Musk’s power over Republicans has an eerie historical parallel

Mihaela Măncilă

The specter of voters whipped into a frenzy by an outsider with a megaphone is not new to Republican politicians. What a bipartisan group of legislators hammered out over months, Elon Musk destroyed with a tweet. Or rather, with dozens of posts on his social media site X, sent at a furious pace over the course of 12 hours last week. In post after post, Musk hammered at the budget deal with a flurry of false claims and threats of electoral retribution against any Republican who dared support the