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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 2, 2025

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The Trump-Musk friendship had already crumbled, but now it seems like it's actively imploding.

Musk went nuclear against Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill", calling it a "disgusting abomination". In response, the White House is "very disappointed" in the criticism. In other words, they're probably saying "fuck you, Elon" behind closed doors. Trump had previously been anomalously deferential to Musk, but if you read between the lines you could see there was trouble in paradise. Musk feuded with other members of the administration and Trump didn't back him up. Musk was causing enough chaos that he was starting to be seen as a political liability, and so Musk was somewhat gently pushed out of his role. People like Hanania who claimed the bromance would last have been proven incorrect, at least on this point.

Trump's budget is broadly awful, exploding the deficit to pay for regressive tax cuts, so I hope it dies.

Someone here predicted that the Elon-Trump alliance would fracture. Was it 2rafa?

I think almost everyone has, but predicting that any [Person]-Trump alliance will fracture is like predicting that the sun will rise in the east. Trump is known for his tendency to fall out with prominent allies and advisers on a pretty regular basis.