So what do you and I really know about Elon Musk, the pseudo-president and ultra businessman, space traverser and South American, god and geek.
There is a lot to say and more of it bad, but some good too, and if you were to pick this interloper’s cabinet it would tell more.
Cut, slash and burn people’s jobs and lives. Yes, as I and others have said for eons, there is waste everywhere in Washington and beyond, and in whole departments but no, not necessarily whole agencies. Especially if you have to make alliance for your boss, it probably gets as bad and specific as ad hocking without bidding private pork hocks onto every government convention menu in the land known as the Midwest, to benefit one little ol’ but well connected (not to Musk) pig farmer in one of the Dakotas. At prime rate paid. OK, not an actual example of pork-barreling, but you get the point. It gets that broad and ranging, and everyone’s pocketbook is hit. But this kind of thing is a Musk must hit target.
But give kudos to Musk for being in businesses and seeing that there is a problem and trying to do something about it. We all have had those many experiences, just for starters, where the same basic information was given and taken more than once, and by different methods, where one would have sufficed if there was more efficiency. But what’s called for there is tweaking, not throwing the baby out with the bathwater, or gutting an entire agency.
The further point is that for every such crimp stopper Musk and his mites snuff out, there are several that for too many reasons to name here that even he will never be able to touch. Every politician, and that’s what Musk is or has become, says they will tackle Washington inefficiency, and every politician eventually and inevitably fails. So you do the truest best you can, and call it good, but don’t bet your entire agenda on it — such as economic growth coming out of nowhere will fix all our problems — or there for sure will be no second term or second chance to fix all that waste that didn’t wane. For either Musk or Trump. And have a little compassion for those lifer corporate-government workers who are depending on that pension.
Then back to the latest gaffe of the week or even day, that being the goof-up take on racism by The Two concerning South Africa. Specifically on the new government plan to take back your rich white man farmer land and redistribute some of it to black farmers. Black people reportedly make up 80 percent of the country’s population but only 4 percent of private landowners.
So Musk and his men, Trump among them, are pulling out of the plan, saying this disenfranchises white farmers. There may be some of that, but let’s back up.
If there is to be such a plan, some of the money fleeced from black farmers over centuries should be used to carefully vett the program and who gets what. I am sure that much of the landowning is an, if slightly scaled back version, JR Ewing corporate model and thus pity them. Those, and not the average family farmer, should be the people the government program targets.
I will give this to Musk and his take on the inefficiency of bureaucracy, that there may be some smaller, white sharecropper-types that get stung in the process.
I will now address that whole thing of White Power salutes; you might add on those shown by the older-day Black Panthers. There are about two, or three things, at work here: White or Black or Power. They can be separately taken. Like when Phil, the lead singer of metal pounders Pantera struck such a pose, at a poignant point near the end of an all-out rocker. It could be that a fist is simply a show of power, and an embracement, of any type of unusually strong (and maybe not altruistic) sentiment and nothing more. Especially if done spontaneously, like when being in-the-moment like Phil. Musk may or may not have had time to plan or reconsider before thrusting.
So with Musk … Is he straight up racist? I would almost for sure say prompting white privilege.
That cabinet …
So who should he hire to help him? A planner and strategist, someone who takes a fleeting idea or raw concept and turns it into a full-blown, workable plan. A PR hack, who can take some of his more far-flung ideas and spin them for a semblance of sense. And a personal presence coach, to show a better grip and grin, and less geekishness.
And make him more of a rock star.