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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 2, 2025

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This, more. Seeing the Bannon position (which- to be clear- is really old) being passed / smuggled as 'Trump is seriously feuding with Musk' has put this firmly in the 'can't trust initial reporting: ignore for now and come back in a few days to see what, specifically, has changed' zone. Both Bannon and the democratic media have been trying to meme a Musk-Trump blowup into happening for some time, and the information environment is already contaminated. Maybe that's what's happening now, but then Musk has been distancing from DOGE since its disruption phase was done in the first two months, reporting already indicated his allies were/are still there, and he's been reportedly wanting to go back to focusing on his business. It's not exactly hard to think of various kayfabe reasons* for a quote-unquote 'staged' breakup fight in a way that serves both his and Trump's political interests.

Or he could be ketamine-influenced and this will spiral. Who knows. I'll wait regardless.

Key things I'll look for to validate this being a Big Deal include-

  • Are Musk's allies purged from DOGE?
  • Are Musk's contracts frozen / suspended?
  • Any immigration-specific action against Musk.

*One amusing proposal from a friend: the Dems demanding the Epstein file log, which will be less damning to Trump than hoped, but catch some Democratic VIPs in a way that leads to inter-Democrat fratricide.