Trump and Musk constructed an alternate reality and now we're all living in it
'My fellow Americans, this is Liberation Day,' President Donald Trump said from the White House Rose Garden, using a term of his own making as he unveiled a sweeping tariff plan against all U.S. trading partners.
The day will 'forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn, the day America's destiny was reclaimed, and the day that we began to make America wealthy again,' the president said.
Wednesday's fanfare stood in the face of advice from droves of experts, who warned about the 'catastrophic' effects these taxes would pose on U.S. consumers. One day after 'Liberation Day,' global stock markets plummeted and world leaders vowed to retaliate.
In his inaugural address, the president said 'like never before' five times and the tariffs plan is just the latest example of his ability to construct an alternate version of reality.
'We really haven't seen anything like this,' Chapman Rackaway, a political science professor at Radford University, told The Independent. He called this level of reality-bending 'unprecedented' in modern U.S. history.
Trump has always done this. In April 2011, The Celebrity Apprentice host Donald Trump told his network colleague Meredith Vieira he had 'real doubts' that President Barack Obama was born in the United States.
The interview revived the racist 'birther' conspiracy, which had first emerged during Obama's 2008 presidential run, and helped Trump lay the ground for a political reality where facts were irrelevant — which he has now built two presidencies upon.
Now, however, he has the backing of another fan of a distorted truth: Elon Musk. The tech billionaire and now presidential advisor bought Twitter and then fired its content moderators, reinstated suspended accounts, including QAnon supporters, and has even personally amplified other fringe theories like 'Pizzagate.'
Together Trump and Musk have fused a new political landscape, one where the president declares himself a 'king,' and the Constitution is ignored. In this reality, there are only two genders, Canada can be the 51st state, and Greenland can be bought.
This may be partially due to Trump and Musk's histories in the world of business. Trump overcame six bankruptcies to become the wealthiest president in the nation's history and Musk, founder of Tesla and Space X, now finds himself advising a president.
They've entered the White House with the norms of business leaders, rather than ones typically adhered to by presidents and their advisers, like following checks and balances and the rule of law,
In business, 'you pretty much do what you want and what you feel like, and the ultimate measure of success there is profit,' Rackaway said.
For example, they've been calling to impeach judges who rule against the Trump administration because they don't like the decisions, not for reasons 'based in constitutional principles or the established norms over the last 230 years,' Rackaway added.
Throwing out the typical slow bureaucratic process, Trump and Musk, through the Department of Government Efficiency, have moved swiftly but not cautiously. As a result, the government has tried to rehire critical workers after "accidentally" firing them, has sowed chaos and confusion, and has been accused of 'likely violating' the Constitution in one of many legal battles it now faces.
Steve Hanson, a government professor at the College of William & Mary, believes Trump is running the government like a 'family business.'
Using a term coined by German sociologist Max Weber, Hanson described Trump as a 'patrimonial' leader, who exercises power based on personal loyalty. 'Patrimonial leaders, including not only Trump but also politicians like Vladimir Putin in Russia, Viktor Orban in Hungary, and Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, treat the state as their own personal property and run it like a 'family business' of sorts,' Hanson said in an email.
That moment Trump posed next to a red Tesla on the White House lawn, amid the electric vehicle manufacturer's crumbling stock, was a return to pre-modern times, when 'the use of the state to promote the economic interests of the ruler and his 'extended household,'' Hanson argued.
Patrimonial leaders rule as they see fit, he said: 'For this reason, they see independent sources of expertise and professionalism as a threat, and aim to undermine them as forcefully as possible.' The president has questioned journalists, judges, and prosecutors.
Trump even barred a reporter at the Associated Press from attending events at the Oval Office after the news agency refused to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America — another reality-bending move in and of itself.
'There were clues' into his rhetorical style long before he took office, Rackaway said, pointing to Trump's time on The Apprentice. 'Everything is about there being an enemy…There was always a good guys versus bad guys kind of approach [on the show.
Trump tends to personally attack those who disagree with him because 'it increases this loyalty from his supporters that feel he is not only right, but being persecuted for being right,' Rackaway said.
Musk himself has become a misinformation machine. In just the three months between Musk endorsed Trump and the November 2024 election, his 'false or misleading' posts garnered 2 billion views, according to a report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate.
It's not just X, though. Meta announced it was scrapping its fact-checkers on Instagram and Facebook in favor of a system similar to X's 'community notes' weeks before Trump returned to office. Truth Social, a social media platform majority-owned by Trump, aims to 'create a free speech haven ' and encourages 'unencumbered free expression.'
The president uses this platform equally to fire off tariff threats, announce cabinet appointments and share a bizarre AI-generated video of the Gaza strip if it were to follow Trump's vision and become 'the Riviera of the Middle East.'
The influence they've built is akin to a religious following — making whatever they say the 'truth' to those who believe them, regardless of how factual it is.
'One should not underestimate President Trump's genuine emotional connection to his followers, many of whom see him as a leader chosen by God to save the nation,' Hanson said. 'And even Musk has followers who see him as a uniquely brilliant entrepreneur, able to break old bureaucracies that were previously thought of as untouchable.'
Five years after his interview with Vieira, Trump acknowledged Obama was born in the United States — a fragile admission that hinged on another alternate version of reality. 'Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy,' Trump said, without evidence, in September 2016. 'I finished it.'
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