphasised in his online “conversation” with Elon Musk late Monday evening. But it reveals heightened dangers that we had not seen made explicit until now. Perhaps the most plain was the job offer that Trump made to Musk to participate in any administration that he would form if elected in November. It was received positively by Musk.
On the geopolitical agenda, it was notable that Trump was laudatory of Vladimir Putin’s Russia while deeply critical of the European Union. He got no push back from Musk on this issue. That probably reflects Musk’s realisation that the biggest threat to his abuse of X/Twitter lies in the capacity of the EU to create a real regime of owner and executive accountability for online social and political misinformation and provocation.
Trump, on the other hand, is and always has been profoundly hostile to the EU. He allied with and openly encouraged politicians in Europe who advocated the break-up of the EU. He resents the capacity of the EU to challenge the economic strength of the US. He resorted to tariff war of a limited kind against the EU when in office.
He again repeated (unchallenged by Musk) his lie that he had in fact won the 2020 election. He is committed to opening the prison gates for all those convicted of the January 6th invasion of the Capitol.
His claim that Putin would not have invaded Ukraine if Trump had remained in office is a strange essay in counterfactual thinking. Putin had effectively invaded Ukraine as early as 2014. Trump tried to bargain with Kyiv, threatening them with diminished aid if they would not co-operate in his campaign to expose Hunter Biden in the run-up to the 2020 election.
Far from discouraging the creeping annexation of eastern Ukraine by Putin, Trump played footsie with Putin throughout his term of office exemplified by the embarrassing summit in Helsinki. Trump and his congressional allies did their level best to pull the financial plug from Biden’s efforts to shore up Volodymyr Zelenskiy once the full-scale invasion took place.
The only plausible sense in which Trump might have avoided that invasion would have involved a deal with Russia by which de facto control of Ukraine was ceded to Putin, and Zelenskiy’s government was quietly abandoned and overthrown.
All the signs are there that a Trump presidency would appease Putin’s desire to re-establish the Soviet-era dominance of eastern Europe. His recent endorsement of Viktor Orban demonstrates the likely vector of US policy if he resumes his seat in the Oval Office.
There is no reason to believe that Trump supports the territorial integrity of the eastern European states. He would probably be very happy with a new entente with Russia that entails the Finlandisation of the Baltic States, Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova.
The “conversation” rambled on to North Korea. Trump completely ignored the colossal failure of his administration’s interactions with Kim Jong Un. The DPRK is building intercontinental ballistic missiles and has developed nuclear warheads despite empty threats from Trump that he would act decisively to prevent such an outcome.
His attitude to Taiwan is equally suspect. He accuses Taipei of “taking” the US semiconductor industry. He suggests that Taiwan should pay the US for its defence – as if the US system of worldwide alliances is nothing more than a crudely transactional protection racket.
Another weird aspect of Monday’s “conversation” is that Musk in 2022 had declared that Trump was too old for the job and backed Ron De Santis for the republican nomination. Trump then was happily deriding electric cars and impliedly attacking Musk’s Tesla corporation.
But when Musk switched his support to Trump, the electric car suddenly became a good idea. Trump defended that U-turn on the simple transactional basis that Musk was now a supporter and is planning to establish a fundraising PAC to help Trump in November.
As Fintan O’Toole pointed out, Musk is a world-class pusher and dealer in lies, misinformation and provocations. He has consciously stripped X/Twitter of internal controls and disciplines to moderate its content.
Trump once recklessly implied that a political opponent was complicit in the murder of his wife in exactly the same way that Musk hinted that the murderous hammer attack on “crazy” Nancy Pelosi’s husband could have been the result of an encounter with a male prostitute.
Their common traits are cruelty, vindictiveness and a total disregard for inconvenient truth. Those who get in their way are “nasty” or “paedos”. Trump’s niece and sister confirmed our worst suspicions of his character, just as Musk’s father has recently revealed the reality of his son’s worldview. We have been warned.
Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 The Conversation was a classic political thriller. Was Monday’s “conversation” a trailer for a coming horror movie? We have every reason to be very afraid.