Re-platforming, part two
Wherein Elon Musk loses access to my bank account
Reports this week have President Trump sending Elon Musk, a private citizen and MAGA mega-donor with billions in U.S. government contracts, to plug his personal laptop into the Treasury Department and download its entire digital contents.
The shocking irregularity of this action is only matched by the shocking indifference of Congressional Republicans, who are otherwise known to be extremely interested in the laptops of private citizens.
Among Musk’s many millions of global supporters—at least, financially—is me.
As I struggle to free myself from the spreading web of American oligarchy, my use of the Musk-owned payment processing service, PayPal, presents a problem.
After years of tossing transaction fees from book and product sales into Musk’s coffers, it could be said my company paid for the floor mats of the Tesla he rode in on.
True, a handy way to receive book funds at field meets and to sell my Fundamentals-themed merchandise online has been good for business.
And alternatives are tricky—PayPal owns Venmo, for instance—and at least two of the other robust payment platforms are owned by Trump allies with whom I’m already too entangled.
But there’s always cash and checks. So today I spent the last $30 in my PayPal account to attend the Baton Rouge Press Club’s monthly luncheon and listen as my friend Jan Moller outlined how Trump’s foreign tariffs and domestic spending freezes threaten Louisiana’s tax-and-imports dependent economy.
Then I deleted my PayPal account.
Gotcha one better. Not only do I do business by PayPal for Social (Thank you for introducing me to that!), but I just watched a stunning sunset atop my birding tower, and the soundtrack was a gray squirrel scolding, a towhee tweeting, and a hot electronic hiss emitted by the sleek, square Starlink satellite dish that gives me my Internet. I suppose I have some kind of choice to use PayPal, though I know not what might replace it. There is no other viable Internet service in my rural area. I know because I've suffered under an array of pathetic "servers" that charged a king's ransom for nothing. Entangled. Completely. And freaking out. Heather Cox Richardson pronounces DOGE "doggy" and I will, too.
Never used PayPal or Venmo. But I don’t do much personal-to-person monetary exchanges. Hadn’t realized PP was Muskrat’s gig, but never trusted it. I do everything with ApplePay or cash.
After my mom died in late ‘22, Jack and I began “ death cleaning” to clear out our basement of stuff we don’t use any longer, and for those transactions, it’s cash or no sale. But I get the ease of PP to sell books. What about Square? My dog groomer uses Square. I know nothing about it, except it takes ApplePay.