Smock Blogs

In a sure sign that we’re all on the naughty list, this year’s Christmas must-have is more Satan than Santa, more Krampus than Kringle, and more Operation: FAFO than Operation: Christmas Drop. And it’s just what everyone who voted for a misogynistic racist felon deserves to have under their tree: their very own neurodivergent oligarch who is officially the wealthiest individual in history.

You know him, you love him, you loathe him: the guy who brought you the Tesla, missions to Mars, and brain implants so we can control things like phones and he can make us forget about the Cybertruck. He’s Elon Musk, Donald Trump’s Dancing With The Stars partner and what happens when capitalism collides with someone who believes that our role as humans is to “give AI meaning,” the only (sort of) functional adult to bask in the term of being the president-elect’s “First Buddy”.

In 1983, they rioted trying to get their hands on Cabbage Patch Dolls. Two years later, someone decided that it was time for the new must-have kids’ toy, and My Buddy and Kid Sister were born. They didn’t talk, didn’t move, just sat there like all those dolls you have to put in the closet before you can sleep at that cozy little bed and breakfast your fiancée insists on visiting to celebrate whatever inane anniversary they want to commemorate this time. And like your fiancée, My Buddy was only interesting if you had enough of an imagination, because by God they sure don’t have one.

And just like lonely kids everywhere whose parents bought a My Buddy once they realized Timmy wasn’t going to make friends on his own, Musk has been waiting for just such a moment as this, to be part of something, to connect, find his tribe. You don’t jump like that and pump your fists in the air like that if you’ve got actual friends.

Not when you’re autistic enough to think that’s how celebrating looks, but self-aware enough to know that you’re worth a few hundred billion dollars so who gives a shit. Because the friends of that person would tell them that while they want them to be their true self, maybe it’s ok to keep masking until you get off that stage.

The value of the first Trump administration was that it meant a lot of people started saying the quiet part out loud, and some of us needed that after the “post racial” presidency of Barack Obama. The second Trump administration is bringing us the gift of showing us all that those with the cash hold the strings, and anyone who wants to be a billionaire generally doesn’t care a whole lot about those who aren’t.

Trump’s embrace of Musk and appointing the wealthiest cabinet in American history is an interesting flex from a man who ran on groceries, and a testament to how badly his base wants someone to solve their “problems”. They bought into the man who bought into the First Buddy, and now we’re all going to spend the next four years wishing there was a better return policy.