No Muskrat Love In The Capitol

According to a recent article in Forbes Magazine and a Pew Research poll, Elroy Muskrat is not the most popular person on the planet. Granted, how one feels about the alleged DOGE leader is likely partisan, at least in the US. 87% of Democrats don’t like him at all. Jewish leaders have called for a boycott of X. This past week, a dealership’s entire inventory of Telsa cars was destroyed and there’s increasing concern that hatred for Muskrat could sink the company.

That Muskrat is unpopular among ‘normal’ people isn’t surprising. There’s a general attitude, especially in online forums and social media, that super-rich celebrity CEOs need to be brought down a peg or two. Arrogance doesn’t play well.

When Muskrat’s SpaceX rocket blew up on Friday, he claimed the event was, “just a bump in the road.” No one is buying it. This second explosion in as many months required numerous aircraft to be rerouted and four airports temporarily grounded all flights because of the debris. This wasn’t just a bump in the space road. This was a sign of incompetence that has become Muskrat’s trademark.

This past week was an especially rough one for Elroy. An emergency cabinet meeting was called on Wednesday, just days after a scheduled meeting, because department heads such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy are pissed about personnel cuts within their departments.

To say the meeting was ‘heated’ is being unnecessarily polite. There was yelling. There was fist pounding. There were face-to-face glares across the table. There was name-calling. While the president tries desperately to present a united front, the reality is that animosity is running deep and patience is quickly disappearing.

At one point in the meeting, Rubio called Muskrat a liar. Referring to the 1,500 State Department officials who took buyouts to leave their posts, Rubio asked, “Do you want me to bring them all back so you can make a show of firing them?”

Secretary Duffy was even more adamant when he accused Muskrat of trying to fire Air Traffic Controllers at a time when airplanes seem to be falling out of the sky one after the other. There might have been a dig at SpaceX explosions in there as well.

The president, sitting on the sidelines watching the back-and-forth as if it were a tennis match calmly said that Air Traffic Controllers should be ‘geniuses’ hired from MIT. Yes, the president is that clueless.

Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Doug Collins, didn’t mince words, either. He accused Muskrat of wielding a ‘blunt instrument’ and made a point of emphasizing how the cutbacks were damaging to those who’ve served their country.

Elroy rolled his eyes. He rolled his eyes at veterans.

The cabinet meeting, by any logical standard, was a disaster. It appeared that the president was pulling back on Muskrat’s leash, trying to get him to heel. He said that only department heads could fire employees from their departments. But then he said that if they don’t fire enough people, that Muskrat would be free to fire more.

The official line, of course, is that the meeting was a great success. Everyone knows it wasn’t, but that’s the line the spokespersons for various agencies are pushing. When a reporter asked the president about the clash, he replied angrily, “No clash, I was there. You’re just a troublemaker, and you’re not supposed to be asking that question.”

Mind you, clashes among Cabinet members are not all that unusual. Probably the worst was President Nixon’s Cabinet after the 1972 election. In the wake of the Watergate hearings, there were accusations of disloyalty, illegal acts, and illicit behavior. No one trusted anyone else. Every meeting, especially the ‘unofficial’ ones in White House corridors, often came close to exchanging blows. And yeah, then CIA Director George Bush was right in the middle of those arguments.

Even the Cabinet of the president’s first administration had problems that led many to resign. There were significant policy clashes on issues like trade, foreign policy, and domestic issues, often leading to public disputes and firings or resignations of cabinet secretaries.

One can arguably make the case, however, that in none of those Cabinets was one person as reviled and hated as Muskrat who, technically, isn’t even a member of the Cabinet but keeps showing up to the meetings (that rubs the wrong way with some as well). Many are questioning how long he’ll put up with the blatant disrespect before having a blowup of his own and storming off to pout.

The president needs Muskrat to do his dirty work for him, though. Regardless of what might be said in public, be sure that the president is taking pains to soothe Muskrat’s ego in private. Increasingly, however, the Muskrat is getting in over his head. Not only did his rocket explode this week, but European company Eutelstat offered to replace Starlink in Ukraine. Muskrat furiously tweeted, “My Starlink system is the backbone of the Ukrainian army. Their entire front line would collapse if I turned it off.” Never mind that there are at least five different companies sufficiently capable of replacing the service.

The truth is that Muskrat never should have been invited to Washington in the first place. General opinion now is that it was his money that bought the election for Republicans. That he would be given any position of power as some sort of quid pro quo is unconstitutional, which is why the president denies such a charge.

Muskrat needs to go and go quickly. Republican lawmakers are already cowering in fear as their constituents grow increasingly upset by DOGE cuts. With re-election on the line, don’t think for a second that they won’t sacrifice Muskrat as a scapegoat in order to appease the anger of people back home.

That makes this an excellent time to call your elected representatives. Make sure they know that you’re going to blame them if Muskrat continues to cause problems. You have the power. Use it.