Abcarian: There is nothing efficient about Musk and Trump's toxic lack of empathy

I don’t cognize however Democratic Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly got my telephone number, but a substance from him landed the different time with a thud.

“Elon Musk came aft maine again,” said the text. Sure, definite — I knew it was a ploy for cash, but I was intrigued.

Turns retired the impetuous billionaire had gratuitously insulted Kelly aft the legislator had posted a agelong thread connected X astir his caller travel to Ukraine.

“What I saw proved to maine we can’t springiness up connected the Ukrainian people,” wrote Kelly. “Everyone wants this warfare to end, but immoderate statement has to support Ukraine’s information and can’t beryllium a giveaway to Putin.”

Musk’s reaction: “You are a traitor.”

Let that descend in, to punctuation Musk himself.

Kelly is an American patriot. He flew 39 combat missions arsenic a U.S. Navy aviator during Operation Desert Storm. Later, arsenic a NASA astronaut, helium doubly commanded the abstraction shuttle.

Musk, by contrast, near South Africa astatine property 17 successful portion to debar compulsory subject service.

His puerile insult brought to caput the infamous remark then-presidential campaigner Donald Trump made successful 2016 astir Republican Sen. John McCain, besides of Arizona, a Navy aviator who spent much than 5 years arsenic a captive of warfare successful Vietnam.

“He’s a warfare leader ‘cause helium was captured,” said Trump, who ducked the Vietnam draught by claiming helium had bony spurs. “I similar radical who weren’t captured.”

I don’t cognize which billionaire is little suited to wield powerfulness successful a democracy, Musk oregon Trump. Neither has a lick of empathy, an indispensable trait successful a large leader.

“The cardinal weakness of Western civilization is empathy,” Musk told podcaster Joe Rogan past month. “So we’ve got civilizational suicidal empathy going on.”

Musk precocious reposted a meme denigrating Americans who person national benefits arsenic “the Parasite Class.” This from idiosyncratic whose empire, including Tesla and Space X, were built with billions of dollars successful authorities funding, i.e. your taxation dollars.

Musk’s frosty cognition toward his chap humans helps explicate wherefore helium is capable to slumber astatine nighttime portion denying lifesaving nutrient and medicine to radical successful the galore undeveloped countries that utilized to beryllium helped by the U. S. Agency for International Development, the archetypal of the programs he’s been trying to chain-saw retired of existence.

Trump and Musk’s slash-and-burn attack to government, to the economy, to relationships with accepted allies, and the mode they person reduced the White House to a Tesla dealership amply show their deficiency of interest for the American people. (Have you checked your 401(k) equilibrium lately?)

But much important, their actions amusement they are not truly funny successful an businesslike government, the putative crushed Musk became, essentially, co-president.

It’s hard to support way of each the lawsuits that person been filed accusing the brace of illegally slashing authorities agencies and programs. Their method is axenic madness.

Take their program to chopped by fractional the workforce of the Internal Revenue Service. According to Washington Post contributor Natasha Sarin, a Yale Law School prof who served arsenic lawman adjunct caput for economical argumentation successful the Biden administration, IRS layoffs astatine the standard promised would “very conservatively, pb to a $400-billion summation successful uncollected taxes implicit the adjacent decade. It could easy mean much than $2 trillion successful losses.”

On Thursday, federal judges successful California and Maryland ruled that thousands of national workers crossed 19 agencies had so been fired illegally and ordered their reinstatement. Thanks to the alleged Department of Government Efficiency, a sanction George Orwell would person been arrogant to imagination up, the state present finds itself mired successful a ineligible morass that could past years.

Anyway, the U.S. Constitution was ne'er designed with ratio successful mind. The founders created a strategy of checks and balances specifically to forestall concentrating powerfulness successful the hands of 1 person. Our supine Republican Congress, successful fearfulness of alienating Musk and Trump, has abdicated its role successful this captious balance, handing implicit power of the purse strings to Trump and Musk.

“When you person an businesslike government,” President Truman erstwhile said, “you person a dictatorship.”

In their fecklessness, Musk and Trump are cleanable for each other. They are the governmental reincarnation of Tom and Daisy Buchanan, the tragically self-absorbed mates successful F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby.”

“They smashed up things and creatures and past retreated backmost into their wealth oregon their immense carelessness, oregon immoderate it was that kept them together,” wrote Fitzgerald, “and fto different radical cleanable up the messiness they had made.”

And oh, what a messiness Trump and Musk person made.

The question present is whether Americans volition basal up to this unspeakable twosome and wrench our ideology backmost from their grasping small hands.

Bluesky: @rabcarian.bsky.social. Threads: @rabcarian