Elon’s Not a Nazi…

Guest Post by Eric Peters

The assertion that Elon Musk is a Nazi is as silly as the assertion that Trump is a “conservative” – whatever that’s supposed to mean.

Elon and Trump are authoritarians. They both believe in more efficient government. Not less or no government.

It is in the name of efficiency that Elon is purging the ranks of the federal bureaucracy. He is not working to get rid of the various regulatory apparats anymore than Trump is getting ready to disclose the unredacted contents of the Epstein files. It is likely that Elon’s plan – and Trump’s – is to make these apparats more efficient – by replacing the bureaucrats with silicon. That is to say, artificial intelligence, which is very efficient indeed because AI doesn’t sleep and can’t be bribed and doesn’t have to be paid. Try to envision what it will be like when the EyeAreEss is run by AI.

And Elon will be in charge of it all, if not formally then functionally.

Think of what’s going on in the same way you (hopefully) thought about the replacing – as opposed to the repealing – of Obamacare proposed by “conservatives” and you will understand what is going on. Put another way, the apparat will be directed and controlled by a different crew now. It will not be done away with. Just as Elon will not cease his rent-seeking. Rather, he will redirect it.

Instead of using the government to build-out his electric car grift – which is so 2020 – he will use it to build-out his rocket man grift. The salient fact being the grift never ends. Which brings us back to this business making government more “efficient.” How about getting government out of the business of using our money to make payments to Elon for his rockets? How about rockets be financed by those who want to finance them? People such as Elon, say – who certainly has billions of hi own money to finance rockets?

Well, why empty your own pockets when you can use the government to pick the pockets of others? Perhaps using the more efficient government you helped to midwife?

It’s similar – in principle – as regards Trump.

He campaigned on ending the wars the government launched or egged on during the presidency of his WWE tag-team opponent, Joe Biden. After hitting him over the head with a chair – so to speak – and recovering the WWE belt for himself – he eggs on the war in Ukraine (by resuming the cash-flow and the intelligence flow to the ugsome leader of that country) after temporarily pausing both. Much in the same way he said he was going to have his AG release the Epstein files and then released a small stack of mostly redacted pages. And – as of this writing – there is a new war beginning against Yemen, callously photo-op watched over by Trump much in the same way that Madame Secretary once callously photo-op watched the killing and cackled in her lovely way.

Trump, at least, does not cackle.

Except when it comes to Israel. Then it is more like a smooch. A head-bobbing smooch.

He does like the cudgel, though – and has wielded it already against Americans – in the name of making America Great Again by taxing Americans at a rate – 25 percent – that is even higher than many Americans pay in federal taxes and all Americans “contribute” in the form of the taxes they’re forced to pay to fund Social Security, which isn’t even that, in that their “contributions” finance the security of those receiving the payments. If this is “security” it is like eating by being made to pay for someone else’s meal. Of course, the promise is that other people will in due course be made to pay for your “meal,” too.

This assumes a lot.

But Americans – in red hats – don’t object to a 25percent tax added to all of that because the tax is styled a tariff – and that enables them to believe they aren’t paying it. Very much the same way people let themselves believe they are contributing to Social Security and that they “own” the home they’ll be evicted from if they fail to pay the rent  – because it’s not really rent but “property taxes,” as if that made any difference.

Would we have ended up with an authoritarian had the alternative been selected last fall? Of course.

But in the end, we did anyhow.