Musk’s assault on expertise
Tom Nichols points out that we’re all the prisoners of Musk’s resentment and egomania.
One of the greatest tricks that Donald Trump and Elon Musk ever pulled is to convince millions of people that DOGE, the self-styled Department of Government Efficiency, is about government efficiency.
DOGE isn’t really a department; it’s not an agency; it has no statutory authority; and it has little to do with saving money, streamlining the bureaucracy, or eliminating waste. It is a name that Trump is allowing a favored donor and ally to use in a reckless campaign against various targets in the federal government. The whole enterprise is an attack against civil servants and the very notion of apolitical expertise.
But it must be a department – it says so itself! The D in DOGE stands for “department.” What more do you want?
Populists are generally wary of experts, especially those who work for the government, but Musk is no man of the people: He is the richest human being in the world, and he runs major companies that rely both on government-provided expertise and significant government subsidies. As my colleague Anne Applebaum wrote, “Musk has made no attempt to professionally audit or even understand many of the programs being cut”—a willful indifference that gives away the game.
Well he’s that kind of man of the people – the kind who doesn’t care how ignorant he is, because he’s a man of the people. You may say that’s circular but I say it’s just good common sense.
Musk’s assault on expertise is coming from the same wellspring that has been driving much of the public’s irrational hostility toward experts for years. I have been studying “the death of expertise” for more than a decade, and I have written extensively about the phenomenon in which uninformed laypeople come to believe that they are smarter and more capable in almost any subject than experts. The death of expertise is really about the rise of two social ills: narcissism and resentment.
Hey you know what else fits that description? Trans “activism.” Makes ya think.
Eventually, such attacks run out of steam when the costs begin to accumulate. No matter how many times Stalin told his scientists to plant wheat in the snow so that it could evolve to grow in the winter, the wheat (which had no political allegiances) died. Today, vaccine refusal might seem like a brave stand against white-jacketed overlords—until your children are stricken with measles or whooping cough.
Modern societies, as Americans are soon to learn, cannot function without experts in every field, especially the many thousands who work in public service. The first step in containing the damage is to see Trump’s and Musk’s goals for DOGE clearly: It is a project rooted in resentful arrogance, and its true objective is not better government, but destruction.
And there’s not a damn thing we can do to stop it.
Not to mention, Donald and Elon are not just rich, they were born rich. They can’t begin to understand anything about the people, and they certainly don’t care about the people, no matter how much they mouth off. They may manage to hit the right strain of populist anger and ugliness, but it wasn’t because they understand what ‘the people’ need or want; it’s because they want the same things…the same ugly things.
Yep. Sons of a racist predatory slumlord and a Boer living off Apartheid
I assume your reference to trans “activism” is in connection to the rise of “narcissism and resentment.” It’s ironic that in the case of trans activism, supposedly “uninformed laypeople” do know more about sex than supposed gender ideologue “experts”, who try to browbeat everyone into un-knowing what used to be common, unexceptional knowledge. Voicing such knowledge is now considered “transphobic”, and can, in the wrong fields, get you disciplined or fired. We’re all supposed to accept unquestioningly that
wheat can evolve to grow in the wintermen can become women.How the hell does “DOGE” get to do anything unless and until a bill is presented to Congress, debated, passed in both houses, sent to the President for signature, creating such a governmental department? How can it have a Secretary unless and until one is put forward and then confirmed by the Senate? How can it have personnel, offices, equipment, or anything else without appropriations in a spending bill, originating in the House of Representatives, duly passed by Congress and signed into law? Who TF are all these people running amuck and issuing orders without any legislative authorization whatsoever?
Your Name’s not Bruce? #3
The “experts” are not helping their case with the peons when they claim that men can be women. I understand that a person may be a true expert on, say, the risks of various types of structures being allowed on a floodplain, and still be willing to bleat the “trans women are women” lie due to many reasons. That does not stop me from looking at that person and thinking “well, chum, you are obviously willing to lie about important things when you feel it is needed, so I have little trust in you now.”
You’ll find a fair amount of conspiracy theorists amongst plumbers, electricians, and other tradesmen… Should I assume he can’t fix my water heater because he thinks the world is flat?
I’ll grant you it’s harder than when they’re involved in the practice of medicine but still, you can’t have civilization without specialization.
Again though with this DOGE shit… Isn’t Elon supposed to be a futurist, a tech guy? When the fuck did he decide science and research were things that needed to be destroyed? “What the fuck is wrong with Elon?” is a piece of long form journalism I’d really like to read.
Maybe he thinks he’s smart enough to know exactly what research projects are going to be useful (to him) in a timeframe short enough to make him richer. Never mind that much of his tech is likely based on results that hadn’t been expected or sought in the first place.