The Richest Man in the World is a Fucking Idiot
You’re aware of Elon Musk buying Twitter and buying the U.S. presidency. What you may not be aware of is that Elon’s fragile ego wants to own literally everything and everyone and will not stop in that mission.
There are plenty of examples of that but in the DC/MD/VA (DMV) area, this week we were impacted in one particular annoying way surely to piss off literally everyone in the area:
The Washington Commanders moving back to DC and building a new stadium on the current federally owned land.
I get it, I get it. Sports… who cares? Stadiums… they’re never an economic driver! DC… get over ya swampy asses there’s a whole America and yall aren’t even a state.
Fair. You have a point. The DMV for sure has its collective head very far up its own ass.
There’s obviously state politics, but what makes the DMV area unique compared to the rest of the country is in how much overlap, collaboration and cooperation is required between DC, Maryland, and Virginia. This is why the Metro transit system has annual struggles with funding. Politics are played to the federal level and no one wants to lose economic drivers. When major bills come to negotiation in the House and Senate, the Maryland and Virginia folks are hawks trying to make sure the other state doesn’t sneak a major legislative win in there. And for DC, everything has to be blessed by Congress.
Now, the Commanders moving to DC right off of a metro station is a plan the whole area can get behind. The current stadium in Landover is a dump and is an issue to get to and get out of both on foot and by car. In the same state, M&T Bank Stadium (and Camden Yards) is a WAY easier flow in traffic. It may take you 20 minutes tops to leave the parking lot in downtown Baltimore and then you’re smooth sailing. For a Commanders game, your mood is kind of killed before you even see a minute of the game.
It says a lot that Maryland was willing to give up the team to play in DC! It says even more that they could get Virginia and DC to agree to the same plan. Virginia likely fought tooth and nail but this was one of those moments where the collective knew what the greater good was.
The vibes in Washington have been great! The DMV area is completely different when this team is good.
And then comes along Elon Musk. Who understands NONE of the above, but speaks out of his ass and because he has billions and billions of dollars, shit goes the way he likes.
Washington fans are a jaded bunch who already don’t trust billionaires because of Dan Snyder running the franchise into the ground. The new investor group who bought the team from Dan Snyder has done a wonderful job of changing all of that. It feels good to root for this team week to week. And this group led by Josh Harris also understands many of the dynamics at play. They have experience in the area with ownership of various teams.
But, how could any of us prepared this week for someone tweeting at Elon Musk that the govt should be shutdown from 12/20 until Trump takes office on 1/20? And Musk on a whim getting House reps to kill the continuing resolution bill to fund the government (which in itself is a stopgap from an actual bill because the House Freedom Caucus won’t agree to anything)?
Here’s the thing. NO ONE thought this stadium deal would be cut out because there is no federal money behind it. As is for everything in DC, things go to Congress for approval. So, DC was simply seeking approval from the Feds to negotiate with the Washington Commanders about revitalizing said land. By this point, this was a simple passing that shouldn’t have batted an eye because Josh Harris and company did their due diligence to have EVERYONE’s blessing…
Until Elon Musk tweeted out that $3 billion of our tax money was going to this stadium…
Which it wasn’t…
But it worked and the promised stadium that would bring the area together is dead. Once again. Because Elon is a fucking idiot, but also because he’s letting other billionaires know he doesn’t care about them either and they need to get in line to bow down to his highness.
Eat shit, Elon. You don’t know everything and you are a fraud. Leave us alone. Washington sports fans are already tortured by our teams. We don’t need a troll coming along to torment us further.
Though, I guess it wouldn’t be a bad thing for the DMV to have another thing to agree on.