Musk: Trumpian Hero?

The Trump camp is ecstatic about Elon Musk. They love that his powerful and secretive bureau, DOGE, is destroying “the Deep State;” and to that end, DOGE regularly puts out X posts about all the “waste” that is being cut, all the useless eaters (government workers) being fired, and all the silliness being defunded (transgender opera and whatnot). And the various “revelations” about USAID have made Musk a hero of Trump-world.

At this stage, it is difficult to know exactly what DOGE is doing, as we only have their own social media posts to turn to as evidence; hardly a stand-in for transparency, one might add. But whether the work of DOGE is what it is purported to be, or something else is unimportant at this stage. It is a form of American self-immolation, which some may say is necessary.

But this public “cleansing” of America, and thereby the world, raises worrying concerns, which few seem to be worried about, in their ebullience for this theater of “revivalism.” The “wrong path” that America was on is being corrected and America will now take a better path and take the world along with it.

But corrected into what exactly?

Let us take a step back from all this headiness, and let us note that the “waste” that DOGE is cutting out was the elaborate machinery of Americanism. All those things now classified as objectionable and being canceled (liberalism, progressivism, climate science, etc.) served a precise purpose in America’s domination of the world—they were all powerful agents of disruption and thus control.

Now that they are all canceled, or soon will be, we are left with the obvious question: what purer form of America will this revival bring about? We are told that DOGE is getting rid of the “Deep State,” which was the old engine of America. What will be the new, more efficient engine that will be set up in its place? No government can exist in a vacuum. What is being canceled today will be replaced by something similar tomorrow. The space vacated by the liberal-progressive Deep State will not sit empty—it will be occupied by something Muskian, to which Trump will give his approval and which will thus become “kosher” for the Trumpists.

Among ordinary Trumpists, there is the naïve assumption that once you destroy something classified as “bad,” what will come to replace it can only be “good.” This is how things happen in Hollywood movies. The logic and rhetoric of American films plays a huge role in the Trump movement, but we will not get into this, at this time.

What Musk is doing far more insidious and permanent than, for example, the BLM outrage mobs that were tearing down statues a few years back that Trumpists loved to hate, although these BLM vandals too were very American, for that is the nature of revolution—to vilify and then destroy all memory of the past, otherwise revolution is impossible. Hating the political party opposite is the very basis of the American republic. “America has to be this way!” “No, it has to be that way!” So, goes democracy in the United States.

This habit of vilifying is the very essence of American politics, which therefore has neatly bifurcated: the nation can be run either by the Republican Party or the Democratic Party; and supporters of each are fed appropriate messages so that they keep hating each other at the granular level. It is Trump and his Republicans now; four years hence, it will the Democratic Party in the driver’s seat. The American political system only survives because of this bifurcation; this is its true “engine.” Neither party can stay in power forever; that would be “dictatorship” in the American mind; and there can be no political dynasties, for that would be “monarchy.” In other words, continuity is un-American—there can only be disruption. This is why the old Deep State had so many mechanisms to nurture disruption in various countries of the world. It is the American way. And all those libertarian fantasies of a limited government inside the USA are meaningless—because that would mean that America would have to apologize to Great Britain, and shamefacedly return to the monarchy and quietly merge with Canada (as things were before the folly of 1776). You see, only the constitutional monarchy is properly defined as a “limited government.”

The fact is, in order for America to function as it does, it requires a huge bureaucracy, a “Deep State”—which alone provides it with continuity. Its two-party system is unable to provide this continuity. And without a Deep State, there is no stability, only perpetual revolution—endless outrage mobs who come out to take the country this way or that.

From the actions of DOGE so far, it is obvious that Musk understands this very American dynamic. He knows that the best way forward for him is to keep putting out this or that about USAID, or DEI, or the department of education—because the Trump faithful find deep emotional satisfaction in such information—they love “drinking liberals’ tears.” None of them will ever know just exactly what Musk is doing—he has been given carte blanche which none will question because they are busy sucking on his emotional pastilles—look, he’s draining the swamp; he’s gutting the Deep State; he’s destroying the liberals. Musk encourages such Trumpist triumphal acclamations. For example, this is what he said about USAID: it is "a viper’s nest of radical-left marxists who hate America;" it is "a criminal organization," and so it is "Time for it to die." Trumpists respond to such rhetoric eagerly. No doubt, Musk understands this very well.

Of course, it is impossible to know what Musk truly believes, and so it is impossible to say whether Musk is genuine or not.

But Musk is on the verge of being the world’s first trillionaire. His priorities can never be those of the ordinary Trump supporter. If he says he hates liberalism or progressivism, then it is for reasons other than those which fire up Trump’s base. In the same vein, Trump can never be a populist, for he has always lived far beyond the reality of ordinary people; he can only be told about their reality; he can never experience it and thus never know it. When he tries to be ordinary, he becomes inauthentic, because he is a billionaire. This is why he relegates everything to others; this is why everyone says that he has no ideology. Which is a cover up for the fact that he has nothing in common with the people who support him; he is not from among them. Musk is removed from this reality to an even greater extent than Trump.

We can only therefore assume that by destroying the old Deep State, Musk is clearing the ground to set up his own Deep State. A billionaire and a trillionaire both somehow know what is good for ordinary people?

What will the Muskian Deep State look like? Because one is certainly on its way. Will it be better than the one he has now effectively destroyed? What system of control will he establish?

Few, if any, Trumpists will want to answer these questions honestly—even though they should. Or, is politics in America chasing one utopia rather than another?

Let's just remind ourselves that Musk is a transhumanist, who dreams about putting chips in people's brains, and some of his children are named X Æ A-Xii Musk, Exa Dark Sideræl Musk, Tau Techno Mechanicus Musk, and so on. To which sector of the Trumpist base would such names appeal? The traditionalists? The Evangelicals? The "conservatives?"

Could it be that Musk is busy firing everyone, so he can bring in his own deep state, one composed of AI. You see, Musk has huge robotic dreams, in which some kinds of humans keep getting in the way.