Sorry, Elon, Wisconsin Is Not Twitter

Musk won’t be able to change state’s name to ‘X.'

The answer is ‘yes.’

Wisconsin voters helped break democracy last November, but Tuesday, they dealt a decisive blow to Donald Trump’s ego and elected Judge Susan Crawford to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. This secures a liberal majority through at least 2028. Y’all cheeseheads are fickle, but we’ll take it.

Crawford, a Dane County Circuit Court judge, was the Democratic-backed candidate to replace 73-year-old Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, who knew when to leave. Crawford had the endorsement of non-felon former President Barack Obama. Billionaire George Soros also contributed to her campaign, which billionaire Elon Musk decried with his typical lack of self-awareness.

Musk dropped $25 million in a losing effort to elect Republican-backed candidate Brad Schimel. The Waukesha County Circuit Court judge and former state attorney general had Trump’s endorsement, which means you can’t trust him. If he’d won, conservatives would’ve had a majority on the court through at least 2026.

Musk considered this a high-stakes election for the “future of civilization … it’s that’s significant.” His rally speeches were apparently cribbed from a high school student’s diary. He argued that control of the House of Representatives could depend on future redistricting cases.

“And if the (Wisconsin) Supreme Court is able to redraw the districts, they will gerrymander the district and deprive Wisconsin of two seats on the Republican side,” Musk said. “Then they will try to stop all the government reforms we are getting done for you, the American people.”

“Deprive” is an interesting word to describe correcting the history of GOP gerrymandering that gave the party West Virginia majorities in what’s actually a tight swing state. “Reforms” is also Soviet-style doublespeak for Musk setting fire to the federal government and roasting marshmallows over the flames.

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Of course, this was less about politics than Musk’s own fragile ego. He desperately wanted to avoid the public rebuke he so richly deserves. Wisconsin Democrats had seized on his syphilis-level unpopularity, so Musk should’ve laid low and let the race play out normally. Instead, he put his big dumb face everywhere — even wearing a Green Bay Packers cheesehead hat at rally on Sunday that Schimel didn’t bother to attend.

“I am gonna sign the hat,” Musk told the crowd. “I am gonna throw it out.” He considers himself the rock star version of a psychopath who’s responsible for hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths.

When I say that Elon Musk tried to buy this election, I don’t mean in that quaint way of the past when rich people would donate heavily to a candidate’s campaign. No, Musk outright tried to buy the election with oversized novelty checks.

Last week, Musk held what amounted to an illegal lottery where he handed out $1 million checks to two randomly selected Wisconsin voters who signed an online petition against “activist” judges and promised to vote in the upcoming election.

Paying people to vote is illegal, even if Musk calls his prize winners “spokespeople” for his corrupt political organization — a sort of classic “no-show” job, though actual mobsters are usually more subtle with their bribes.

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Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul tried to block the payments, arguing that “Wisconsin law prohibits offering anything of value to induce anyone to vote … Yet, Elon Musk did just that.” However, two lower courts rejected the challenge, and the court of appeals later ruled that Kaul had failed to prove the illegal lottery was in fact an illegal lottery. (Judge Crawford was actually assigned the case earlier, but she recused herself because she hasn’t had an ethics bypass like Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.)

I’m reminded of the Buffy episode when Xander shows Willow his fake ID: “I don’t believe this is entirely on the up and up,” she says. “What gives it away?” he asks. “Looking at it.” Musk’s scam clearly met the Willow Rosenberg threshold of criminality, but I guess “looking at it” isn’t enough for Wisconsin courts. (Watch below.)

Elon Musk Is A Criminal. So Now What?

Willy Wonka required that you buy his chocolate to enter his child torture experience giveaway. That’s illegal, but so is turning a child, no matter how annoying, into a giant blueberry. Although no purchase was required for Musk’s Nazi cash bonanza, he did require specific actions that openly violated election laws, as they offered a direct financial inventive to vote for his chosen candidate. Georgia Republicans passed laws preventing you from providing water to people waiting in the intentionally long lines.

Whether a specific action, such as filling out a petition, qualifies as a form of payment to enter the giveaway might’ve been a matter for a jury, but Musk is a billionaire who lives in the world according to Leona Helmsley, where taxes and even the law is only for “the little people.” Technically, pledging your support for Musk’s puppet candidate doesn’t cost you anything, but only if you place no actual value on your personal dignity.

Musk also offered Wisconsin voters — including non-residents! — up to $1,000 in a single day if they took selfies holding a “picture of @TeamSchimel … in one hand and go thumbs up with the other hand.” It’s the “easiest money you ever made,” excluding possibly that time you helped free a Nigerian prince.

Meanwhile, an attorney for the Republican National Committee demanded that a Crawford-supporting group stop providing ice cream to college students. (It’s still freezing in Wisconsin, so I would’ve gone with soup.)

“Wisconsin has strict laws against any election bribery,” attorney Kurt Goehre wrote with presumably a straight face. However, the ice cream was free to everyone, without any condition that you support a particular candidate.

Musk did apparently motivate significant turnout from voters who don’t like him. The New York Times estimated that turnout could exceed 2.4 million, almost 40 percent more than the 2023 Wisconsin Supreme Court election. That’s not far from the potential midterm turnout.

With 95 percent of votes counted Tuesday night, Crawford led Schimel 54 to 45 percent. Although Republicans prevailed in the two Florida special elections, Democrats dramatically outperformed the results from last November. This is why Trump yanked Rep. Elise Stefanik’s nomination to be United Nations ambassador. A Democrat could have very well delivered an upset.

Not all elections are equal, of course, so we shouldn’t read too much into this other than that Elon Musk is a crook and a loser.