Musk is now out of office, in an increasingly bitter war with Trump, and generally losing it. One possible contributor to this woeful streak? The mountains of drugs he is consuming all the time. As Jeet Heer wrote on Monday, “Musk’s appetite for mind-altering substances and his increasingly strident support for far-right ideology…go hand-in-hand.”

Wonderful, now the Democrats can swoop in and take advantage of this chaos, you might think. Hold that thought until you read Chris Lehmann’s dispatch from the heart of the DC Dem fold, the Center for American Progress, where a depressing and sparsely attended confab on the party’s struggles with the working class was held on Wednesday.

It’s best to look for inspiration elsewhere—say, to New York City Councillor Shahana Hanif, who told us about how she’s battling a flood of billionaire cash to hang on to her seat; or to Paola Mendoza, who wrote about the power of art to channel political grief into action; or to John Carlos, the iconic Olympian and activist whose 80th birthday Dave Zirin celebrated on Thursday. While Elon stamps his feet in one of his big, ugly cars, these heroes are showing us a better way.

-Jack Mirkinson

Senior Editor, The Nation

Not yet a subscriber of The Nation? Get one year of unlimited digital access for just $14.95.