I hate to throw an ethics flag on Musk while he’s doing such essential work and being attacked for it. Still, this kind of stuff doesn’t help. At all.
Yeah, I know, I know. Musk is one the autistic spectrum and in some respects is a bout 10 years old, and like Donald Trump, he enjoys trolling and doesn’t care who he alienates. Conservative pundits and wags were crowing about CNN’s Dana Bash saying solemnly on the air, “”Now the ‘Disruptor in Chief, Elon Musk, who apparently has adopted the alias, at least he changed his social media handle, to ‘Harry Bōlz’, tweeted this morning, ‘Democracy in America is being destroyed by judicial coup. An activist judge is not a real judge.”
Indeed this thrust us into Poe’s Law hell, where it is impossible to distinguish reality from satire. Musk was mocking the breathless doxxing of one of his fuzzy-cheeked geeks as “Big Balls” by the Axis media, and I’m sure he got a good laugh out of it; I’m sure Trump did too. Nonetheless, what he is doing with DOGE is too important to be vulnerable to the accusation that the man in charge is just fooling around, having fun, and not taking seriously decisions that effect the lives and livelihood of so many people.
It is easy to make the news media look foolish because they are foolish. Still, Elon Musk (and the President, but he’s beyond reforming) can’t afford to go after this low-hanging fruit and behave like Bart Simpson tricking Moe into calling out in his bar, “I.P. Freely ! I.P. Freely on the phone here! ” He must be seen as the serious analyst that he is if the DOGE effort is to have any chance of succeeding.
Ethics Alarms 
The only defense I can muster is that in the Trump administration blitzkrieg, every avenue of assault is being pursued. This includes the tactic of embracing the name the bullies mock you with to defang their attacks. With Musk embracing the testicular reference, he defends his underling and he smacks back at the Left by forcing them to swallow their pride and straight-facedly verbalize the new X handle while all the viewers snicker at them. I don’t think this is simply juvenile on Musk’s part. It is one more front on the cancel-culture theater, and the battle here is one of dead seriousness.
My main hope is that those who wage the war against cancel-culture do not become cancellers themselves.
Embrace and Amplify
I completely agree. Musk can, and should, do better. Having said that…here’s my counterpoint…
Isn’t “X” now the abode of the children, the non-thinkers, and MAGA-infected retards? Aren’t all the grown-ups and superior thinkers – like Brian Tyler Cohen and Cenk Ugyur and CNN and MSNBC – migrating to the much-better, real-world abode that is Bluesky?
Independent thought and free speech is for the feeble, the weak, the old-fashioned…hive-minded group-think is where it’s at!!
Why would anyone at CNN – with such advanced intellect – care at all if a person, even the owner, on X changed his/her name to Mr. Bolz?!?
Unintended great example:
Cenk “I believe that if I were the benevolent dictator of the world, I would legalize bestiality where you are giving, you are pleasuring the animal” Ugyur?
He’s said so much batshit insane stuff on TYT that “Harry Bolls” pales in comparison. The idea that Musk is somehow pushing the line on decency is ridiculous.
But he’s the lead of a key effort of the President of the United States – whether he likes it or not, that puts him in a position that demands some level of decorum.
We’re talking about this because we’re focused on Musk, and we’re focused on Musk because the media is hyperfocused on Musk. We need to stop taking the bait. We need to stop taking them seriously. They’re clowns that do funny things, and I laugh at clowns.
If you went through the all the Twitter Handles over time of government employees, what’s the over/under that a significant amount of people we’ve never discussed here had references to Bashing Fash, or the #Resistance, or Slava Ukraini, or some flavor of Sexual Deviance, or or or…. I can’t do it. I can’t pretend that we care about even violent or grossly offensive Twitter handles, nevermind cheeky ones.
You probably can’t point to any because there’s none that have been in high visibility positions.
The closest analogs would be the mentally ill man nominated to the Assistant Secretary of Health and the mentally ill man who like stealing luggage. Neither of those are weird screen names but they were 100% weird presentations of self by high visibility people in authority.
We as people certainly made a big deal about that and rightly so.
Remember Lieutenant Colonel Puppy-Dog-Kink?
Made a big deal about that as well.
I don’t think the principle is fundamentally different than picking a hyper juvenile screen name. Public presentation of people in authority are 100% an indication of trustworthiness.
And while Elon’s current screen name isn’t immediately disqualifying, it can add up.
Right… I think Sam Brinton is a great example. You have to separate what Democrats were willing to put up with with what actually got him fired.
Brinton was a senior Biden Energy Department official who called himself non-binary, dressed like a woman, and had pictures circulating with him in kink gear.
You want to say all of that cast aspersions on the department? Ok. Sure. But Democrats didn’t think so. They defended him.
What sunk him was his penchant for stealing luggage in airport terminals.
When Elon gets caught actually breaking a law, we can talk about it.
And yes actually – it doesn’t matter how many “low down peons” had vulgar and juvenile screen names in the past and acted officially from those accounts:
You’ve invoked “Everyone does it” and “They’re just as bad”.
Agreed
Was this done because the mainstream media outlets have policies about requiring the use of the name the person currently prefers? Was Musk trolling them on 3 levels?
(1) Making them continue in their juvenile behavior after the ‘Big Balls’ reporting.
(2) Highlight the insanity of the ‘You are whatever you say you are’ crowd.
(3) Turning the august, mainstream media into a bad rendition of the horrible SNL “Schwetty Balls” skit, showing that they are the emperor with no clothes.
Pretty juvenile, but they played right into it.
Being intentionally antagonistic seems like a clear violation of the second niggardly principle. Maybe the third one might apply too, but I agree. When you’re work is this important, no need to make it more difficult on yourself.
Is there a guide to the niggardly principles?
Can be found here: https://ethicsalarms.com/rule-book/
I disagree.
I think that it’s important to remember why people voted for Trump, and what they were voting for. Elon was in the campaign directly beside Trump, Trump announced the creation of DOGE (which is also a meme name) before the ballots were cast. People are, for one of the only times I can recall, getting exactly what they voted for.
The Democrats made so much hay out of being the party of Democracy over the last few years…. But Democracy in that context was obviously a euphemism for “Us in Power”, because now, after their campaigns blew up and Donald Trump actually got majority support from American voters, elections have consequences, what Trump is doing is within the law, and they are freaking out.
In response to Trump’s tariffs on Canada and Mexico, what to the Democrats do? Trot out Chuck Schumer holding a Corona and an avocado, like he’s never held either before in his life. But what right does anyone have to be surprised? Trump said he was going to do this, he said that “tariff” might be the most beautiful word in the English language.
Part of the question we should be asking is how he accomplished the feat of actually being a Republican and winning the national popular vote for the first time in like 20 years. And part of the answer to that is that he speaks the language of the people in a way that they can relate to.
So much of politics is performative absurdity. Elon Musk wasn’t elected! The people in DOGE are too young! They have naughty usernames online! Who cares? These guys are finding literal billions of dollars scattered around like ticker tape at a Macy’s Day Parade and the media is going to dox the name, age and username of a government employee just doing his job?
It deserves mockery. It’s getting mocked. Maybe they’ll be less absurd next time.
I like mockery. I think wit and cleverness always makes the user look good in comparison to his or her target. Junior High School vulgarity is counter-productive, even though, or maybe especially because, its Trump’s milieu as well.
I wonder whether the concern about vulgarity has simply left the building, Jack. How much worse that “Fuck Trump” can anyone get? We’re antiques. Even supposedly adult elected and appointed officials can be vulgar with impunity. I think this battel was lost in the ’60s. And we may have caused it.
I mean, Jack is consistent, and I take his point… But you’re exactly right, after Rashida “Impeach The Motherfucker” Tlaib, and her defenders, how many people are now going to tell us they care deeply about Harry (or big) Balls?
Remember when President Trump allegedly referred to nations with significant problems s—-hole countries? The news media went on and on about it with one fellow memorably ranting on television about how he now had to say that word on television because of President Trump and apologized to all the parents out there and all of the people clutching pearls because they had to hear that word because the anchor was forced to say it because the President was rumored to have said it? Someone who thinks he has to say a word on television because the President is rumored to have said it is not a stable person.
None of these folks reporting the news are. They would go to prison to hide the secrets of the Kennedys, the Clintons, the Bidens, et al. But they have no choice but to report the most minute detail about anyone working in the Trump administration in any capacity because all they’ve got is the blatant double standard they’ve created when reporting on Democrats versus Republicans. If Musk had carried a “Dukes of Hazzard” lunchbox in the 3rd grade (and if South Africa had sold such things), they would harp on it for days.
The narrative that these guys are evil and stupid does not end and cannot end as far as the Left-enabling media is concerned. Elon Musk and Donald Trump have to know this by now and it would behoove them to dial it down a notch or two lest their message get buried in the Earth-killing styrofoam peanuts of the shipping box they’re delivering it in.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden literally called half of the American electorate “garbage”, prompting people to add trash, garbage and dumpster memes to their Twitter handles for a couple of weeks. Anyone remember “Garbage still votes”? It was like three months ago.
I’m gonna point out that the usual Elon-hating suspects weren’t lined up for miles to tone-police the old man.
If Elon had changed his Handle to “Human Garbage” for a week, would we have retreated to our fainting couches with fingers reflexively grasping for pearls?
I wrote “Garbage” on my “I Voted” sticker.
President Trump in that dump truck was pure trolling gold. I doubt that image will ever get old in my mind.
The game is called “owning the libs”. And Dana Bash, and all those other anchors who issue po-faced commentary on prime time TV are getting owned.
I do not think this type of humor is counter productive at all; Trump made a lot of inroads with Gen Z voters last election. Please consider the campaign stunts of Donald Trump with the garbage truck and the McDonalds restaurant.
Please also consider that Trump has changed the GOP milieu considerably; the humor has gotten a lot edgier and irreverent (please check out YouTube channel “Conservative Vibes”. This type of humor may not appeal to WF Buckley crowd, and the Caspar Milquetoast / Napoleon Dynamite wing of the GOP that dominated during the time of Bill Frist and John Boehner, but that is OK as their approach represent political and cultural defeat.
If you have a VIP account to TownHall.com, here is a link to an article about the merits and drawbacks of trolling the left:
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2025/02/12/fun-trolling-vs-bad-trolling-n2652071
In this article the writer approves level 1 trolling (like Elon Musk’s humor) and level 2 trolling (renaming to Fort Bragg), but is critical to level 3 trolling such as punishing media that do not go along with the renaming of Gulf of Mexico. Hint to Jack, this may be a topic for a next post.
I don’t think owning the libs is a productive game. The goal should be converting the unconverted. When you set out to ridicule someone based on their ideas you tend to find that you have alienated some who may agree with that perspective but fall on your side of the line many other times. The garbage truck example proves the point. Political rhetoric can make a potential ally on an issues an adversary. We complain about liberal groupthink but the seem to believe conservatives should all think alike. What Trump has done has focused his efforts on common sense issues and not on far right ideas like putting prayer back in schools.
We must set the example for the behavior we want to see. I don’t care if Gen Z finds vulgarity ok in social settings. Ignoring vulgar behavior is not acceptance. Not engaging in it is how we demonstrate what we believe is acceptable social intercourse
Like most of the commenters on this blog I am become an old fogey, and as such we have a bias in favor of decorum and tradition. But I think we need a look at the sixties and seventies when there was a counter culture, youthful, hip, and cool, lampooning the establishment with irreverent humor and pranks, and challenging the authorities at every turn. This counter culture was culturally on left side of the political spectrum, including anarchists and libertarians. They wanted to change thing by shaking things up. At the other hand the conservatives representing the status quo were dour and joyless, authoritarian, and took themselves way too serious. And I think we know which of those two sides was winning the culture war.
Today the roles are reversed. The Republicans exhibit youthful exuberance and joy, they have a lot a fun, and are hip and cool. They represents today’s counter culture. Elon Musk and his DOGE team remind us of the movie “Revenge of the Nerds”. This sets a very inspiring example for all the young man out there, who are not doing so well in society. If you want to summarize the Republicans in one picture, then it is Trump and lot of young people dancing the YMCA, or the cover of the New York Magazine with all the young Republican people at the inauguration ball.
The ethos of the Democrats is quite the opposite, anti-fun, dour and joyless, constantly scolding and wagging their fingers. If you want to summarize the Democrats in one picture, then its that of Chuck Schumer (74), Maxine Waters (86) and Al Green (77) shouting and angrily waving a cane in front of the headquarters of a big federal agency. And why? Well simply to preserve an unaccountable bureaucracy who want to keep their books closed, and to keep the gravy train to the Democrat’s campaign coffers rolling.
Which of the two parties looks better? The merry pranksters who are challenging the powers that be? Or the humorless gerontocracy who want to preserve their own power? All you have to do to answer that question is to watch television, and see that Fox News is a lot more entertaining than CNN and the other left wing media. Also given the positive ratings that Trump is having (53% positive) versus the Democrats (31% positive) shows who owns the narrative today. The trolling of Elon Musk hardly turns anybody off, but the Democrats in full meltdown do.
One aspect of this trolling, Chris, hearkens back to the discussions we tend to have with EC. Yes, want to dialogue, we want to understand, we want to convert, but what on earth do we do when they will not listen? When they will not even try to listen? What we have seen here is the Left doubling down even after every indication is they should be recalculating, reevaluating, and probably jettisoning the most radical elements of their platform.
It is one thing to be generous to a defeated enemy that is suing for peace. But since the Left is not suing for peace, the battle still needs to be fought. I would liken it to Hamas. Hamas has been defeated at every level, but they still persist on fighting, on reneging on deals, and holding hostages captive. At this time, dialogue and efforts at conversion are not working. It won’t work until they are so utterly crushed that they are finally willing to abandon their course of action. In a similar vein, all these toxic ideas that have seized the Left have to be battled until the Left finally reaches the point of surrender.
If that sounds too harsh, I’m defining surrender as a genuine return to ethical, professional behavior with a renunciation of the toxic ideas that have ruined the Left. I want to be clear: we need an opposition party to the Republicans. The Democrats have so given way to the far-Left that it is now teetering on being unviable. Until or unless they are finally defeated at every turn and are willing to come to the table, they won’t be the party we need to keep the Republicans in check.