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KEVIN OVENDEN cautions against a simplistic ridiculing of Trump, Musk or Farage as any such laughter might turn out to be at our expense
ENABLERS OF FASCISM: German police break up a protest outside AfD conference in Grugahalle, Essen on June 29 2024

IT COULD be tempting to treat Elon Musk’s provocations as the attention-seeking of a petulant plutocrat who was born into the wealth of his father’s mining business in apartheid South Africa.

Then there is the line from the most craven US allies — Britain’s laughable Foreign Secretary David Lammy and the EU’s woodentop Ursula von der Leyen — in response to Donald Trump mulling the annexation of Greenland and the Panama Canal. It seems to be not to take him seriously.

That would be a catastrophic mistake. Musk is in effect co-president of the US, having spent $100 million on Trump’s election campaign.

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