Harrington was even more direct in an appearance with Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show” the night after Trump was inaugurated, when she compared the relationship between Vladimir Putin and his rich supporters to Trump’s relationship to the wealthy men who backed his 2024 campaign:
At least Putin has a red line with his oligarchs. The grand bargain was that he was going to let them get rich on condition that they kept their noses out of his political business. At most, they would be his errand boys.
What Trump has done is so extraordinary. He doesn’t have that bright line with the new oligarchs of America at all. He basically said, “You bought it. Do what you want.”
Musk, in fact, has begun to spread his wings well beyond American borders and has become a major player in far right, anti-immigrant parties in Europe, including Reform U.K.K. in England and the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
In the case of Reform U.K., Musk has tried to push the party farther to the right, demanding that it support the release from prison of the extremist agitator who goes by the name Tommy Robinson.
Nigel Farage, leader of Reform U.K., has rejected Musk’s demands, saying of Robinson:
I know a lot of Americans see him as a great champion of free speech, but I just don’t see him as suitable for our party. And I’m not someone that budges very easily.
Musk, in a videotaped speech to a Jan. 25 AfD rally in Halle, told party loyalists “I think you really are the best hope for Germany.”
Musk told the crowd, “It’s good to be proud of German culture and German values, and not to lose that in some sort of multiculturalism that dilutes everything,” adding that there has been “too much of a focus on past guilt and we need to move beyond that.”
My Times colleague Jim Tankersley wrote on Feb. 15 that the AfD
is sitting second in the polls for next Sunday’s parliamentary elections, with about 20 percent of the public saying they support it. But no other German party is willing to govern with it. That’s because the AfD has at times downplayed Hitler’s atrocities. Some party members have reveled in Nazi slogans.
Musk’s engagement with these parties suggests, in turn, that his agenda at DOGE is at least as much about being partisan and radically conservative as it is about cutting spending or increasing efficiency. His targets, so far, have been liberals in the federal work force, particularly those involved in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs, and such federal programs as consumer protection and foreign aid that draw workers, in the main, with liberal views.
