The Story Behind the Story

Our government has been taken over by oligarchs like Elon Musk. Defeating authoritarianism depends on taking it back.

This isn’t about Elon Musk.

All right, it sort of is, but it mostly isn’t.

As I mentioned on the most recent episode of The Muckrake Podcast, I’m as tired of having to talk about Musk as anyone. His gleeful and public radicalization is torture on the soul and, to boot, just asinine. He’s boring and offensive and also just remarkably stupid. His purchase of Twitter and turn as The Main Character has done us all an incredible service of reminding people, on a daily basis, that you can be one of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world while also not being particularly talented or competent.

But he is also ubiquitous. Not by accident, either. That control of Twitter, mixed with the incessant neediness that he shares with Donald Trump and other obscenely rich people, all of whom prove that wealth rots the soul and can’t fill the void these sociopaths are plagued with, means that almost every day we have to confront whatever new awful thing he has done or unleashed on the world.

Of course, most recently, Musk went on a spree of embracing authoritarian conspiracy theories, like White Replacement Theory, which claims Jews are carrying out a plan to use immigrants to outnumber white citizens because they’re more controllable. I’ve covered in the past how Musk’s radicalization is almost exactly parallel to what Henry Ford went through in the 20th century and how that contributed to the rise of fascism, but for now, we need to focus on the fallout from this development.

Musk has lost a rash of advertisers (most of whom will probably return when the heat cools down) and there’s been a decent amount of public outcry. The White House called his comments “abhorrent.” Which they are. But that’s been the brunt of it.

So, here’s a thought to ponder: if Musk is promoting “abhorrent” ideas that are completely unacceptable, then how does he remain one of the government’s main contractor partners?

Or, even to be more real, why isn’t there a conversation even occurring about examining the ties between the government and Musk, an individual who doesn’t even hesitate anymore to spout off the kind of ideas and beliefs that are indisputably white supremacist and fascistic?

If the liberal principles of tolerance, diversity, and an opposition to hate and white supremacy, actually matter, then how is a lame, meaningless statement of condemnation the end of it?

And the answer can be found nestled within a remark he made in September of this year that was also just kind of…ignored.

Here, Musk just kind of tweeted out an admission that he single-handedly made a decision contrary to a request to not use his Starlink satellites in the Ukraine War. And he could do that because he is paid millions upon millions of dollars by the United States government for access to his satellites and services. This is on top of the fact that Musk’s SpaceX company has become an indispensable part of our space program. One of the few rivals for this contract is Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, a company the government has awarded billion dollar bailouts just to keep it going.

The story here is about more than Musk. This is about people like Elon Musk and why they can essentially do anything they want at any given time. Why there are no consequences. And it’s also the story of how our government came to be so corrupted, so infuriating, and so utterly resistant to change.

And, to boot, this is also the story of how we are facing rising authoritarianism, widespread attacks on liberal democracy and representative government, and a future that, unfortunately, could look a lot worse than this worrying present.

If we can begin to understand though, and piece together the necessary and hidden history, we still stand a chance of avoiding that worst case scenario and making something better. Something that works. Something that we deserve.

This is the story of how the government was sold off piece by piece, and how it created a new generation of fascists and authoritarians who own and control almost everything but still aren’t satisfied.