In a February article of her Reframing America newsletter, Antonia Scatton wrote, “For sixty years, a billionaire-funded network of corporations, politicians, PACs, news networks, churches, foundations and think tanks have demonized 'Washington' and government itself - public attacks that we [on the left] have abjectly failed to counter. For this reason, too many Americans see drastic action as justifiable. Some even see Trump’s willingness to break the law to do it as the actions of a uniquely great leader.”
I’ve “only” been blogging about Fox News and the right-wing for 20 years, but I can attest to that.
Scatton has a number of suggestions to reframe the debate. She offers talking points to be used on social media, a letter to the editor or just talking to your neighbors. The topics include Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, crypto as the real Ponzi scheme, and my favorite: Elon Musk and his DOGE bro billionaires.
Say this, she writes:
Elon Musk is a CORPORATE RAIDER. He bought a MAJORITY SHARE of Donald Trump. This is a HOSTILE TAKEOVER of the U.S. Gov't. He's DOWNSIZING the workers and STRIPPING IT FOR PARTS.
Elon Musk is OUTSOURCING BUSINESS to other companies he owns and acquiring PROPRIETARY TECHNOLOGY and SENSITIVE CONSUMER DATA. He will SADDLE IT WITH DEBT and LEAVE IT BANKRUPT.
I like this one even better: Paint the billionaires as the parasite class. Instead of sharing immigrant Elon Musk’s smear of Americans using their government’s services, we should say again and again who the real parasites are. For example:
The richest corporations and individuals have a moral obligation to pay their fair share for the public resources and services provided by the American people, from which they have gained the lions’ share of the benefit.
Tax cuts for the rich KILL JOBS and DESTABILIZE THE ECONOMY. They already have more money than they can sensibly or productively use.
More money for the already rich and corporations enables mergers, job cuts, outsourcing and AI worker replacement, and fuels speculation that causes market bubbles and crashes! You know what creates jobs? Higher wages, tax cuts for workers, and public investment. This drives demand and creates job growth!
Trump's tax cuts for the rich blew a giant hole in the revenue side of the federal budget equation. Now he wants to do it again.
Elon Musk is not just an immigrant but a likely illegal immigrant who already makes many BILLIONS from existing contracts with the federal government, as I recently wrote. None of those contracts have been deleted in his DOGE purge. Instead, he just gave himself a new one that could be worth a few more BILLION.
I hate to quote Steve Bannon but he was not wrong when he called Musk a “parasitic illegal immigrant” last month. “He wants to impose his freak experiments and play-act as God without any respect for the country’s history, values or traditions,” Bannon also said. Of course, Bannon probably wants to play-act as God with his own misguided vision for the country’s history, values or traditions, but I digress.
The bottom line is that instead of complaining about what Musk does, it’s time emphasize what he is: He’s a parasite extraordinaire (as our own Karoli Kuns put it) sucking the taxpayer-funded blood out of our federal government and our life-saving and life-enhancing services for the sake of enriching himself and his other billionaire bros further.
