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I saw two Americas this week. I know which I want.

Nicole Russell   Paste BN

Now more than ever, I see two distinct Americas.  

In one America, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk returned two stranded NASA astronauts, crew of the failed Boeing Starliner, to Earth.  

Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were supposed to be in space for a few days but wound up trapped for nine months. Although the return of the astronauts was organized before President Donald Trump took office, it’s hard not to give him and Musk credit for executing the mission and finally bringing them home. 

Musk’s SpaceX Dragon capsule, with Wilmore and Williams inside, splashed into the ocean off Florida on Tuesday. The returning astronauts were greeted by dolphins – an apropos welcome back to Earth. 

In the second America this week, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential candidate in November, told a crowd that he gets excited when Tesla’s stock plummets. Musk also owns that company, of course. 

“I was saying, on my phone, I know some of you know this on the iPhone. They’ve got that little stock app,” Walz told the cheering crowd. “I added Tesla to it to give me a boost during the day – 225 and dropping!”   

Cheering for the temporary decline of an American company because the owner has aligned with our president is a bizarre and twisted thing to do.  

My column: Don't panic over the stock market. Trump is fixing holes in our economy. 

It’s part of a larger trend. As my colleague Ingrid Jacques wrote in a recent excellent column, “Liberals across the country are attacking a bunch of electric vehicles and infrastructure – once a symbol of Democrats’ climate-saving agenda. Essentially, they are sabotaging their own cause.” 

Both of those news stories involved Musk, who admittedly is a lightning rod, and both are a gauge of where America is and where we might have been.  

In the first story, Musk’s company rescued astronauts who had been stranded for months. It’s a story of American triumph over difficulty. 

In the second story, the former Democratic nominee for vice president celebrated the falling stock value of an American company long admired for its innovation and success. It’s scary to think about the path of partisan hatred that Walz would have followed had he been elected along with presidential nominee Kamala Harris in November. 

I know which version of America I want. It’s the one that brings astronauts home so dolphins can greet them.  

What about you?

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