Perhaps the clearest sign that a formerly mentally competent Facebook friend has gone over the rainbow to Progressive Wacko Land is if they write nasty things about Elon Musk.
Trump Derangement I can understand. Oh, at this point it’s juvenile and embarrassing to the sufferer as well as his or her family, but I can understand it. I easily could be a victim myself: “There but for the grace of God go I!” [a quote attributed to John Bradford (1510–1555) who was imprisoned in the Tower of London for crimes against Queen Mary I and burned at the stake.]
After all, from 2011 to 2016 I wrote dozens of Ethics Alarms posts about how awful Donald Trump was and a fair amount of very critical posts since then. Trump’s personality, rhetoric and conduct are so far removed from the nation’s historical template for its Presidents that the gag reflex is completely understandable, though if his style causes an individual to fail to appreciate what he has done (or tried to do) that is courageous, necessary and important (what we call “substance”), then bias has indeed made that individual stupid.
Elon Musk, however, is an unquestionable Ethics Hero. He will eventually get honored with a Presidential Medal of Freedom, and could justifiably get the honor tomorrow. Musk’s purchase of Twitter rescued civic discourse from the slowly tightening grip of progressive/Democratic Party control over what the public could read, learn about, consider and write. It is very likely that without the platform’s transformation to “X,” the Democrats would have held on to the Presidency despite their Politburo-like management of it under Joe Biden. That unselfish and patriotic purchase alone should guarantee appreciation even from those who disagree with Musk politically; that it doesn’t reveals ominous aspect of the Left’s priorities and values.
Anger at Musk for his work on rooting out government waste, fraud and abuse is even more damning, as are the ad hominem attacks that anger is generating. Over at The View and elsewhere, Musk was denigrated for being an immigrant, called a racist, and accused of being an actual Nazi. Although there is no possible financial benefit to him in what must be judged a pure act of public service, the Musk Deranged impugn his motives. The fact that he is the richest man on Earth has opened up ugly, if traditional, Marxist class warfare from the Angry Left: all billionaires are evil after all, and their money should be redistributed by government force to all the noble poor. (This, incidentally, is one of the messages being programmed into young brains by Disney’s “Snow White,” which I saw lats night as promised.)
In reality, Musk represents the ideal of the how the very wealthy should behave. Because he is virtually immune to financial risk, he can afford to undertake important, expensive, innovative projects that lesser tycoons won’t have the fortitude to attempt. Tesla, Space X and Twitter/X are all examples.
His thanks, so far at least, is to have his car dealerships made the target of domestic terrorism, with an all-star cast from the Stygian depths of the American Left (Jimmy Kimmel, Jasmine Crockett, Tim Walz, etc.) openly cheering on the terrorists and rooting for his company’s stock to crater. Part of their vile mania is pure guilt by association: Elon is helping Trump, so he mast be evil too. Assisting the elected President of the United States to accomplish what he was elected to do should be seen as patriotic, but the Double Deranged can’t see clearly through their jaundiced eyes, so I suppose some sympathy is in order.
I also have sympathy for those who are reacting emotionally because friends and loved ones—or they themselves—are losing jobs, grants or other benefits because of the DOGE cuts. D.C. is full of such “victims;” I have a very dear friend whose USAID-funded humanitarian mission abroad has been terminated two years early. It takes a very special talent for objectivity and perspective to think, “Well, even if people I care about are suffering this is necessary for the nation as a whole, so while I don’t like the consequences, I can appreciate that it is ethical under sound utilitarian principles.” Nonetheless, that is how the DOGE efforts should be seen.
But it is so much more satisfying, and more likely to let one keep one’s Facebook friends, to just bash Elon Musk.
Ethics Alarms 
I never would have thought that the way to save Our Democracy ™ would be to firebomb car dealerships! Is this what we’ve come to?
It’s what the American Left has come to.
I think it’s simpler than that. Musk is, and has always been something of a weirdo. That’s easy enough to accept as long as he’s doing cool things like saving the planet and making rockets.
But the campaign against Musk – and it has every hallmark of being an orchestrated campaign – is there because progressives NEED a bogeyman. Trump came into office with all guns blazing, and his numbers went UP. Nothing the left could throw at him, before or after the election, stuck. Trump didn’t just comfortably win the Electoral College vote – he won the popular vote. Trump, for the nonce, is somewhat teflon.
But not Musk. Without a path to destroying Trump, the left has no option but to attempt to destroy Trump’s MVP.
I have no doubt that Musk (and Trump) expected exactly this. And meantime, the rest of the nation looks at what so-called progressives and the MSM are doing and thinking “wow… did we ever dodge a bullet.”
This is a bit off topic, or maybe not, but the Tesla attacks have made me revisit the riots at the Capitol in January 2024 for the following reasons: Until the events of January 6, Republican voters and supporters had generally been well behaved, disorganized and had never resorted to violence property destruction. The left was supportive of violence and all sorts of mayhem during the first Trump Administration and the Great Stupid. When Biden won and before he was inaugurated, the Dems and the Deep State must have spotted an opportunity to level out this problem. They would leave the Capitol defenseless, insert agitators into the whacky Right and cause what they would call “an insurrection” so they could one: impeach Trump yet again and even indict him for allegedly causing the insurrection, and two: forever after point to January 6 as “an insurrection” to excuse violence by the organized Left. They should have called the effort “Project Pee Wee Herman” because their goal was to forever be able to say, in effect, “I know you are, but what am I? Infinity!” whenever their henchmen were deployed to do things such as, firebomb car dealerships. This was a grand plan executed to perfection. The entire January 6 event and its follow-on activities such as the January 6 Star Chamber and the Trump impeachment and prosecution and the use of “insurrection” and the surfeit of related talking points are all too well coordinated and neat to have been unrelated phenomena.
Jack, how long before you end up giving Trump an Ethics Hero, for bringing Vance, Musk, and at least some of his cabinet to Washington. The Electoral and popular vote mandate are being used to accomplish what the public actually gave him. How far back in the President’s do we have to go to be able to state that? Reagan did a bunch, but the DeepState did Iran-Contra and many other operations. Who would be before that, JFK for the space program?
He’s done a wonderful job of not installing the usual suspects in his administration as he mistakenly did during his first time as President. People like John Bolton and Barr were all absolute snakes out to get him. He mistakenly thought these old hand Republicans were acting in good faith. They were not. He’s had to go way outside the box to find people who will pursue his agenda rather than viciously undermining him. Swamp creatures all.
I also have sympathy for those who are reacting emotionally because friends and loved ones—or they themselves—are losing jobs, grants or other benefits because of the DOGE cuts. D.C. is full of such “victims;”
Actually, the entire nation has faced cuts because of government decisions. I for one lost a job running an academic program in a correctional institution when Clinton, with Biden heading the Judiciary Committee decided that it would save money by denying financial aid to inmate students in state correctional facilities. The only people who criticized the decision were those who were financially affected. I spoke out against the decision because we could prove reductions in recidivism and overall costs of incarceration. Emotion ruled the day. It was get tough on crime time as Clinton tacked to the center. No politician gave a damn about anyone involved in that program.
I took a big financial hit because my layoff happened less than a month after my stepson was involved in a nearly fatal car crash and laid in a coma through September. Dealing with that and my dad who was in hospice care put me deep in debt. That’s my story. You have to work through these setbacks because they happen to many others. I don’t get why federal employees feel entitled to tenure in a job. Does the government guarantee tenure to non-federal employees? Of course not. Where is the equity they demand from others. On January 22, 2021, Joe Biden put thousands of pipeline workers out of a job. Later he shuttered coal mines and told people to learn to code. People who rely directly or indirectly on government spending should realize that changing conditions may adversely change their economic livelihoods.
In the private sector the big tech firms are rightsizing their operations and laying off thousands of people. Hell, even Jeff Bezos is shedding employees who in his mind are not adding enough value to the firm.
Tech firm layoffs have been affecting employees globally. In 2024, 548 tech firms terminated the services of more than 150,000 employees. In the first two months of 2025 alone, more than 13,300 people lost their jobs. Some of the affected companies include Meta, TikTok, Dyson, Microsoft, Google, and SAP.
These firms combined would not reflect more than a 10th of the US GDP. Comparatively, Trump would have to layoff 1.5 million employees to be somewhat comparable. At most, the goal was 200,000.
No one is firebombing the Washington Post or Amazon trucks. I don’t see people boycotting Facebook, Microsoft and Google who had a recent large scale layoffs. Why not?
I don’t believe the outrage is real. It is manufactured by those wishing to undermine western values as a whole. DOGE is just a means to effectuate a broader attack on those values from within. Trump and Musk are merely the targets for isolation. Find a bogeyman and then gin up resentment against them. Turn the seniors who spend their days watching reruns that Social Security and Medicare is to be ended. That will fire that group up. Tell the working parents of special needs kids that they will not get the special services anymore that the DoEd provides which means that one of them may have to stay home with the child. We need not tell them that the state and local governments are responsible for allocating those resources. Conflate, two different meetings at the Pentagon and tell everyone Musk is getting briefed on war plans with China and not that he was not with the Joint Chiefs but with Hegseth discussing ways to use technology to promote efficiencies, or how it can improve operational, tactical, and strategic methods. Keep people fighting amongst themselves to weaken the people and cause enough chaos so that a new order can be ushered in with their oligarchs in charge.
As for those whining that Trump keeps “bragging on the US” about how great it is, Talk to a Mexican or a Canadian and they will tell you that they have a superior culture or their approach to something is far better than our way. Some of the commentary here from north of the border will illustrate the idea that one group views their ideas and methods are superior while another thinks its ideas and methods are preferred. Personally, it might make sense for Canada or Denmark to develop Greenland’s strategic potential and provide the defensive umbrella for the NATO countries instead of relying on the U.S. SAC to do the job; I’m open to that, but I see no movement on their part to invest in that defense. Europeans have long thought themselves to be somehow more cultured than the ugly American. There may be some truth in that. However, the problem is that many Americans have begun to believe the polemics used to denigrate the United States. Trump’s comments may not help in diplomatic circles, but his actions are what should be evaluated against his campaign promises.
I have had long conversations with Chinese and Ukrainian scientists who tell me flat out they are so far ahead of us in technology or that our understanding of the political world is flat out wrong that I have come to understand that this is nothing more than how Manchester fans see the world through the lens of football. It is just team pride and something to rally around. The whole MAGA idea is to give people an end goal. Do we not want America to be great? If you say no, you want us to be something less able to do what for instance. Mediocrity rarely creates innovative solutions. The Left believes it can define what MAGA means when it has no actual standing to define anything but itself.
If we are to effect change then those inciting mass resistance must be outed and if necessary prosecuted for incitement. We can have freedom to speak out about policies but vandalism and calling people Nazis will never get me to evaluate any point of view that espouses or tolerates such tactics.
If I have no need to tolerate being publicly called a Nazi by a brother who I have not spoken to since 2018 except for one recent birthday message I sent, then I have no need to be placate Facebook friends who choose to destroy rather than build. I spent a lot of years offering hands of friendship to others without any reciprocation. Call me cynical but I have zero tolerance for those who go out of their way to denigrate others if the object of derision doesn’t worship at the same political alter as they do.
That’s a COTD if I ever saw one, Chris.
It’s Jack’s call, but I’ll second that.
Who’m I to argue with OB…?
PWS
Chris, another epic response!! Thank you.
I’m wondering if Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) has forced most Democrats to completely loose their minds and resort to one simple absurd comparison to make all their decisions…
I’m beginning to think that it’s that simple for Democrats now.
Side Note: Has anyone noticed that wide spread fire and vandalism was included as a seemingly “acceptable” means of protest during the Trump Administration I (2017-2021), then during Biden Administration (2021-2025) wide spread fire and vandalism was strangely absent from protests, and now we have Trump Administration II (2025-2029) and I’m shocked, shocked I say, that wide spread fire and vandalism is once again returning as a seemingly “acceptable” means of protest.
What is history going to write about this absurd 12 year period of time?
For what it is worth, there are serious questions about what DOGE has accomplished. Multiple reports have suggested that they have seriously overstated cuts and savings. The Wall Street Journal (hardly a bastion of Trump-hating big government lovers) finds the actual results unimpressive. https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/elon-musk-doge-federal-savings-claims-783b9507
It is also possible to argue that a lot of what appears wasteful at first glance is actually reasonable when properly understood. (A few hundred years ago, the news that Isaac Newton was trying to discover why apples fall off trees might have seemed odd, but it revolutionized our understanding of the universe.) Which could lead to the conclusion that getting the deficit under control (which absolutely needs to be done) is going to be a lot harder than we might like. All of which could be useful if we were interested in a serious discussion of government finances instead of screaming for our team.
All true. And when a mistake is made, you fix it. If something needs to be restored, you restore it. The slash and burn method is necessary because all previous efforts to cut back on government bloat and wasteful expense have failed (and, for the most part, have been for show), and time is short if the intent is to make significant and lasting cuts. (Incidentally, Wall Street’s bias is well known: the markets hate change and uncertainty. It has nothing to do with a “team”: this is a problem of long-standing, and DOGE is the first serious effort to address it. All criticism is welcome…but none of it should slow down the effort.
Jack, I would have included in your rebuttal that Congress cuts nothing it merely reduces the amount of growth and calls it a spending cut. With all the calls about stopping misinformation no one every singles out that misleading claim.
This is the equivalent of saying you saved money on something you would not have bought at the original price but is now on sale. You saved nothing, you just spent what you would have otherwise spent had the price reflected the value you initially put on it.
Spot-on, in my opinion. In my time watching government operate (about four decades so far), I’ve seen precious little contraction of government in any arena. All Presidents have talked about it, but none has paid it more than lip service…until now. And Congress?…don’t kid yourself. As the body that creates laws and programs, they have never killed anything of consequence and have rarely reduced spending anywhere.
What we see now from leaders like Schumer is what we have gotten painfully used to. Chuck gets up and laments the “vicious chainsaw cuts” being made by DOGE. Instead, he suggests, we should implement a surgeon’s scalpel to the process.
You know what that means? “Let’s form a committee to discuss cuts, which will lead to a task force which will require hiring – at taxpayer expense – a consulting firm (usually staffed by friends of the committee or other Congressional members, all of whom will get a kickback from the firm) to do a feasibility study which will last months and costs millions of dollars. Then the results will be shown: it’s far too important to better understand the effects of smoking on dogs in Botswana than to simply axe the program.
We’ve put up with this kind of pussy-footing around government waste for too long – with both Democrats and Republicans. Let’s try something different. Rather than a scalpel that costs half a billions dollars and doesn’t end up cutting anything, let’s try the chainsaw.
If we chop a little too much (or a LOT too much), guess what? We can always rebuild…we do it all the time. But chainsaws – while they are good at cutting down the big stuff, can also do some pretty intricate work in the hands of an artist.
What is amazing to m is that it is so, so obvious that the “scalpel” approach means “no substantial cuts at all,” and yet people who have every reason to know better keep using that argument. The other one is, of course, “Yes, cut government expenditures, just nothing that I personally benefit from or like.”
This is a brave, necessary effort by Trump and Musk, and everyone, not just Republicans, should be grateful for it and cheering them on.
We should point out that classical scientists did not rely on government to fund their work. Newton, while locked away at his farm because Cambridge was shut down due to plague, spent his time developing his theories by studying Halley’s Principia and formulating his mathematical ideas on celestial movements and light. Curiosity is what stimulates innovation not money. Money corrupts the process if the focus is on getting the money.
The first step in getting any budget under control is deciding what were absolute priorities (needs) and what are wants. The problem faced by the federal government is that Congress has learned that it can buy votes and ultimately power through the creation and expansion of redistribution programs.
Many of these are labeled the social safety net but in large measure are merely opiates for the masses. We put few restrictions on transfers because the masses have demanded not to be stigmatized in their use. If you can ingest something and it is not a drug we call it food and you can have it and we will pay for it even if it is deleterious to your long-term health for which future taxpayers will be forced to cover medical bills that might not have otherwise existed had the person receiving the transfer optimized the value of the transfer with respect to actual nutrition.
Another consideration is should the government do what is best done at a local level or is being done at a local level. Education fits this bill. Even if we are absolutely cynical as to why we provide public education, which is to turn out literate production workers who can follow instructions, do we need a federal government to create curriculum or feed the kids in schools. Every expansive give away program by the feds like school lunches absolves parents of more and more responsibility for their children. Once given, its hard to take away without electoral consequence.
Every form of transfer payment should have a sunset provision of seven years to evaluate efficacy and if proving not a good investment its should end without imposing an electoral consequence. It takes a rare person to vote to take away something from a voter.
Agree whole heartedly, but I think this needs to be made an amendment to the constitution and should affect all law.
We no longer need the nuances of 18th century textile factories and carbide lamps for coal workers in the federal code. Laws signed today should have an expiration date of seven years, and existing laws should expire on a time schedule just below the overwhelming of Congress.
“The problem faced by the federal government is that Congress has learned that it can buy votes and ultimately power through the creation and expansion of redistribution programs. Many of these are labeled the social safety net but in large measure are merely opiates for the masses.”
Opiates for the masses, eh? The actual quote, from Marx, was about religion, of course:
“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”
This was not meant as a negative thing. What is wrong with giving the downtrodden masses, those who NEED a safety net, an opiate to help them get through their days and their lives? Either leaders take care of their people, or the people “take care” of their leaders.
You appear to be new here, proe32754, so welcome. So that you know, your response to Chris Marschner’s use of “opiate” impresses me as being needlessly pedantic. Chris has made many well-informed and thought-provoking posts here. And despite the well-known nature of the quote to which you refer, his use of it in this particular context isn’t particularly out of line.
To your question What is wrong with giving the downtrodden masses, those who NEED a safety net, an opiate to help them get through their days and their lives?, I rather doubt anyone who participates here regularly is opposed to providing safety nets for those who truly need one.
The problem is that state and federal governments have created perverse incentives that foster dependence on taxpayer-funded sustenance – often at terrible social cost – on the part of people who truly DON’T need a safety net. I have seen this first hand (I’ll share the story of how I came to this conclusion if you ask).
And that’s before we get into government inefficiencies and expenditures that have NOTHING to do with safety nets, but which serve to fund a rent-seeking industry that costs us all a bundle – not in the form of taxes, but in the form of higher energy bills etc.
If I’m not mistaken, you’re approaching things from a progressive point of view. We have precious few progressives in the commentariat here, so it would be great to have another. Suggest you do a deeper dive into the site and learn a bit about how things work (including how to avoid pissing off our host). We’ll all be better off if well-presented and courteous discussion from other points of view are offered.
Not new, but a returning voice under a different screen name. Like “repstat”….