THE PLOT FOR A WASHINGTON NOVEL
The World of Marvel Comics
Suppose you are a fiction writer, and your publisher calls you to propose to write a novel to elucidate what may unravel in the world of superheroes now presiding over the government of the United States. He says something like this:
“Hey, Jack, we cannot waste this opportunity. Just imagine the cast of characters now in control of the country. All of them have superpowers. Donald Trump, the unsinkable. He has never achieved something like what Elon Musk, the second in this list, has attained. Yet, nobody can negate he is incombustible. Now, he will show that he can do something by appointing Superman—Elon Musk—as one of the two men in charge of reforming the federal government. Musk’s superpowers go well beyond those of Trump. He is an active superhero.”
The publisher would continue enthusiastically.
“These two are the true superheroes of the story, more Musk than Trump. Trump built a terrific public figure without doing anything notable during his 2017-2021 presidential period—compare his government with those of the Bush family, Bill Clinton, and Ronald Reagan, and you will realize this—but survived an attempt at staying in power after losing the 2020 elections, a conviction of fraud in the infamous case of the Trump University, and many other adventures that would have scorched anyone else. Yet, he went on to win the 2024 presidential elections. He is a superhero because he becomes incredibly important by doing nothing, not even sinking. He resists.”
“Now think of Elon Musk. He is a character who, if we had invented him, would have been rejected by the public as exaggerated. Trump likes to show off his fortune. Musk is about 100 to 150 times as rich as Trump but never shows it. Unlike Trump, he did not inherit his wealth and never multiplied it by going bankrupt and failing to repay his obligations. He was not born in a mansion in the United States but arrived there as an illegal immigrant who, to stay legal, was supposed to attend Stanford University, which he never did. He had to arrange his legal status later on. Beyond this, his curriculum is impressive. He has managed the following enterprises:
· Tesla, which had its first public offering of shares in 2010 at $1.13 each, was trading at $350 this week. Tesla not only conceived the basic design of all current electric vehicles but also developed the methods for producing them and solved the problems of input supply. His factories are examples of efficiency.
· Space X. The company almost went bankrupt after three initial rocket failures. Then, it revolutionized the space industry. It proved that his rockets were cheaper, better, and more secure than those NASA had used. Today, it has 13,000 employees. Its revenues in 2023 reached $9 billion. Recently, it achieved something nobody had done before parking a rocket in its launching pad after returning from space. The federal government depends on him for launching rockets to space.
· Starlink provides low-cost Internet access anywhere on the planet. Users include individuals, governments, armies, and secret services. Ukraine has been able to fight against Russia because its communications through Starlink are better than those of the Russian Army. Yet, on one occasion, Musk disconnected the Ukrainian armed forces’ communications to prevent them from attacking Crimea, a region that Russia had stolen from Ukraine in 2014. With this action, Musk proved that he could bring Ukraine to defeat faster than Putin or Biden or Trump.
· Neuralink. The company produces brain-computer implants designed to control a computer or mobile device anywhere you go. It is engaged in an experimental program that empowers people to communicate and act through such implants. The company is “seeking people with quadriplegia to participate in a groundbreaking investigational medical device clinical trial for our brain-computer interface.”[i]
· Boring Co. Constructs “safe, fast-to-dig, and low-cost transportation, utility, and freight tunnels” using advanced technologies.
· xAI defines itself as “an AI company with the mission of advancing scientific discovery and gaining a deeper understanding of our universe.” Musk was one of the founders of OpenAI, which supposedly would develop artificial intelligence Pro Bono Público. Robert Altman, however, the man in charge of doing this, put a coup d’etat in place and turned the enterprise into a for-profit company. Musk left OpenAi, and xAI is his response to it.
· X (formerly Twitter). This puts him in control of the largest social network on earth.”
“We can call him the eagle,” would say the publisher. And then he would keep on talking,
“Now, you can add two more people to the Superheroes’ team. One is Peter Thiel, Musk’s partner in PayPal, who is also immensely rich and defines himself as a libertarian. At a much lower level, the other superhero is Vivek Ramaswamy, a billionaire who made his fortune buying and selling pharmaceutical companies. He was appointed along with Musk to manage the Department of Government Efficiency, which is supposed to transform the federal government. The acronym of the new department is DOGE, the name of a cryptocurrency endorsed by Musk and of a popular character portrayed in a meme, reportedly the most popular in the world. The fifth superhero is J. D. Vance, who jumped from being an investment officer to a senator and then to elected Vice President of the United States. Along with them goes Donald Trump Jr., who is not yet a superhero but was born in the appropriate place. Now, they control the federal government of the United States. So, they are a happy fivesome plus a sidekick.”
“Musk’s power was already immense and increased substantially when the markets realized he was uniting enormous political and economic power in himself. In the days after he was appointed to DOGE, Tesla’s value increased by 25%. Just like that. Nothing else happened to explain the increase
People thought Tesla would become more profitable now that Musk had such a powerful government position. Because of this appointment, Musk’s wealth increased by $50 billion, or something like 25 times the entire Trump’s wealth. Sheer luck. By coincidence, Musk had contributed to Trump’s campaign with $200 million, a considerable amount of money for anybody, but only 4% of the subsequent increase in Musk´s wealth after his appointment to DOGE.”
“He has obvious conflicts of interest in his new position. He will have the power to reform, reduce, or cut many institutions regulating his operations or providing contracts to him. Yet, nobody has said anything about this.”
“Tesla’s major competitors are Chinese. If Trump imposes a 60% tariff on Chinese imports, Musk would end up with a quasi-monopoly in EVs in the United States. One of the problems of high tariffs is that they result in higher prices, making exporting the protected goods difficult. He, however, would be able to sell to the rest of the world at competitive prices because he produces more than half his cars in China. While he will serve in a government that claims to want to bring manufacturing back to the United States, he is serving himself from China and the United States simultaneously.”
At this moment, you could tell your publisher the following:
“Well, I don’t see a good plot there. There is no drama. As you said, they are a happy quintet plus a sidekick. Musk will be happy…and Trump, too. Trump will appropriate Musk’s reforms, which may be good, perhaps.”
“I am surprised, Jack, that you haven’t seen the bomb about to explode. Shakespeare would be happy to work on this scenario. The plot is about two of these characters. Just imagine an old man, finally reaching what he desired his whole life, total power, and, along with him, his champion, his Sir Lancelot, his Lord Macbeth, who shines with his own light, supporting him loyally as the symbol of the old man´s superiority over all people on earth. Now, ask yourself how long it will take for other people to ask themselves to whom I should give my loyalty. To this old man who has no other idea but to go back to an idealized past, or the young one, who has millions of ideas that energize the future, not the past? The unsinkable or the eagle?”
“In an institutional environment where people loyal to the rule of law would prevail, this question would not change their behavior. Yet, and this is the core of the tragedy, the old man has surrounded himself with people who are not loyal to institutions. He thinks these people are faithful to him because he is the most powerful man in the world, but he also knows that if they find that they would gain by shifting their loyalty to a more powerful somebody, they will do it. The old man, transactional to his core, thinks that everybody is like that. He is full of mistrust.
“And then, the old man begins to suspect that, as in the case of King Arthur, his Sir Lancelot is taking away his most important possession—Lady Guinevere, in Arthur’s case, total power in the old man's case.”
“The tragedy is terrible. He doesn’t want to lose what the young man can give him, the claim to have done something, but if he allows the young man to do it for him, everybody will say the young man has done it. He would lose his power. He would become the puppet of the young one in reality and everybody else's eyes. His legacy would not be a reformed federal government but just an assertion, ‘They never sank me.’”
“You don’t need an actual treason to give form to this tragedy. It only takes that the old man suspects that other people think that the young one has more power and start looking at him for commands. Just the body language in meetings would be enough. The old man would ask his mirror, “Who is the most powerful and beautiful man in the world?” and the mirror would answer, “The young one.”
“He would feel surrounded. He would recall how all these other superheroes came to him, one by one. The first one was Thiel, who founded PayPal with Musk and became an ultra-millionaire. Thiel then established startups or bought companies, turning them into profitable giants and technological miracles. He served in Trump’s 2016 transition team, but the relationship cooled off.”
“Thiel came back. J. D. Vance had become famous after publishing his book The Hillbilly Elegy. This was the success story of a man born among the left behind by globalization and the knowledge economy in the Appalachian Mountains—precisely the people who have proven crucial for federal elections in these times. Thiel understood his potential and hired him in one of his strategic investment funds when Vance was bored working in a law firm after graduating from Yale Law School. Thiel became a mentor to Vance by introducing him to important people in the United States.”
“They say God Makes Them, The Devil Pairs Them. Thiel introduced Vance to Elon Musk, and the two, along with Vivek Ramaswami, lobbied Donald Trump Jr. and then his father to appoint J. D. Vance as his vice-presidential candidate. J. D. then supported the first two for the specially created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Thus, it is easy to suspect that all the superheroes are connected to Musk and surround the old man. They are the ring of power.”
“What will happen then? This question is the basis for your plot.
Will there be a fight for power? How vicious will it be? Will the superheroes fight each other, or will they form alliances? Maybe Trump will be happy with the appearances of power.”
“Maybe nothing happens.”
You may then ask your publisher:
“But, where could I find examples of situations like this?”
“Well, you could look into the experiences of committees of superheroes in history. There are two in the Roman Republic, the two triumvirates. In the first, you had Julius Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus. The three were larger than life, incredibly rich, and powerful. They thought that their union would stop the chaos that was spreading in Rome due to the unbridled ambition of many generals who returned from faraway conquests with enormous treasures, which they used to buy people and corrupt the democratic institutions.”
Then you could ask,
“And what happened?”
“Well,” the publisher would respond, “Crassus was killed in a military mission away from Italy, and then Julius Caesar and Pompey fought each other. Caesar won the battle of Pharsalus, Pompey escaped to Egypt and was assassinated when disembarking.”
Then you could ask,
“And what about the other triumvirate?”
“Julius Caesar was appointed dictator for 10 years but was assassinated by a group that pretended to bring back the Republic, or at least that is what they said. The Second Triumvirate (Octavian, Marc Antony, and Lepidus) sought revenge for the murder of Julius Caesar. Effectively, they killed the assassins. Within the Triumvirate, Octavian killed the other two and crowned himself Caesar Augustus.”
You may ask for more examples.
“Well, yes,” the publisher would say, “In preparation for his death, Lenin installed a committee of six communist superheroes. One of them, Stalin, killed the other five.”
“But this cannot happen here.”
“No. Of course not.”
Sit down and be ready to watch the living performance of this novel. But don’t feel too comfortable. They are betting on someone’s skin.
It’s our skin.[ii]
https://neuralink.com
[ii] Joe Miller, Stefania Palma, and Stephen Morris, Elon Musk mission to reinvent American government, Financial Times, November 15, 2024, https://www.ft.com/content/96b7d4f7-569d-4c16-b828-a6d48a906eae. ; Douglas Murray, Welcome to life on Planet Elon, The Spectator, 16 November 2024, https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/welcome-to-life-on-planet-elon/ ; Gideon Rachman, Elon Musk is an unguided geopolitical missile, September 2, 2024, https://www.ft.com/content/b384c68c-a8b8-42ea-8786-337d962c2e96 ; Kyle Chayka, How Elon Musk Rebranded Trump, The New Yorker, November 13, 2024, https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/how-elon-musk-rebranded-trump ; Max Chafkin and Dana Hull, Elon Musk Has a New Project to Run: Trump’s Government, Bloomberg, November 12, 2024, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-11-12/elon-musk-s-new-project-running-trump-s-us-government