By Bob Topper
Photos: YouTube Screenshots\Wikimedia Commons
In 1790 Edmund Burke, founder of conservatism, said, “Rage and frenzy will pull down more in half an hour than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in a hundred years.” Enter Trump, and the Christian Nationalists, who are pulling down government institutions. Built by American democracy with deliberation and foresight, those institutions have served the common good for over 200 years.
The rage and frenzy come from the Christian right, whose goal is the destruction of all things liberal, including democracy. In league with Christian fundamentalists are the oligarchs, whose goal is another massive transfer of wealth from working Americans to billionaires. Things like this happen when, to paraphrase Tom Friedman, you have a small man in a big time.
A deceptive title – Department of Government Efficiency – gaslights the American people. The Department of Government Elimination would be a more appropriate label. Musk justifies the destruction of government institutions as necessary to end fraud, abuse, and incompetence. But who benefits? Trump and Musk have already reaped fortunes…Trump launched his crypto scam and Elon blocked government investigations into his businesses. More billionaires and oligarchs will profit. Reducing the cost of government will justify more tax breaks for the wealthy.
And where are the fraud and abuse? Despite his claims, Musk has found very little. What is most concerning is the lack of prudence. Neither he nor Trump has articulated a plan that shows how the firings of professionals will serve the common good, which is of course, the purpose of American government and a president’s responsibility. Paradoxically, the chaos Musk creates in the name of efficiency is a model of ineptitude and waste that is costing taxpayers dearly, especially the people who depend on these agencies.
The Department of Education, Federal Aviation Administration, Federal Emergency Management, Internal Revenue Service, Medicare, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Center for Disease Control, FICA and the list goes on. All have been raided by angry unqualified muskrats who overrule decisions made by seasoned professionals, which has put the health, safety, and welfare of Americans at risk.
Take USAID. What is the purpose of shutting it down? It has become clear that, in the opinion of the Administration, the agency itself is a fraudulent abuse of taxpayer money. They are entitled to think what they will, but in American democracy, there is a process for advancing opinions. Capriciously shuttering the agency is a reckless violation of Constitutional order, which fortunately a clear-thinking Judge Theodore Chuang has blocked.
But Trump and Musk have scant respect for the Constitution or the courts. Neither do their Christian nationalist followers who claim to be patriots but do not understand its meaning. Patriotism is a dedication to our Constitution and founding principles of freedom, equality, democracy, and the rule of law. Recklessly destroying government institutions and scorning the rule of law is not patriotic. The American people did not vote to abandon constitutional order and winning less than 50 percent of the vote is no mandate.
And consider the Department of Education. While its roots go back to the Civil War era, the department was created through a bipartisan effort in 1979 to address problems in American education the states could not, or would not, address themselves, specifically, ensuring that everyone has access to quality educational opportunities, regardless of race, creed, color, national origin, physical abilities, or sex, which is synonymous with diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) . America was a different country then, a great nation where governance was based on reason and fact-based evidence, not subjective beliefs. If eliminated, the problems it seeks to remedy will fester, the quality of education in America will decline, and our children’s ability to cope with our complex world will be compromised.
The termination of DEI programs is an objective of the Christian Nationalists’ Project 2025 plan. The Education Department was targeted. Ironically, DEI is the Latin word for God, and Christ’s most important message, “love they neighbor as thyself,” is a call for diversity, equity, and inclusion. The hypocrisy is palpable.
The Coolidge Path to Destruction
The right sees Trump as a present-day Calvin Coolidge, who built an economy that thrived during the 1920’s. Like Trump, Coolidge weakened government regulations, cut taxes, and promoted business interests. For nearly a decade the economy boomed, and people became intoxicated with the optimism of the roaring twenties. It did not end well. The unregulated stock market crash of 1929 wiped out thousands of investors and ushered in the Great Depression. Workers suffered while billionaires acquired undervalued properties.
Roosevelt, a Democrat, and the New Deal brought the nation back to reality, and, after WWII built an economy in which more prospered. Trump inherited a thriving economy, which Biden modeled on Roosevelt’s strategies. Though Biden was not popular, his administration was skilled and experienced, and his policies were effective, both domestically and internationally.
Under Trump the economy is badly shaken. The S&P has fallen 15 percent, and he has filled cabinet posts with incompetent sycophants (think Signalgate) that are more loyal to him than our Constitution. Will Trump and his copilot Musk lead us down Coolidge’s path to destruction? This generation has an advantage. People believed Coolidge a rational man, but we know that Trump is a charlatan who would be king, and that Musk is a modern-day Machiavellian prince.
The Ends Justify the Means
Think the criticism too strong? Take a closer look at the Musk method, Twitter, another instance where the talented Musk operated out of his element. Twitter was a thriving platform, which Elon bought for $44 billion. There he perfected his slash-and-burn management style. He reduced the number of employees and operating costs, but is X a better platform than Twitter? Hardley. Twitter was a popular platform, respected and used by liberals and conservatives alike, for it was a dependable, and objective information resource. No longer. Musk even recently tried to buy Substack.
There is a confusing dichotomy in Musk. On technical matters, he relies on the scientific method’s requirement for truth and factual evidence, which is the only way to build anything useful. But in other matters, fact-based evidence is irrelevant to him. To further his ambitions, anything goes. He fired Twitter’s trust and safety team. When the ends justify the means, there is no need for objective truth; it only gets in the way. Where Twitter was a respected platform for the exchange of information, X now spreads rightwing propaganda. On X, Musk competes with Trump in a lying competition. Over a five-day period, one-third of Musk’s posts on X were false. Scientists, whose business is fact-based evidence, have abandoned the site.
As Musk’s X has forsaken objective truth, other influential billionaires have fallen in line. Zuckerburg’s Facebook and Bezos’ Washington Post excuse publishing false and misleading content by implying that they are somehow honoring the First Amendment. They ignore the tradition of reputable sources who scrupulously fact-checked content to avoid the shame of printing a false story. The notion that truth is fungible, promoted by Trump from his “birtherism” days, and now Musk, has harmed our democracy in a profound way, for democracy depends on objective truth.
In 1258, illiterate and misguided Mongols sacked Baghdad, destroying libraries, hospitals, and other cultural institutions. That marked the end of the Islamic Golden Age. The Trump-Musk administration is destroying America’s great institutions and is on a mission to end America’s golden age. But the Trump regime is built on deception and seems fundamentally unstable. It may implode. We the people are waking up to his madness as the price of eggs continues to rise and retirement accounts shrink.
Bob Topper, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is a retired engineer.
