Elon Musk’s Cringey Chainsaw Act Exposes a Deep Ignorance Fueling DOGE; The New Republic, February 21, 2025

 Michael Tomasky, The New Republic; Elon Musk’s Cringey Chainsaw Act Exposes a Deep Ignorance Fueling DOGE

[Kip Currier: Read and share this New Republic article with as many people as possible. We must work to raise awareness of what the Trump/Musk alliance is perpetrating and inflicting.

Matthew 20:16: "So the last shall be first, and the first last."

As this article unpacks, even catching a glimpse of the richest man on Planet Earth perversely fetishizing a chainsaw on stage -- as he elatedly wreaks havoc on the lives of Americans and the world -- is both stomach-churning and heart-breaking. We see before us a WWE-esque caricature of a human; a performative individual who is profoundly lacking an ethical center and values like compassion, reason, and integrity.

Elon the Oligarch can buy whatever access his heart desires. He can attain whatever healthcare he or his family needs. Musk also has unfettered access to lucrative government opportunities for self-enrichment, despite having clear conflicts of interest and supporting the abrogation of government ethics rules. The unchecked damage that Team Musk is unleashing will be far-reaching for millions.

Consider just a few examples:

• The veteran who has served this country and may need, say, a pair of hearing aids or a cancer treatment regimen but may not now be able to get the healthcare they need and deserve. 

• The recent college graduate who wants to serve their country in the FBI, FDA, or FAA but who was summarily fired because they were one day shy of finishing their probationary period before DOGE jubilantly sacked them and countless other probationary federal employees sharing their expertise and service.

• The university researcher who has been performing medical research that is leading to new insights and treatments for common and rare diseases but whose funding and research studies may now be halted and eliminated altogether.

Musk wants us to feel guilty for government programs that we support with our tax dollars, while he games the system to advance his aim of being the world's first trillionaire.

When the time comes to vote, remember the politicians who unabashedly are supporting Elon the Tyrannical right now, and the administration giving him a free hand to take a chainsaw to programs that assist persons in need and empower other people to help their fellow humans in need.]

[Excerpt]

"At the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday, Elon Musk appeared on stage in oversized sunglasses, a black gothic MAGA hat, a thick gold chain around his neck—and wielding a chainsaw. Ha ha. Over at Politico’s Playbook, the new team may not have heard of the New Deal, but thank goodness they do have enough sense to know that the richest man in the world and the president he works for (or is it the other way around?) might—make that will—come to rue that cringey image.

The way Musk’s DOGE is going about these cuts is the equivalent, as I heard former Biden administration official Mitch Landrieu say on TV this week, of a man thinking he needs to lose 30 pounds and deciding to saw off his leg. That’s funny, and true. But this is even worse. A man sawing off his leg hurts only himself. What Musk is doing will hurt millions of people in ways that we’re only beginning to see.

Here’s one small example, which you likely haven’t read about but which I take a little personally. If you’re one of my regular readers, you know that I was born in Morgantown, West Virginia, and went to my hometown university, West Virginia University, or WVU (not UWV, thank you). A week ago, West Virginia Watch, a small nonprofit news organization in the state, moved a story noting that the university expects to lose $12 million annually in funding that supports cancer and vascular research. 

Under dynamic Dean Clay Marsh, a native of the state recruited back to West Virginia from Ohio State by WVU President E. Gordon Gee (and the son of hell-raising newspaper editor Don Marsh, who once upon a time made The Charleston Gazette one of the most aggressive regional newspapers in the country), the cancer institute has made tremendous strides. The cuts, a university spokeswoman told West Virginia Watch, could cost the school the faculty it has recruited to do the research and conduct the clinical trials that could lead to the breakthroughs that would save a lot of lives in the state with the third-highest cancer mortality ratein America.

And if it’s $12 million at the smallish West Virginia University Health Sciences Center, imagine what it is at New York University, or UCLA, or Johns Hopkins, or even much larger state research hospitals in Florida or Washington. And it’s happening to every state university medical system in the nation."

The true enemies of democracy; The Washington Post, October 16, 2024

Ann Telnaes , The Washington Post; The true enemies of democracy

The Danger of an Incurious President; New York Times, August 9, 2017

Sarah Vowell, New York Times; The Danger of an Incurious President

"Having just read Barbara Tuchman’s book “The Guns of August,” about the madcap rush into World War I, Kennedy said, “I am not going to follow a course which will allow anyone to write a comparable book about this time, ‘The Missiles of October.’ ”

Would a more curious mind like Kennedy have made different decisions from Truman in 1945? Probably not — once “the Gadget” worked, it was going to be used. But he might have asked more questions beforehand. What we do know is that in 1962, nuclear holocaust was averted in part because a president read a book and learned from it.

We know that our current president reads neither books nor the Australian prime minister’s mood. And thanks to a leaked talk to congressional interns last week, we know that his son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, the administration’s supposed voice of reason who is charged with ending the opioid epidemic, brokering peace between Israelis and Palestinians, and presumably proving the existence of God, actually said these words, out loud, to people with ears: “We’ve read enough books.”"

The worst is yet to come; Washington Post, July 27, 2017

Eugene Robinson, Washington Post; The worst is yet to come

"The Court of Mad King Donald is not a presidency. It is an affliction, one that saps the life out of our democratic institutions, and it must be fiercely resisted if the nation as we know it is to survive.

I wish that were hyperbole. The problem is not just that President Trump is selfish, insecure, egotistical, ignorant and unserious. It is that he neither fully grasps nor minimally respects the concept of honor, without which our governing system falls apart. He believes “honorable” means “obsequious in the service of Trump.” He believes everyone else’s motives are as base as his.

The Trump administration is, indeed, like the court of some accidental monarch who is tragically unsuited for the duties of his throne. However long it persists, we must never allow ourselves to think of the Trump White House as anything but aberrant. We must fight for the norms of American governance lest we forget them in their absence...

Do not become numb to the mad king’s outrages. The worst is yet to come."

"Still Living in the Dark Ages"; Bizarro, April 4, 2017

Dan Piraro, Bizarro; "Still Living in the Dark Ages"

Chechen Authorities Arresting and Killing Gay Men, Russian Paper Says; New York Times, April 1, 2017

Andrew E. Kramer, New York Times; 

Chechen Authorities Arresting and Killing Gay Men, Russian Paper Says

"By Saturday, the paper reported, and an analyst of the region with her own sources confirmed, that more than 100 gay men had been detained. The newspaper had the names of three murder victims, and suspected many others had died in extrajudicial killings.

A spokesman for Chechnya’s leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, denied the report in a statement to Interfax on Saturday, calling the article “absolute lies and disinformation.”

“You cannot arrest or repress people who just don’t exist in the republic,” the spokesman, Alvi Karimov, told the news agency.

“If such people existed in Chechnya, law enforcement would not have to worry about them, as their own relatives would have sent them to where they could never return,” Mr. Karimov said."

Ignorance Is Strength; New York Times, February 13, 2017

Paul Krugman, New York Times; 

Ignorance Is Strength

"Competent lawyers might tell you that your Muslim ban is unconstitutional; competent scientists that climate change is real; competent economists that tax cuts don’t pay for themselves; competent voting experts that there weren’t millions of illegal ballots; competent diplomats that the Iran deal makes sense, and Putin is not your friend. So competence must be excluded.

At this point, someone is bound to say, “If they’re so dumb, how come they won?” Part of the answer is that disdain for experts — sorry, “so-called” experts — resonates with an important part of the electorate. Bigotry wasn’t the only dark force at work in the election; so was anti-intellectualism, hostility toward “elites” who claim that opinions should be based on careful study and thought."

This couple didn’t tip their Latina server. They left a hateful message instead.; Washington Post, 8/21/16

Cleve R. Wootson Jr., Washington Post; This couple didn’t tip their Latina server. They left a hateful message instead. :

"About that time, John Elledge walked into the restaurant. He’d heard that the people who wrote the nasty message to Sadie were back and marched to the restaurant to meet them face to face.

“We didn’t talk much,” Elledge told The Post.” She was mad that I posted it … the guy, he was being really belligerent.”

” … She was asking me why I posted it,” Elledge said. “I said obviously, it was an insult — your signature against my granddaughter — darn right I’m going to post it. And no apologies.”"

ln defense of pointy-heads and MSM puppy-dogs; Washington Post, 8/15/16

Eugene Robinson, Washington Post; ln defense of pointy-heads and MSM puppy-dogs:

"Ignorance is not a virtue. Knowledge is not a vice. Pointy-heads who spend years gaining expertise in a given field may make mistakes, but the remedy is to replace them with pointy-heads who have different views — not with know-nothings who would try to navigate treacherous terrain on instinct alone...

Many who attack the media for being feckless or out of touch really have a different complaint: You should spend more column inches and airtime reinforcing my view of the world.

Sorry, but that’s not what we’re here for.

When he bought The Post in 1933, Eugene Meyer published a set of seven “principles,” which began with this one: “The first mission of a newspaper is to tell the truth as nearly as the truth may be ascertained.”

There is such a thing as the truth, just as there is such a thing as valuable expertise. Even if it’s “elite” and “mainstream” to say so."

Megyn Kelly Slams Donald Trump’s ‘Mexican’ Judge Remarks: ‘That Is Not The Way Our System Works’; Huffington Post, 6/7/16

Dominique Mosbergen, Huffington Post; Megyn Kelly Slams Donald Trump’s ‘Mexican’ Judge Remarks: ‘That Is Not The Way Our System Works’ :

"Kelly strongly disagreed with O’Reilly’s position.

“That is not the way our system works,” she said on her show an hour later.

“If a litigant making stink about a judge necessarily resulted in a conflict that would force the judge to step down, it would lead to chaos in our court system,” she added...

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich also skewered Trump’s position.

“We don’t judge you as part of a group. That would be to suggest that blacks can’t get a fair white judge, whites can’t get a fair black judge,” Gingrich said on “The John Gibson Show.” “Once you go down that road, you destroy America. You can’t take a group definition and apply it.”

On Sunday, Gingrich called Trump’s comments about Curiel “one of the worst mistakes Trump has made.”

“I think it’s inexcusable,” Gingrich told Fox News."

Obama Blasts Trump at Rutgers University: “Ignorance Is Not a Virtue”; Slate, 5/15/16

Daniel Politi, Slate; Obama Blasts Trump at Rutgers University: “Ignorance Is Not a Virtue” :

"Obama also told graduates that “when you hear someone longing for the good old days, take it with a grain of salt” in what sounded like a meticulous takedown of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign motto. "I guess it's part of human nature—especially in times of change and uncertainty—to want to look backward and long for some imaginary past when everything worked, and the economy hummed and all politicians were wise and every child was well-mannered and America pretty much did whatever it wanted around the world," Obama said. "Guess what? It ain't so. The good old days weren't all that good.”"

The Beast Is Us; New York Times, 3/4/16

Timothy Egan, New York Times; The Beast Is Us:

"With media complicity, Trump has unleashed the beast that has long resided not far from the American hearth, from those who started a Civil War to preserve the right to enslave a fellow human to the Know-Nothing mobs who burned Irish-Catholic churches out of fear of immigrants...

Granted, a huge portion of the population is woefully ignorant; nearly a third of Americans didn’t know who Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was in a Gallup poll last year. But ignorance is not the problem with Trump’s people. They’re sick and tired of tolerance...

The German magazine Der Spiegel called Trump “the world’s most dangerous man.” The Germans know a thing or two about the topic.

I would like to think our better angels always prevail. But there are also dark episodes, when the beast is loose, and what stares back at us from the mirror is something ugly and frightful. Now is one of those times."