Elon Musk and Chris Murphy: The Old Game Keeps On Failing

First, for those of you who might have missed it when I first started using the term a few weeks ago, let me define the Old Game.

Simply put, the Old Game is the practice of throwing out sleaze as a means of discrediting messengers whose substance is inconvenient. It’s actually an offshoot of Rule #13 of Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” But the Old Game predates Alinsky, as political hacks of all stripes have been heaping dirt on their opponents as long as there have been politics.

But what makes the Old Game identifiable with Alinsky is two things: Alinsky understood the value of demonizing an opponent personally in the context of the media, and so Rule #13 has almost always been executed via press releases and other performative measures aimed at attention-getting. And that the Left, and particularly the Democrats, have been the masters of the Old Game.

Have there been Democrats taken down with personal scandals? Yes. Have many of them been taken down by Republicans? Almost never. It’s other Democrats responsible for what Hillary Clinton, with no discernible sense of irony, called the “politics of personal destruction.” When Republicans have tried to play the Old Game against the other side, for example against her husband whose sexual peccadilloes included activities that seem an awful lot like old-fashioned rape, the results have usually been unsatisfactory.

No, the Old Game is a Democrat game. Because Democrats have controlled the playing field on which the Old Game is played, that is the legacy corporate Propaganda Press media space. And that field, at least in the former understanding of everyone in politics and media, could be tilted in whichever way would satisfy the needs of the right people wanting to use rule #13.

The example I used to describe the Old Game was the sleaze campaign conducted against Pete Hegseth, which has all but died. This week one of the truly despicable slimeballs the Democrats have in the Senate, Jack Reed of Rhode Island, attempted to revive it by citing an affidavit by Hegseth’s former sister-in-law…

Reed, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, asked Danielle Hegseth to detail what she knew of “instances of abuse, or threats of abuse, perpetrated against any other person” and “mistreatment of a spouse, former spouse, or other members of his family,” among other requests.

Reed said in a statement Tuesday, “As I have said for months, the reports of Mr. Hegseth’s history of alleged sexual assault, alcohol abuse, and public misconduct necessitate an exhaustive background investigation. I have been concerned that the background check process has been inadequate, and this sworn affidavit confirms that fact.”

He added that “the alleged pattern of abuse and misconduct by Mr. Hegseth is disturbing. This behavior would disqualify any service member from holding any leadership position in the military, much less being confirmed as the Secretary of Defense.”

Danielle describes in the affidavit allegations of volatile and threatening conduct by Hegseth that made his second wife, Samantha Hegseth, fear for her safety.

But by former sister-in-law, we mean that Danielle Hegseth is the ex-wife of Pete Hegseth’s brother. She has no first-hand knowledge of Pete Hegseth’s behavior.

What did Samantha Hegseth, the second wife, have to say about this? Well…

In an email response Monday, Samantha Hegseth said: “First and foremost, I have not and will not comment on my marriage to Pete Hegseth. I do not have representatives speaking on my behalf, nor have I ever asked anyone to share or speak about the details of my marriage on my behalf, whether it be a reporter, a committee member, a transition team member, etc.” She added, “I do not believe your information to be accurate, and I have cc’d my lawyer.”

Not exactly a ringing endorsement of Reed’s bombshell affidavit, is it?

It’s actually her ex-brother-in-law’s ex-wife not her sister, I read it too fast. So this is what they’ve got on Pete Hegseth. https://t.co/Q043GgEvxL

— Karol Markowicz (@karol) January 21, 2025

No responsible public figure would run around with matches and a gas can like this. But Jack Reed, who came up as an Army Ranger and who has set himself up as one of the chief defenders of the current corrupt Pentagon infrastructure, is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and it simply would not do for Reed to get into an argument with Hegseth over the Pentagon’s corruption, waste and inefficiency which Reed has shilled for.

So it’s the Old Game.

Jack Reed was never going to vote for Pete Hegseth. Hegseth doesn’t need Jack Reed’s vote to get confirmed. So if Reed is going to do what his pals in the military-industrial complex want him to do, which is to take Hegseth down, he has to convince weak Republican senators not to vote for him.

And he can’t do that on the substance of Hegseth as Defense Secretary. So instead we get the Old Game, the sleazy allegations the public knows so well from their near-constant use going back decades — Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, David Vitter, and on and on.

But the Old Game doesn’t work anymore. Hegseth is still very likely to be confirmed. And another victim of the Old Game is laughing in the faces of its players.

By now you’ve surely heard about the “Nazi salute” Elon Musk offered the crowd at Capital One Arena in Washington on Monday afternoon while they were waiting for President Trump to arrive for the inaugural rally.

It wasn’t a Nazi salute. It was a rather awkward attempt by Musk to convey to the crowd that he loved them and that they had his heart.

But to the bad-faith players of the Old Game, it was close enough for government work…

Elon Musk: “my heart goes out to you”
CNN: “ Elon Musk is a Nazi”.

The legacy media is actively and purposefully misleading. Elon Musk never did a Nazi salute. Watch the full video: He simply gestured and said, “Thank you, my heart goes out to you.”

Legacy Media is to news… pic.twitter.com/M92JXLj2uX

— Laird of the Manor (@LairdOfTheManor) January 21, 2025

And another Northeastern neo-communist in the Senate, Connecticut’s moronic Chris Murphy, bragged about using this smear of Musk in the confirmation hearing of Elise Stefanik as Trump’s U.N. ambassador nominee.

We need to talk about what happened last night.

I asked Trump’s UN nominee, who wants to lead an effort to combat antisemitism at the UN, what she thought about Elon’s Musk’s Nazi salute and the celebration of it by domestic neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups. pic.twitter.com/OZCfFzhOEo

— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) January 21, 2025

Murphy is incapable of actually discussing issues of substance with Stefanik or anyone else. He’s not exactly Mazie Hirono in terms of raw stupidity, but he’s nobody’s model of a thoughtful politician. So playing the Old Game is basically all he’s good for.

Except playing it against Stefanik on a third-party guilt-by-association angle is industrial-scale dumb. Absolutely nobody is going to be persuaded by this. And Chris Murphy, just like Jack Reed, voted to confirm Richard “Rachel” Levine, the transvestite lunatic former Number 2 man at the Department of Health and Human Services in the Biden administration who had, as the head of the Pennsylvania Department of Health, killed several thousand senior citizens by introducing COVID patients into their nursing homes.

You can’t vote to confirm Richard Levine and then beat your chest about vetting and standards. You look both dishonest and stupid when you do so. This is one of the problems of the Old Game; it requires credibility to push the sleaze.

Another problem with the Old Game is that when you point those fingers in the age of social and alternative media dominance, with the friendly gatekeepers you depended on currently tied up in closets with dunce caps affixed to their heads, you’ll find yourself the target of a massive ratio.

There are so many images of Democrat politicians with their arms outstretched like Musk’s was in that video that it’s nothing short of hilarious. And the internet remembers and brings receipts.

For example…

everyone who follows me needs to share this video immediately—AOC is a literal Nazi, this is so concerning—she did a Nazi salute not once but TWICE in a matter of seconds… this is UNACCEPTABLE on every level, we have NO tolerance for Nazis!!!

like, share, tag her,… pic.twitter.com/4TqKb4VaEe

— stepfanie tyler (@wildbarestepf) January 21, 2025

I’ve written this a couple of times now, but I’ll say it again: this stuff just doesn’t work anymore. The public has seen too much of it and can recognize the bad faith immediately.

They know this is about trying to kill messengers whose messages threaten the agenda. And they know the agenda is awful. They also know these are the garbage tactics of a garbage status-quo elite whom they desperately want to depose.

Another of Alinsky’s rules is Rule #7: “‘A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.’ Don’t become old news.”

And the Old Game is just about the oldest of news at this point.

Whether it’s Hegseth’s former in-laws making discredited allegations or Elon Musk’s supposedly Hitlerian hand gestures, nobody cares.

I’m not saying the Old Game is ending. They’ll keep playing it because it’s all they know. But I am saying they can’t win anymore, and that’s a good thing.

READ MORE from Scott McKay:

Thoughts On a Repudiation and Liberation Day: Donald Trump’s Inauguration

Five Quick Things: Joe Biden’s Legacy Of Suck

Woke Has Gone Broke at the Confirmation Hearings

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