That Trump & Musk Thing

So, Trump and Musk are fighting now?

I’ve been following the saga in between weekend memories with family—just enough screen time to confirm a gut instinct.

When I returned to a fuller look last night, that instinct was verified.

Nothing’s changed between Trump and Musk—because what was put into public view going back years was never organic in the first place.

It’s a good guess that this little theater is just another episode in the Netflix series. It isn’t unlike the others, one being back in 2022 when they were supposedly squabbling and another being last summer when they “so organically’ talked in X Spaces and started “organically” chatting about Musk being involved in a government efficiency program “if” Trump was elected to the Presidency. Here, I’ve been following this storyline since 2022:

I keep repeating here on The Hayride and RVIVR, and Trump-Musk is only one part of it: all of this–especially when Trump is involved in lightning rod posts online– is not about the specific events. It’s about the overall story being told to us. Once again, though, the MAGA base is torn like this is a divorce trial—because too many still haven’t broken free of binary thinking made calcified by decades of Yankees-Red Sox wars and drama on Jersey Shore.

We keep warning about setting ourselves up for these inevitable moments of cognitive dissonance after we go all in with Tribe A or Tribe B on those electronic screens illustrating figures we can’t even prove are real. Many were pro-Trump, anti-Musk years ago; then when the two supposedly started collaborating, the binary simply shifted, instead of inspiring more people to think critically and not mutually exclusively.

Here’s one thing the latest episode is likely aiming to illustrate–because the real show isn’t Musk vs Trump.

It’s which influencers and media figures—especially in Conservative Inc—use this moment to show their hand.

We’ve long learned to sniff out the enemy on the Left inside media.

But have we recognized how Mockingbird has changed its tune?

Perhaps the key in this latest episode is Con Inc–the “conservative” controlled media I’ve been exploring so doggedly for a couple of months now.

We’ve seen it many times, but perhaps most impactfully, recently, was with the JFK files, when so many of our favorite “conservative” talking heads told us what to think instead of inspiring us to read and study for ourselves. We’ve also seen it with the rub between Mark Levin and Trump, albeit not in the explosive, direct (engineered) way as we are seeing with Musk right now, but similar all the same, when it comes to Israel.

Now yet another opportunity has arrived for all of us to pay attention to what the media–most importantly Con Inc–wants us to think concerning Trump and Musk. And this isn’t happening in a vacuum. On the West Coast stage, Gavin Newsom is now calling for a federal tax revolt—a strange mirror of patriot messaging.

What if even our villains are scripted to help deliver us to the same end—just from opposite directions?

Do we not see that Newsom, no matter what act he is putting on, is actually helping the patriot cause–just like “Joe Biden” did for four years–when he suggests ending the payment of federal taxes?

It’s a similar thing with Musk. And the fact that he has been aligned with Trump lately while Newsom hasn’t is completely irrelevant when one considers the macro outcome of American awakening.

Let’s be clear: this isn’t a clash of egos—it’s a test.

A loyalty test.

Not between Musk and Trump—but between us and the truth.

Or, between us and Truth.

This is about why this “fight” is happening now—and what it’s doing to the minds of people who think they’re awake just because they’ve finally come over to the conspiracy theorists’ side on things like MSNBC and Rachel Maddow or things like co-opted “viruses” that are way scarier on TV than in real life.

This latest Trump-Musk spat isn’t just a celebrity scuffle—it’s a narrative deployment. A well-timed tactic calibrated to do a number of things, all of them strategic. And one is to get people–once again–paying attention to what the top ranking conservative voices are saying about it all.

And from there–to actually challenge American conservatives to consider further whether or not these talking heads are even right, and more, if they really–really and truly–have their best interest in mind just because they spout the correct talking points about gender things and public restrooms.

The Kabuki Theater has become so obvious. And so many–once again driven by emotion instead of patience and logic–bought front-row tickets over the weekend.

I could tell that from even a sporadic keeping up of it amidst my family get-away.

Musk makes a comment. Trump fires back. Conservative influencers suddenly have 17 new reasons to post—and very few of those posts ask the real question:

Why are we still picking teams?

This is how controlled opposition works now—not in suits and ties on Fox News, or nodding solemnly with the Mitt Romneys and John McCains, or providing an engineered foil to Alan Colmes, but in ball caps, viral memes, and social media “owns” where everything slammed against the other guy appears conservative….

–when even the term conservative isn’t and never has been intended to get us anywhere but back to the same point on the hamster wheel.

The words evolved. The tune changed. The goal didn’t–

To keep us trapped in the system.

These people aren’t trying to stop the system—they’re trying to keep the illusion of resistance profitable. They don’t warn the public about the true evils underscoring all of this. They tell you that if we just win one more election, we can turn it all around.

Until we win that election–which was rigged in so many ways in the first place, just like all the others, even though our guy won! (while down-ticket shenanigans continued)–and the next story comes along giving them an opportunity to go with the latest hot name to oppose Trump.

Has the pattern not become obvious?

The only thing that shouldn’t be obvious at this point is whether or not Trump and company are in on it too, even the slings and arrows against him. 

Now that would be a movie.

All of this is hard, we know. The alternative requires admitting that no one’s coming to save us—not from the left, not from the right, not even from Mar-a-Lago or X HQ–even though those very two figures have paradoxically been so instrumental in giving us a window of opportunity to escape the prison. The alternative means waking up—not just once, but every day.

And that’s what this theater can do for us–all of us, no matter whom we support or whom we voted for–if we’ll open our minds and our prayer books to see it, to internalize it.

Part of that internalization is to do exactly with Con Inc what so many Americans finally came to do with the legacy media…

(Even though so many a conservative have once again forgotten that, yes, Fox News is a part of it all as well). Illusion of choice. Say just enough “conservative” things to set up the binary between themselves and the Rachel Maddows….

“Have you seen the price of gas and eggs drop? Have you?”

Then pick a side.

They’re all buddies, all of them.

What if, in the scheme of the Art of War that has become so apparent over the last several years, this Trump-Musk clash is meant to divide the populist right into Team Elon vs Team Donald? What if this whole public spat is a loyalty test—a clever psyop to see which voices in Con Inc are grifting off the Trump brand while secretly planning their exit ramp?

What if the whole point is to stir the hive?

And finally get us to thinking instead of cheering.

What happens when Musk and Trump “reconcile” (so organically!) just as Trump has done with so many a world leader after a seemingly crazy thing posted or spoken in the public sphere and an implied invitation to the same stirring among the MAGA world?

Thinking. Not cheering.

So many conservatives still think the choice is between the government and “the outsider.” But when both “outsiders” are billionaires who’ve met with world leaders and dined with technocrats … maybe they’re not outside at all.

Maybe they’re both inside to show us something–whether that be out of the goodness of their own swords or a revelation God Almighty is forcing through the fog and into our collective conscience by their actions.

It is classic game theory. Classic Art of War–whether it be human or divine. 

It can apply even if Trump and company aren’t purposely doing it at all, as so many other truly alternative thinkers are suggesting out there. That is the beauty of analyzing how the target group is impacted instead of analyzing, in a vacuum, the surface level stories being warred over online.

It’s all very dramatic. But drama is how empires keep the mob entertained. It’s how controlled opposition works, not by silencing dissent, but by channeling it. Not by crushing truth, but by branding it—and selling it back to us in exchange for our loyalty.

But it’s also how the good guys could be slowly, ever so slowly, waking us up to it all.

Reverse Hegelian Dialectic, anyone?

If the show’s gotten predictable, maybe it’s because it’s meant to be.

And maybe the answer isn’t to keep choosing characters in the script—but to exit the theater, to exit Plato’s Cave once and for all.

That’s what this moment is. There have been similar moments before. There will be similar moments again.

But the opportunities will run out.

See the brand war.

See the loyalty test.

But not a loyalty toward Trump or Musk.

Because we’re supposed to see through both.

Regardless of either of their motives in all of this. Regardless of if you voted for him or not.

And if we can’t—if we still need a TV character to fight our battles, still need an earthly messiah in a suit to slay our dragons—then we’re not awake. And we’re certainly not Christian. We’re just cheering for the shadow on the wall inside Plato’s Cave.

But hey—at least Trump zingered Elon.

Or was it Elon’s turn to throw the punch?

Either way, maybe the real call is to walk out—and just go to church instead.

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May everyone named directly or referenced indirectly ask forgiveness and do penance for their sins against America and God. I fight this information war in the spirit of justice and love for the innocent, but I have been reminded of the need for mercy and prayers for our enemies. I am a sinner in need of redemption as well after all, for my sins are many. In the words of Jesus Christ himself, Lord forgive us all, for we know not what we do.