Was the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, elected by American voters in the Nov. 5 election? Well, of course not, but he certainly acts like it. There he is in the thick of it, grinning and gloating in the Halls of Power.
Like an in-your-face upstart, in late December he tossed his weight around to put a stop to a Congressional bipartisan proposal on a budget deal to keep the government from shutting down. Musk did it by launching a barrage of postings on his very own “X,” castigating House Speaker Mike Johnson and threatening he would fund primary challenges to any Republican who wouldn’t play ball his way. Some rattled Republicans had begun to disparage him as “President Musk.”
Fortunately, after the Musk-instigated stoppage, a bipartisan bill managed to pass.
Could the fact that Musk donated $250 million to the Trump-Vance campaign have anything to do with his gleeful grinning and grandiose gloating?
Musk is just the latest and biggest example of why the U.S. Supreme Court’s Jan. 21, 2010 ruling (“Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission”) was such a toxic decision, like a stake driven into the heart of Representative Democracy.
By a 5-4 majority, the Court ruled that barring corporations, labor unions and other big organizations from contributing huge amounts of money to political campaigns was unconstitutional. The Justices claimed it violated the Free Speech Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The dunderheaded rationale was that corporations are the equivalent of “people” too and thus have “voices, opinions” protected by freedom of speech. Money talks. Loudly! So bye-bye, campaign-finance laws.
In his dissenting opinion, then-Justice John Paul Stevens sounded a warning that now resonates more ominously than ever.
The ruling, Stevens wrote, amounts to “a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self-government.”
Musk appears to have “bought his way” into governmental power. Like many billionaires, he is an example of “if you want something, just go buy it.”
However, there are rumblings and grumblings happening in MAGA Land. Musk and his sidekick, power-monger and big-money man Vivek Ramaswamy, will both head what’s called the “Department of Government Efficiency.”
Many MAGA folks are angered that Musk and Ramaswamy had the gall last week to defend giving visas for high-tech foreigners who want to study and/or work in America. Musk tweeted “the number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low.”
Ramaswamy, also in an “X” posting, claimed American culture “venerated mediocrity over excellence” – thus the need for foreign tech workers. He went on to tweet he hopes Trump’s presidency can create an American culture that prioritizes “hard work over laziness.”
Those statements didn’t sit well with many MAGA folks who are not “lazy,” “unmotivated” or do not settle for “mediocracy.”
Are we heading for an oligarchy – a country ruled by a handful of super-rich people, like Russia’s corrupted so-called socialist state?
TV host Joe Scarborough said it well when he asked this: “He (Trump) said he was going to drain the swamp. Well, then why is he bringing in all these alligators?” By “alligators,” he meant Trump appointees like Matt Gaetz, Tulsi Gabbard, Mehmet Oz, Kristi Noem, RFK Jr., Kash Patel, as well as Musk and Ramaswamy.
During his presidential run, Ramaswamy said he would abolish at least five federal agencies, including the Department of Education, the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Drug Administration’s Food and Nutrition Service. He also vowed to “gut” the Food and Drug Administration while proclaiming the President has the right to squash those agencies (and more) by “executive order.” That’s “efficiency?!” Sounds more like the “Department of Government Abolition.”
Who knows? Maybe these Trump appointees will surprise us with good “efficiency” solutions. Maybe . . . But let’s remember the “road to Hell is paved with good intentions.”
