Trump and Musk dominate our economy and our politics
To describe both as selfish narcissists would be a wild
understatement. Both are maniacally obsessed with increasing their own personal
wealth, power, and control.
Both have been willing to break laws, norms, and other
social constraints in pursuit of these goals. Both have manipulated, bribed,
conned, robbed, and bullied their ways to dominance.
Trump tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election,
was impeached twice, found criminally liable for cooking his corporate books,
and civilly liable for sexual abuse.
Musk paid a quarter of a billion dollars to get Trump
elected president, then ran Trump’s illegal and hugely destructive DOGE. Musk’s
SpaceX has all the hallmarks of a gigantic Ponzi scheme in which insiders
pocket the winnings and leave latecomers holding the bag.
Both pride themselves on paying little or no taxes. Trump
famously said that paying not paying federal income taxes "makes
me smart." Musk paid zero
taxes in 2018.
Both are notoriously lacking in empathy; they view all
relationships as transactions. Trump refuses to be a
"consoler-in-chief" in national tragedies and openly withholds
sympathy for families of political opponents who die. (When Rob
Reiner and his wife were murdered, Trump asserted they were killed
“due to the anger [Reiner] caused others through his massive, unyielding, and
incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT
SYNDROME.”)
While the country suffers,
Trump posts images like this
Musk has stated that
"the fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy” — arguing
that a society can only afford to practice broad empathy if it operates from a
position of systemic strength.
Both regard themselves as omnipotent and invincible. Both
lash out verbally or physically at anyone who crosses them, often getting into
raging disputes and fights.
To the extent they have any belief beyond their own
omnipotence, it’s white male nationalism. “Whites are a rapidly dying
minority,” Musk wrote his 240 million followers in a January post on X. In
a February post, he declared that
“there has been unrelenting hate and poisonous propaganda in the West against
anyone White, straight or male over the past decade or more,” adding, “No more
guilt trips. ENOUGH.”
And this
Musk has suggested that race plays a detrimental
role in hiring. He’s touted the role
of white people in eliminating slavery. He’s accused public figures
of racism
against white and Asian people.
In recent months, Musk has increased his
online posts about perceived threats to whiteness, or what he views as calls
for a “genocide” against
white people. Over the past seven months, he has posted 850 times
about race, nearly daily and triple the rate for the previous two years.
Trump also has a well-documented history of white
supremacist actions and rhetoric, including the 1973 lawsuit brought against
Trump management for allegedly discriminating against Black renters; his
full-page ads in 1989 calling for the death penalty for the five Black and
Latino teenagers eventually exonerated in the Central Park jogger case; his
leading role in the debunked, racially-charged conspiracy theory that Barack
Obama was not born in the United States; his 2016 accusation that Mexican
immigrants were criminals and “rapists;” his 2017 “Muslim ban;” his “fine
people on both sides” of the violent white supremacist rally in
Charlottesville; his view of Haiti, El Salvador, and African nations as
“shithole” countries; his determination to erase Black history from America’s
classrooms; and his campaign against diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Both Musk and Trump have pushed the conspiracy theory that
Democrats are seeking to import undocumented immigrants so they can take over
the U.S. government forever.
Both have fomented white nationalism abroad. Trump was an
enthusiastic ally of Viktor Orbán, who saw Western civilization threatened by
Muslim immigration into Europe. Many people in Trump’s circle continue to
support and encourage leaders of the European far-right.
Musk, too, encourages white nationalism abroad. During the
recent anti-immigrant protests and riots in the United Kingdom—particularly in
Belfast and London—Musk posted that “civil
war is inevitable” and urged British protesters to “fight
back or die” (prompting British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to condemn
Musk’s comments as “dangerous.”) In response to the recent killing in Belfast,
Musk blamed “murderous
migrants beheading innocent people in their home town.” He shared an
image of the stabbing suspect, who is Black, alongside the caption declaring “millions
must go.” And he reposted messages claiming that Starmer “hates white
people.”
Researchers from the nonprofit watchdog Center for
Countering Digital Hate report that “Musk’s amplification” of anti-migrant
narratives to his hundreds of millions of followers was “instrumental”
in provoking the violence in Belfast: “No individual played a bigger role in
spreading [hateful] content on X than Musk himself.”
Both Trump and Musk also have long histories of misogyny.
Throughout his business and political careers, Trump has
frequently disparaged women, describing female opponents and journalists as
“disgusting,” “slobs,” and “piggy.” He has a well-documented history of sexual
aggression. A federal jury found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation
against writer E. Jean Carroll, awarding her millions in damages. And he has
appointed conservative judges instrumental in rulings that overturned
long-standing reproductive rights.
Musk, too, has faced frequent claims of misogyny and sexism.
Eight former SpaceX engineers filed a lawsuit detailing
a pervasive “’Animal House’” culture — accusing Musk of creating a hostile
environment, treating female employees as sexual objects, and retaliating when
employees challenged his sexism. Separate reports have also emerged alleging
that Musk engaged in inappropriate relationships and persistent advances toward
employees, including asking them to bear his children.
Musk has 14 kids with different mothers, and talks about
them as a “legion,”
as in a Roman military unit. “To reach legion-level before the apocalypse,”
he told one
of his partners, “we will need to use surrogates.” He has frequently drawn ire
for promoting a “bro
culture” and mocking femininity. He sparked a major online debate by
stating that “Instagram
is for girls” and has repeatedly shared or amplified sexist theories
and extremist content regarding traditional gender roles.
**
The question, then, is why have two such loathsome men
come to dominate America and much of the rest of the world at this point in
history? Is there something about American capitalism or culture in the 21st
century that has given both such extraordinary power?
Part of the answer, it seems to me, is a loss of our sense
of common good — a decline of the role of public honor and public shame, and a
disintegration of public morality — which has allowed, even encouraged, these
two dangerous men to acquire such untrammeled wealth and power.
The idea of “the common good” was once widely understood and
accepted in America. After all, the U.S. Constitution was designed for “We the
people” seeking to “promote the general welfare”— not for “me the selfish jerk
seeking as much wealth and power as possible.”
To be sure, the Gilded Age, which ran from the late 1880s to
the 1910s, was dominated by a few extraordinarily wealthy men who violated
social norms and monopolized the economy. “The public be damned,” said William
Henry Vanderbilt, head of the New York Central Railroad.
But the reign of these “robber barons” ended when the
American public — outraged by their abuses of wealth and power — rose up to
demand reform and a return to the common good.
Subsequently, during the Great Depression of the 1930s and
World War II, Americans faced common perils that required that we work together
for the common good. Many of us — both white and black Americans — were
motivated to fight for civil rights and voting rights in the 1960s. And a sense
of common good moved many of us to act against the injustice of the Vietnam
War, and others of us to serve bravely in that besotted conflict.
Yet the common good is no longer a fashionable idea. The
phrase is rarely uttered today. It feels slightly corny and antiquated if not
irrelevant. There is no longer any restraint on aggressive men (almost all of
them men) using whatever means possible to accumulate vast wealth and power on
a scale that exceeds even the Gilded Age.
This moral breakdown is not one of personal, private,
religious morality. It’s a breakdown in public morality — in a
broad understanding of what we owe one another as members of the same society.
Trump and Musk exemplify that breakdown. The wealth and power accumulated by
these two deeply flawed men is evidence of how far we’ve fallen, and the scale
of the challenge we face to rectify it.
