In Saturday’s DM we meditated on the possibility of America being overseen now not by a president, but a king. A Mad king.
Is it possible that a Mad king needs a Mad hatter around him? Many of us were exposed to the term “mad hatter” in childhood from the “Alice in Wonderland” adventures of Lewis Carrol’s novel. An eccentric character appears called the Hatter and the Cheshire cat calls him and the March Hare “both mad.” Thus, the “mad hatter.” The King of Hearts cautions him not to be nervous or he will have him “executed on the spot.”
The term “mad as a hatter” was used in the 18th and 19th centuries to describe someone who is crazy or prone to unpredictable behavior. Hat making was the main trade in the town where Carroll grew up.
Why is a hatter considered crazy? Because back then, the hat-making industry utilized mercury poisoning in the making of hats. Industrial workers employed a toxic substance, mercury nitrates, in turning fur like that of rabbits into felt for hats. There being very few protections for workers before unions, many became poisoned and took on physical and mental ailments including tremors, speech problems, emotional instability and hallucinations.
In many adaptations of Alice in Wonderland, the hatter is the male lead despite being a supporting character.* This seems to parallel Musk’s current role in the White House. And of course, the red MAGA hat has played a prominent role in the Mad King’s political strategy.
Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, frequently reveals himself as being mad-hatter-like. He is the cover boy for how unregulated “vulture capitalism” operates. Having poured $290 million into Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, he is living proof that in America, money can buy anything (especially since Citizens United courtesy of SCOTUS). Sitting pretty in the White House, he is having his way in demolishing the American government.
He is feverishly slashing personnel in all governmental departments from the IRS (fewer experts to look at billionaires’ complex taxes) to FAA, to those who manage forests to FEMA, USAID and the rest. Even money for Alzheimer’s research has been stopped in its tracks by his edicts.
He sends his underage ninja warriors with their laptops into governmental agencies to hack away at top-secret files—so many agencies he hates because they have lawsuits against one or more of his corporations.
He recently inserted himself and $1.6 million to support the right-wing judge in the important judicial election happening in April in the state of Wisconsin.
He is walking proof that in America money can buy anything. Capitalism is king. Project 2025 reigns.
But Musk is not restricting his largesse to the American scene alone. A major report by NBC entitled “How Elon Musk is boosting far-right politics across the globe” tells us that he is busy playing a major role supporting far-right causes in at least 18 other countries on six continents around the world.** This is what money can buy you.
Most glaring is his pushing for the far-right party in Germany’s upcoming election. A party that downplays Nazi atrocities and invokes slogans from Hitler’s Brownshirt paramilitaries. A Latin American journalist has called him a “superhero of the Latin American right.”
* Hatter (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, p. 4.
** How Elon Musk is boosting far-right politics across the globe.
See Matthew Fox, Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ.
And Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society.
And Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice.
And Fox, Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifs for the Peoples of the Earth.
To read the transcript of Matthew Fox’s video meditation, click HERE.
Banner Image: Alice, representing all of us, looks suspiciously at Trump and Musk holding forth at their Mad Tea Party. Composite image by team member Rosanna Tufts; based on Sir John Tenniel’s original illustration from 1865. Wikimedia Commons.
Queries for Contemplation
Do you see a relationship between Mad Kings and Mad Hatters? And an application to today’s political scene around the world? Do you approve of sometimes using humor and satire to speak truth to power as we do here?
Be sure to contribute in ways you can to joining the resistance whether by way of prayers, attending town halls, or calling legislators’ offices.
Recommended Reading
Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a moment, for examining the archetype of the Antichrist, it is now…Read this book with an open mind. Good and evil are real forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE.
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download.
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
Visionary theologian and best-selling author Matthew Fox offers a new theology of evil that fundamentally changes the traditional perception of good and evil and points the way to a more enlightened treatment of ourselves, one another, and all of nature. In comparing the Eastern tradition of the 7 chakras to the Western tradition of the 7 capital sins, Fox allows us to think creatively about our capacity for personal and institutional evil and what we can do about them.
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a better vision and depth of perception far beyond the grasp of any one single science. A breath-taking analysis.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, author of Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
In A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox delivers a profound exploration of the meaning and practice of compassion. Establishing a spirituality for the future that promises personal, social, and global healing, Fox marries mysticism with social justice, leading the way toward a gentler and more ecological spirituality and an acceptance of our interdependence which is the substratum of all compassionate activity.
“Well worth our deepest consideration…Puts compassion into its proper focus after centuries of neglect.” –The Catholic Register
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth
Fox’s spirituality weds the healing and liberation found in North American Creation Spirituality and in South American Liberation Theology. Creation Spirituality challenges readers of every religious and political persuasion to unite in a new vision through which we learn to honor the earth and the people who inhabit it as the gift of a good and just Creator.
“A watershed theological work that offers a common ground for religious seekers and activists of all stripes.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice.
“I am reading Liberating Gifts for the People of the Earth by Matt Fox. He is one that fills my heart and mind for new life in spite of so much that is violent in our world.” ~ Sister Dorothy Stang.
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7 thoughts on “Elon Musk: The Mad King’s Mad Hatter?”
I’m grateful for these meditations.
And for the background of the Mad Hatter! Didn’t know that at all.
I share your thoughts with other people in my family. God bless you.
It’s no surprise that these two became our leaders. The famous saying made by Pogo goes like this, “We have seen the enemy, and the enemy is us.” The reader may think/feel, “Well, I/we can do better than that.” The truth is we get what we pay for. The article at https://eraoflight.com/2025/02/24/am-i-and-is-everyone-around-me-a-narcissist/ explains how we have been creating our reality. Trump and Musk are just like us. What they do that will make our world fall apart is our own doing. Quit whining and “Become the change you want to see”, as Gandhi advised.
Yes! Yes! Yes! – Resounding YES! in answer to your important questions at the end of today’s enlightening DM about bringing satire and Light/Truth to power and evil. It’s amazing/shocking that Musk is not only helping Trump destroy American Democracy and our humanitarian values, but is also trying to have the same destructive influence with his billions and propaganda of his social media empire X on far right governments around the world.
Trump and Musk are definitely evil and crazy partners in crime against humanity — a ‘Mad King’ and a ‘Mad Hatter.’ The unbalanced spiritual power of patriarchy and egocentricity has a long destructive history causing much human and planetary suffering, both personal and societal, in our evolution as a human species.
Our personal and communal Faith and responsibility together with Our SOURCE~CO-CREATOR’S SPIRIT of Divine LOVE~WISDOM, Truth, Peace, Justice, Strength, Healing, Transformation, Compassion, Creativity, Diverse ONENESS… with-in and among Us is more important than ever in the evolution of Our Eternal Souls in the Sacred Process of the ETERNAL PRESENT MOMENT….
Humor, and satire, are essential. Life is, after all, a “Divine Comedy” and when we can see it that way we will throw our head back and laugh outrageously like the Buddha. It can be easier said than done, however!
“Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be amused.”
Our 1980’s minister in Minnesota agrees! Deep thanks, Paul and Matthew!!
I hope that you will make humor a daily part of your DM’s, as well as the reminder to take action of some sort. Humor is very healing and gives perspective when all seems lost. I am a fan of Stephen Colbert–like other late night hosts he makes fun of the Orange Menace and his toadies. Since the media has been caving to the threats of the Mad King and his Mad Hatter, I fear that they will disappear from tv before too long, so I have been really savoring Stephen and the others. And let us call this trend what it is, not just right wing, but despotic. It is evil, as you have named it.
Naom Chomsky maintains that the powerful already know the truth and that powerless people need to be informed of what those with power are doing.
So, speak truth to the powerless. To learn more, see:
https://www.truthtothepowerless.com/