Ever since November 5, 2024, things have been pretty dismal. But recently, MN Governor Tim Walz did what he does best - brought some laughter to those of us in despair.
That drew some pretty explosive criticism from our shadow president.
But here's the interesting thing. During that same interview, Musk parroted a talking point we heard recently from Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, who claimed that the only people who would complain about Social Security cuts would be the "fraudsters."
Here are Musk's own words: "You know who complains the loudest, with the most amount of fake righteous indignation? The fraudsters. It's a tell."
So Musk is the one who is complaining the loudest about Walz's remarks. In his own words, doesn't that make Musk a fraudster?
Back in 2007, David Simon said this about his show The Wire:
I am wholly pessimistic about American society. I believe The Wire is a show about the end of the American Empire. We are going to live that event. How we end up and survive, and on what terms, is going to be the open question.
While I've always thought that The Wire was the best show ever produced for television, I used to assume that Simon was too pessimistic. These days, I'm starting to question that.
I suspect that is something a lot of us in this country are beginning to wonder about. We've been raised on the idea that this country always ends up on the right side of history - even as it can take us a while to get there. But this time, we're not so sure.
Embedded in that optimism is a struggle to accept that those in positions of power in this country can be truly evil. That's what I began to think about when I read this description of Musk and his techno-pals from Amanda Marcotte:
Musk and his fellow techno-fascists often cast themselves as the saviors of "civilization," but that rhetoric is only there to put an ennobling gloss on a deeply sociopathic view: that human beings exist to serve the system, and not that the system is there to serve humanity...It's an attitude that's inherently eugenicist, measuring people's value solely in terms of whether they can be utilized to make more money for the already-wealthy investor class. It's why Musk has no respect for federal workers whose labor is centered around helping people, not profits. And it's certainly not a worldview that has space for retirees, people who, by definition, are out of the paid labor market.
Musk has demonstrated disdain for anyone who doesn't produce profits for the already-wealthy owner class: federal workers, the disabled, retirees, non-profits employees (NGO's), etc. He even went so far as to suggest that empathy for others is "the fundamental weakness of Western civilization."
In case you think Musk is a one-off in the world of techno-fascists, I'd like to introduce you to Curtis Yarvin, the guy who said that Americans need to get over their "dictator phobia" and has inspired everyone from J.D. Vance to Peter Thiel. Back in 2008, Yarvin was writing a blog under the pseudonym, Mencius Moldbug. He laid out his ideal of "Patchwork realms," which would be city-scapes ruled by techno-CEOs (what some folks are referring to as "Freedom cities" these days).
In laying out his vision for these Patchwork realms, Yarvin addressed the issue of what should be done with people who are unproductive (the people Musk refers to as "the parasite class"). Apparently, he likes to joke around about stuff like this.
I think the answer is clear: alternative energy. Since wards are liabilities, there is no business case for retaining them in their present, ambulatory form. Therefore, the most profitable disposition for this dubious form of capital is to convert them into biodiesel, which can help power the Muni buses.
Okay, just kidding. This is the sort of naive Randian thinking which appeals instantly to a geek like me, but of course has nothing to do with real life. The trouble with the biodiesel solution is that no one would want to live in a city whose public transportation was fueled, even just partly, by the distilled remains of its late underclass.
Things don't get much better when Yarvin is serious.
The ideal solution achieves the same result as mass murder (the removal of undesirable elements from society), but without any of the moral stigma...
The best humane alternative to genocide I can think of is not to liquidate the wards—either metaphorically or literally—but to virtualize them. A virtualized human is in permanent solitary confinement, waxed like a bee larva into a cell which is sealed except for emergencies. This would drive him insane, except that the cell contains an immersive virtual-reality interface which allows him to experience a rich, fulfilling life in a completely imaginary world.
That's how the world of techno-fascists think about the "undesirable elements of society." You think they're going to give a damn about retirees losing their Social Security or the disabled losing access to education? Not for a minute!
A few reporters have delved into the world some people refer to as the "Dark Enlightenment," or the "NRx movement" from which these tech-bros emerged. But for now, suffice it to say that it is the world inhabited by the likes of Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and J.D. Vance. While they might not publicly endorse the idea of "virtualizing" people they view as unproductive, it is clear that they hold the same kind of disdain for anyone who doesn't contribute to the already-wealthy owner class.
That is the evil that has gained power in the United States right now, which is why I'm joining Simon these days in being pessimistic about American society.
On at least two occasions, Elon Musk has admitted to making mistakes when it comes to his use of a chainsaw to go after federal spending. He followed that up by saying that, when confronted with mistakes, he would immediately fix them. That was a lie.
To demonstrate, let's take a look at what he said about entitlements last week during an interview with Larry Ludlow.
At about the 1:45 minute mark, Musk says that there is a tremendous amount of waste and fraud in federal spending. He referred to a 2024 report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) which, he said, estimated half a trillion dollars in government fraud. Here's the headline from that report: "2018-2022 Data Show Federal Government Loses an Estimated $233 Billion to $521 Billion Annually to Fraud." Right off the bat, you can see that Musk only mentioned the top number in the estimate.
But a deeper look at that report provides us with some needed context. First of all, it states that the total represents 3-7 percent of federal obligations - which, while cause for concern, doesn't sound like a "tremendous amount." Secondly, they made their estimates by looking at fraud that was adjudicated, investigated, and/or suspected. In other words, it was based on fraud that the various departments knew about and were dealing with. For example, that would include the work of the Health Care Fraud Unit, which "has charged more than 5,400 defendants with fraudulently billing Medicare, Medicaid, and private health insurers more than $27 billion."
I would note that, while DOGE is reporting $115 billion in savings from their efforts (not a reliable number), not one case of fraud has been referred to the Department of Justice for prosecution. Meanwhile, many of the staff who previously identified, investigated, and prosecuted fraud have been fired. Whatever it is that is motivating the DOGE chainsaw, it has nothing to do with investigating fraud.
From there, Musk goes on to suggest that there is something nefarious going on with Social Security by pointing to the 20 million people who are dead, but marked as alive in the system. That one has been explained over and over again - even by the Trump administration's acting SSA commissioner. The fact that Musk continues to bring it up demonstrates that he is deliberately lying.
Musk's remarks at about the 14:35 mark are the ones that got the most attention. He said, "The waste and fraud in entitlement spending — which is most of the federal spending is entitlements — so, that’s, like, the big one to eliminate. That’s the, sort of half-trillion, maybe $6-700 billion a year.”
Giving Musk the benefit of the doubt, he wasn't suggesting that entitlements be completely eliminated. He was suggesting that there is a "half-trillion, maybe $6-700 billion a year" in entitlement fraud that he wants to eliminate. He seems to be relying on the top number from that 2024 GAO report, which was based on the entire federal government, not simply entitlements. Then he threw in an additional $1-200 billion for good measure.
In an attempt to defend those remarks from Musk, the White House issued a statement purporting to provide "facts" about entitlement fraud. They referred to the same 2024 GAO report on estimated fraud. But the rest of the so-called "facts" are all reports on "improper payments," which we have discussed before. Here's a reminder about what that term means:
The vast majority of improper payments occurred in situations where a reviewer could not determine if a payment was proper because of insufficient documentation...Improper payment estimates are not fraud rate estimates.
Now that we've dealt with the policies, numbers, and definitions to debunk Musk's lies about entitlements, the shadow president got to the tin foil hat part of his claims. He ends the interview with Kudlow by making an argument adjacent to the white supremacist's Great Replacement Theory, claiming that it is access to entitlements that draws undocumented immigrants to this country. That is a bald-faced lie.
By law, one must “either be a U.S. citizen or lawfully present noncitizen in order to receive monthly Social Security benefits.” Similarly, Medicare benefits are only available to “U.S. citizens and qualified lawfully present immigrants age 65 and older.” In other words, undocumented immigrants—who are not lawfully present—cannot receive these benefits, even though their work strengthens these trust funds.
What we can take from all of this is that Trump/Musk are coming after Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid - programs that primarily benefit seniors and the disabled. In order to pave the way for that, they'll tell a voluminous amount of lies. We must arm ourselves with facts in order to stave off those attacks.
The list of words the Trump administration is banning tells us all we need to know about their attack on civil rights. But a couple of words have gotten less attention than the rest. Included on the list are "accessibility" and "disability." They've made it abundantly clear that their fight isn't just about DEI, it is about DEIA (the "A" is accessibility for the disabled).
We all learned about Trump's disdain when he mocked a reporter with a disability during the 2016 campaign. The president recently implied that February’s deadly plane and helicopter crash was linked to the FAA’s hiring of people with “severe intellectual disabilities, psychiatric problems and other mental and physical conditions.”
Elon Musk's favorite attack on people he disagrees with is to call them a "retard." He's done so more than 16 times in the last year. It's spreading to his followers on X, where use of the term increased 200%. When Trump won in November, a “top banker” told Financial Times: “I feel liberated. We can say ‘retard’ and ‘pussy’ without the fear of getting cancelled.”
But it's not just about words. Both Musk and House Republicans have set their sights on defunding Medicaid, which was created in part to ensure people with disabilities had access to affordable healthcare. Similarly, the administration's promise to eliminate the Department of Education would deal a death blow to funding for students with disabilities.
Here is a description of what was happening in the United States prior to the 1970s:
As of the early 1970s, U.S. public schools accommodated 1 out of 5 children with disabilities. Until that time, many states had laws that explicitly excluded children with certain types of disabilities from attending public school, including children who were blind, deaf, and children labeled "emotionally disturbed" or "mentally retarded."...More than 1 million children had no access to the public school system, with many of them living at state institutions where they received limited or no educational or rehabilitation services.
With passage of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1990, the federal government required public schools to create educational opportunities for children with disabilities and pledged to cover 40% of the average per-student cost. The latter promise has never been fulfilled, with the federal government currently covering only 13% of the costs.
If the Trump administration eliminates the Department of Education, there will be no guarantee that even these minimal funds (should they survive) would go towards the education of students with disabilities. And, as the Trump administration shows preference for private schools, it is important to note that they are not required to provide special education services.
Justin Kirkland links all of this to eugenics - which is a powerful accusation. So it's important to take a look at how he justifies such a claim.
Starting in 1910, the term “mental retardation” was used to diagnose those who were “feeble-minded”, failed to develop on the average timeline, and were deemed by some doctors as “incurable”. Around the same time, the belief that undesirable traits – specifically intellectual disabilities, and eventually race and sexual orientation – could be “bred out” of existence was growing in popularity in the US. This eugenics movement was endorsed by political powerhouses and substantial research on eugenics was bankrolled by the likes of the Carnegie Institution and the Rockefeller Foundation.
Advocates of eugenics suggested people with disabilities should be institutionalized and separated by gender, so as to discourage “bad breeding”. It was the popularity of the eugenics movement that served as inspiration for the Nazi party: in 1939, the Third Reich began systematically murdering Germans with disabilities in institutions; an estimated quarter of a million people were killed during this “euthanasia” program, at least 10,000 of them children. Stateside, tens of thousands of people with intellectual disabilities were forcibly sterilized from the turn of the century and into the 1970s. People with disabilities didn’t secure sweeping civil rights, including equal access to employment and housing assistance, until the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990 – just one generation removed from present day.
We've already seen a return to eugenics from Trump in his description of immigrants.
“Many of them murdered far more than one person, and they’re now happily living in the United States,” he said earlier this month. “You know, now a murderer, I believe this, it’s in their genes. And we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now.”
Here's where MAGA's attacks on empathy come into play. To return to that kind of cruelty towards people with disabilities, they can't allow themselves to identify with the suffering caused by the eugenics movement.
In order to prevent a return to our pre-1970s past, we need to learn more about this recent history, recognize what's going on right now, and stand up for the rights of people with disabilities. A good place to start would be to watch the documentary "Crip Camp" and celebrate the heroes who brought us the Americans with Disabilities Act.
When Elon Musk went on Joe Rogan's show last week, he said that "The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy." He also referred to empathy as civilizational suicide.
The attacks on empathy were perhaps best captured by how these folks responded to Bishop Mariann Budde's call for mercy towards those who are afraid. Here's the author of that book about "toxic empathy."
Whoa! So for these folks, showing mercy to those who are afraid isn't just against God's word - it's satanic. I have no idea what Bible she's reading, but whenever folks get that riled up, I start wondering what they're afraid of. Here's a list of what comes to mind:
Conversation
Empathy emerges when we engage deeply in conversation - often with those who disagree with us or have different life experiences. As Julian Sanchez pointed out years ago, that kind of conversation bursts MAGA's epistemic bubble (emphasis mine).
This epistemic closure can be a source of solidarity and energy, but it also renders the conservative media ecosystem fragile…If disagreement is not in itself evidence of malign intent or moral degeneracy, people start feeling an obligation to engage it sincerely…And there is nothing more potentially fatal to the momentum of an insurgency fueled by anger than a conversation.
Feminization
As we see in Stuckey's tweet above, she expects this kind of thing from a female Episcopalian priest. Joe Rigney was more explicit. Here's what he wrote:
Budde’s attempt to “speak truth to power” is a reminder that feminism is a cancer that enables the politics of empathetic manipulation and victimhood that has plagued us in the era of wokeness. And for Christians, it’s a reminder of how destructive the feminist cancer is in the Church.
Josh McPherson, Pastor of Grace City Church in Wenatchee, Washington and founder of Stronger Man Nation, said that "empathy is dangerous, empathy is toxic, empathy will align you with Hell." He also said that "women are especially vulnerable" to empathy, and that husbands should control who their wives are friends with.
It is clear that, for these folks, empathy threatens the status quo of patriarchy.
Vulnerability/Uncertainty
Here's what Shane Moe, a licensed marriage and family counselor, said about the anti-empathy crowd:
Yes, allowing ourselves to experience empathy can make us more vulnerable to (gasp!) the influence of those who think differently than we do. And if one lives in a perpetual state of spiritual hypervigilance or fear of potentially being wrong or corrupted — and, thus, with deep-seated existential anxiety surrounding theological/ideological difference and change — one might consequently come to see empathy as a threat.
Those who have a "deep-seated existential anxiety" about difference and change must protect their vulnerability by maintaining certainty. All doubt must be eradicated.
I am reminded that, in the film Conclave, Cardinal Lawrence (played by Ralph Fiennes) says that "There is one sin which I have come to fear above all others - certainty....Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance."
Unity
One of the lessons we can learn from history is that authoritarian regimes require people to embrace an us vs them narrative about an enemy that must be punished and/or annihilated. That's why Trump/Vance keep talking about "the enemy within." The specifics are malleable and can be anyone they feel like targeting at the moment. Empathy for those targets is, therefore, a huge threat.
In 2008, Barack Obama gave a sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. Here is the theme of his remarks:
“Unity is the great need of the hour.” That’s what Dr. King said. It is the great need of this hour as well, not because it sounds pleasant, not because it makes us feel good, but because it's the only way we can overcome the essential deficit that exits in this country.
I’m not talking about the budget deficit. I’m not talking about the trade deficit. Talking about the moral deficit in this country. I’m talking about an empathy deficit, the inability to recognize ourselves in one another, to understand that we are our brother’s keeper and our sister’s keeper, that in the words of Dr. King, “We are all tied together in a single garment of destiny.”
To the extent that we believe that we are our bother's/sister's keeper, we would unify against the forces that are tearing us apart.
That is why MAGA is referring to empathy as civilizational suicide, toxic, and a sin. They are scared to death of real conversation, women, vulnerability, and unity because all of those things will bring down the edifice of cruelty they are in the midst of building. Isn't it a pity. Isn't it a shame!
With all of the daily outrages coming from the White House, it is important every now and then to step back and take a look at the big picture. Here's what Trump has done for Putin in his first 43 days:
February 14th - Trump administration made it easier for Russia to interfere in our elections.
February 14th - Vance told European countries that the real threat isn't Russia, but their own attempts to disrupt misinformation.
February 18th - Trump repeated Kremlin talking points - blaming Ukraine for starting the war.
February 19th - Trump repeated Kremlin talking points - calling Zelensky a "dictator."
February 24th - U.S. voted against a UN resolution condemning Russia for Ukraine war.
February 28th - Trump and Vance attacked Zelensky during their meeting in the Oval Office, leading to this tweet from the deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia.
March 2nd - Trump administration ordered U.S. Cyber Command to halt offensive cyber operations and information operations against Russia.
March 3rd - Trump administration is planning to give Russia relief from sanctions imposed as a result of their invasion of Ukraine.
March 3rd - Trump halts all military aid to Ukraine.
Of course, none of that includes all of the things that the Trump administration is doing that has Putin applauding - like shutting down USAID, alienating all of our foreign allies, and basically destroying the federal government.
Is it any wonder, then, that the Kremlin spokesperson said that "The new administration is rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations. This largely aligns with our vision.”
After Trump's first term in office, it became increasingly difficult to dismiss the idea that the President of the United States was acting as an asset of the Kremlin. Forty-three days into his second term, he's wiping out all doubt.
At least one conservative British politician is saying the quiet part out loud.
For decades now, Republicans have demonstrated that one of their main goals has been to eliminate the social safety net. While they've used various arguments, the one they've depended on the most is to claim that we can't afford it by pointing to the federal deficit.
But that argument is increasingly hard to make when the House budget proposal includes a $4.5 trillion addition to the deficit from tax cuts aimed primarily at the wealthy. So Republicans find themselves having to pivot to a new argument for doing away with the social safety net - especially when it comes to programs like Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the new argument is that these programs are infected with waste, fraud and abuse. As I noted previously, that is the lie Speaker Johnson is spreading about Medicaid. On Sunday, he said the same thing about Social Security.
Of course, Johnson didn't provide any evidence for "enormous amounts of fraud, waste, and abuse" in the Social Security system. And when Welker pointed out that the Social Security administration's internal watchdog found that less than 1 percent of benefit payments were improper, Johnson responded by simply saying "Don't believe it."
Call me crazy, but if Musk and Johnson want to use that chainsaw to go after Social Security, they're going to have to provide some actual evidence of fraud, waste, and abuse. We now know that their claims about millions of dead people getting Social Security checks was a lie.
Overall, when it comes to Musk's claims of fraud, here's a good tracker:
To demonstrate how twisted this has all become, Musk recently told Joe Rogan that "entitlements fraud for illegal aliens is what is serving as a gigantic magnetic force to pull people in from all around the world and keep them here." Of course, that's all a lie. But Musk used it as a way to pivot to the great replacement theory, suggesting that Democrats are using entitlement fraud to "buy voters."
The bottom line is that, whether they're pearl-clutching about the deficit, lying about fraud, or blaming immigrants, the point of all of this is to dismantle programs like Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security. That's the end game. They know that these programs are not only popular, they are a lifeline for millions of Americans. So they keep searching for a convincing lie to justify their destruction.
The overall takeaway from Zelensky's meeting with Trump on Friday was perhaps best captured in an editorial from Kyiv Independent titled "A president just disrespected America in the Oval Office. It wasn't Zelensky." The opening line says it all: "It’s time to say it plainly. America’s leadership has switched sides in the war." As David Frum said, "It exposed in the most undeniable, unequivocal way possible the pro-Putin commitments of the president and vice president." We now live in a country where the leadership supports Russia over Ukraine.
In order to understand the context of what happened, I decided that it would be helpful to watch the entire meeting. It lasted about 50 minutes, with all of the social media clips coming during the last 10 minutes. The first 40 minutes were fairly amiable. While Trump emphasized that the deal he wanted to sign would give the U.S. access to Ukraine's rare earth minerals, Zelensky pointed to three things Ukraine wanted in exchange:
On-going air defense systems
Security guarantees
A return of the Ukrainian children that Russia has abducted
It is important to realize that the second point is something he has emphasized from the beginning. Here's how it was framed three weeks ago:
The U.S. president, whose administration is pressing for a rapid end to Ukraine's war with Russia, said on Monday he wanted Ukraine to supply the U.S. with rare earths and other minerals in return for financially supporting its war effort.
"If we are talking about a deal, then let's do a deal, we are only for it," Zelenskiy said, emphasizing Ukraine's need for security guarantees from its allies as part of any settlement...
Ukraine has rapidly retuned its foreign policy approach to align with the transactional world view set out by the new occupant of the White House, Ukraine's most important ally.
In other words, Zelensky was smart enough to put these mineral rights on the table - knowing that it is exactly the kind of thing that would appeal to Trump. But he wanted something in return - security guarantees.
After about 40 unremarkable minutes of the meeting on Friday, Trump indicated that they would take one last question from the media. That's when Vance interrupted to say that for four years Biden talked tough about Putin, who then invaded Ukraine - implying that Russia's invasion was Biden's fault. The vice president went on to suggest that it was time for diplomacy.
Zelensky responded by asking Vance, "what kind of diplomacy?" He pointed out that Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014. After being elected president in 2019, Zelensky engaged directly with Putin in diplomacy and reached a cease fire agreement - which Russia failed to honor. That is why Zelensky is so adamant about including security guarantees as part of any cease fire deal.
Vance went on the attack against Zelensky - and was eventually joined by Trump.
.@VP: "Do you think that it's respectful to come to the Oval Office of the United States of America and attack the administration that is trying to prevent the destruction of your country?"@POTUS: "You don't have the cards right now. With us, you start having cards ... You're… pic.twitter.com/iTYyAmfuCJ
After spouting Russian propaganda, Vance accused Zelensky of coming into the oval office and attacking the Trump administration. Nowhere during the entire exchange had Zelensky done that. But it was enough to enrage Trump - who has no love lost for Zelensky.
The rest of the discussion was basically Trump and Vance demanding that Zelensky submit to their dominance ("you don't have the cards right now") and be grateful ("have you said 'thank you' once today?"). Anyone who has ever lived with an abusive spouse will recognize those kinds of messages as threats.
A lot of people I admire are suggesting that this whole thing was choreographed to give Trump a reason to end all U.S. support for Ukraine. They might be right, but I'm a bit skeptical for a couple of reasons.
The first is that, if you watch the first 40 minutes of the meeting, you'll see Trump practically salivating at the prospect of getting control of those rare earth minerals. In addition, the president praised himself over and over again for being the great peacemaker who was going to bring an end to the war. But all of that is now off the table.
The one who seemed to have planned an attack is Vance. It came out of nowhere and was particularly vicious. It was also calibrated to raise Trump's hackles and get him engaged - which is, of course - easy to do.
It could be that Trump directed Vance to upend the entire deal. But I don't give the president that much credit. My take leans more in the direction of thinking that it was Vance who staged the whole thing himself. To be honest, I don't really know why. Perhaps, as James Landale suggests, he's "developing a role as a political brawler for Trump," specializing in going after our allies - as he did in Munich.
But I also suspect that Vance is aware of the fact that a shinny object like mineral rights is exactly the kind of thing that could distract Trump from the goal of upending the entire global order. The vice president just made sure that won't happen.
