It’s an odd argument to decry the reduction of government spending by scaling back or eliminating some of the many agencies and departments that determine so many aspects of our lives because it creates unemployment. Does that mean that all the lefties who at least say they oppose the military-industrial complex believe that it is wrong to cut military spending because people in the defense industry would lose their jobs? There are millions of workers in the defense industry. Suppose our leaders cut the Pentagon budget by twenty percent (I know, a pipe dream). Hundreds of thousands of workers would lose their jobs. So, we can never cut military spending?
The question of scaling back or eliminating government agencies and departments isn’t about jobs—it’s about priorities. We ask not about the jobs lost, but about the purpose of spending taxpayer money and enlarging the deficit. Is it on something we want? Is it something we need? Do we want or need government agencies that surveil citizens? Surveillance requires a large workforce. It is more important that spies have jobs than limiting government’s capacity to spy on us? Do we need so many administrators at our colleges and universities? Do we need DEI divisions that tell us how to think and act? Most every one of those employees is poster worthy. They’re people, after all. But it’s not about them. It’s about us. It’s about the People.
Those who generate sympathy for the government employee who lost his job because it was no longer wanted or needed are the same people who say next to nothing about the tens of millions of high-wage value-adding manufacturing jobs that were shipped to China and elsewhere in the world. No sympathy for them? You might get a rationalization, such as the necessity of cheap foreign-made commodities that allow the population to at least feel like their standard of living hasn’t plummeted. The rationalization comes more easily when an argument is needed to condemn Trump’s tariffs, since these will drive up prices. Sure, just as tens of millions of more high-wage value-adding jobs will make domestically produced commodities more expensive, a “burden” that comes with a rising standard of living and a lower likelihood of having to shoulder the burden of credit card debt. Imagine being able to buy a house and retire on a pension without only a high school education (or less). That’s the way it used to be in America. Oh, the horror.
There were protests in several America’s cities yesterday. The protesters were not demanding high-wage manufacturing jobs return to America. They were demanding more government. It’s as if they don’t want to work for a living but rather vote for a living—and they’re especially upset that the vote went the other way in November 2024. So they gathered in the streets and chanted slogans. “Hands off!”
Conservatives go to work, hang out with their families, boat, fish, and hunt. Go to church. Do charitable things. Every four years they don patriotic gear and rally for their candidate. After the election, they go back to their normal lives. Whatever the outcome.
Whatever else they do, when Democrats lose an election, they take to the streets. Even when it’s a president whose administration takes on Wall Street, Big Pharma, and the food industry, roots out waste, fraud, and corruption in government, keeps deadly drugs from crossing the border and killing their kids, even floats the idea of taxing billionaires to cut taxes on tips and social security, Democrats take to the streets with big character posters and carry on about “fascism” and “racism” and other figments of their imagination.
Conservatives and progressives are very different people. That’s a problem.
“This is what democracy looks like!” the throng chants. No, democracy looks like what happened on November 5, 2024, when 77 million Americans—more than the other side—voted for Donald Trump. Can they go back to their normal lives? “But this isn’t normal!” It’s normal to stand in the rain and shout at phantoms?
The parties attract different people. Democrats attract Hoffer’s true believer, those seeking synthetic communities because their party destroyed the organic ones. Republicans seek to save the communities they’ve always had.
Conservatives seek the better thing.
Let’s be real. Love for democracy wasn’t the motivation. The protestors oppose the reduction of the size of government because they have become dependent on big government. They love Big Brother. They won’t admit this, of course, so we hear instead the disingenuous argument that deconstructing the administrative state is bad because it disemploys those who produce no value—but rather feast on the value produced by those who do. The serfs want more serfdom.
But there is something else to all of this. I have written about this before, but it bears repeating: If you haven’t read Eric Hoffer’s 1951 The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, then today would be good day to do so, especially if you want to understand yesterday’s protests at an organic level—or the protests the first time Trump was President—or the protests that will come around again. And again.
Putting aside for the moment that the protests have a substantial element of color revolution in them (the protests are organized by globalist and big government forces), what Hoffer helps us understand is the psychology behind fanaticism and mass movements that elites weaponize for their purposes—purposes antithetical to the interests of the working class. Individuals drawn to such movements—whether political or religious—share a sense of frustration, insecurity, or lack a personal identity. There’s attention-seeking and narcissism, as well. Indeed, attention-seeking and narcissism have at their core is insecurity and a lack of personal identity—when it’s not driven by antisocial impulse
What the protesters really seek is not change—most don’t know what’s at stake (“Vaginas unite!” “Trump is a fascist!” Really?)—but belonging and a sense of purpose, and they achieve this by surrendering themselves with others to what they perceive or convince themselves is a noble and worthy cause. Even if the cause is as absurd as what drew people to the streets yesterday, the true believer is eager and willing to sacrifice individuality for a sense of collective unity. This was true with Black Lives Matter. It’s what drives Trans Visibility Day.
Hoffer emphasizes that such movements thrive on discontent. Those who organize these moments draw to their goal the discontented and weaponize them against the people. Add to Hoffer’s insights Erich Fromm’s book about the authoritarian personality, Escape from Freedom, and you will the tools you need ready to understand and explain to others what’s going on, and thus grasp the design and danger of color revolution. The true believer’s hatred for Trump and Musk is irrational. But the forces weaponizing the personality type know what they’re doing. We can make fun of blue hair and nose rings, but we can’t ignore the very serious threat that the mob poses to democracy and freedom.
I want to conclude by following up on a comment a Facebook friend posted to one of my resent posts concerning the absurdity of suggesting that Elon Musk is an “idiot” and a “moron.” I would add to this absurdity the claim that Musk lacks business acumen. These characterizations are born of wishful thinking. I wrote much of this response late last night (really early this morning) and it ties in with what I posted moments ago on Facebook, which is what appears above about Hoffer’s true believer thesis. Looking over those posts, I decided to include them in this essay. The information I am sharing in the balance of this essay is publicly available on Bloomberg and Forbes.
Besides his brilliance at technological innovation and execution, Musk’s business approach is a model to be emulated. Vertical integration and genius lie at the core of Musk’s ability to establish and sustain multiple successful companies simultaneously. It’s what propelled him to the status as the richest man in the world—the true mark of an idiot and a moron with poor business acumen. For those who haven’t studied business models, vertical integration is an approach that puts as much of the supply chain and production process as possible under the direct control of the company. This allows Musk to cut out middlemen, reduce costs, and accelerate innovation.
As a result, Musk’s net worth is estimated at around 330 billion dollars, a fortune primarily driven by his stakes in Tesla and SpaceX, with Tesla’s stock performance and SpaceX’s valuation being key contributors to his net worth.
I will get to some of Musk’s various business ventures, but before I get into specifics, I want to juxtapose them to the claim that Musk erred in endorsing Trump and that this has caused his businesses to spiral into disaster. Since Trump is deeply unpopular, the narrative goes, Musk is struggling. The evidence doesn’t bear this out. Indeed, consider that, when Musk endorsed Trump in July 2024, his net worth was estimated at around 262 billion dollars. Note the number in the previous paragraph. In nine months, Musk has increased his net worth by 68 billion dollars. That sum alone would put him among the richest men in the world.
It’s true that, following Trump’s election victory, Musk’s wealth surged, driven largely by a significant increase in Tesla’s stock price, which rose nearly 90 percent from Election Day to mid-December. Since that peak, Tesla stock price has declined. This was in part because Tesla stock was overvalued. The market overall is in correction. But there are other reasons. Tesla’s stock price also declined due to market reactions to tariffs, which impacted Tesla’s supply chain and profitability (despite vertical integration, Musk still depends on suppliers, especially advanced chips), weakening global EV demand (something Musk can’t control), and increased competition from other EV makers (Musk can’t control this, either).
Despite fluctuations, Tesla remains a force in the automotive industry, its success due to its continued dominance of the EV market. Tesla is a remarkable product and people continue to buy its cars and trucks in droves (even if it triggers the vandals). Last year, Tesla delivered 1.79 million vehicles, slightly down from 1.81 million in 2023, while maintaining a revenue of 95 billion dollars for the year. According to the sources cited above, market capitalization of the company is fluctuating between 800 billion and 1 trillion dollars this year—massive numbers. The company is sound, despite all the noise.
Tesla’s valuation makes the company the cornerstone of Musk’s fortune. But Musk doesn’t have all his eggs in one basket. He is involved in multiple companies—SpaceX, Neuralink, xAI, and X, formerly Twitter. X is a special case, which I will come to.
SpaceX is Musk’s second biggest venture. This is the company that really excites me. I am a real nerd when it comes to space travel. Valued at 350 billion dollars, Space X generates an estimated at 8-10 billion dollars annually. The company’s revenue is amassed through government contracts (NASA, for example), Starlink (which is bringing Internet to world), and commercial launches (more than 90 percent of rockets launched in the world are Musk’s). Starlink alone is worth around 75 billion dollars.
Musk’s other ventures contribute far less to his wealth, but they’re worth mentioning because of their potential to change the world. For instance, Neuralink, a brain implant that makes it possible for quadriplegics to operate computers with their mind, will do a lot more than allow people to play video games telepathically (think about that—Musk has made telepathy a reality). It will help the blind to see and the paralyzed to walk. The company is valued at 3.5 billion dollars. It’s still in the R&D phase. There are yet no commercial products. But these will be coming. Biohacking is here.
The same is true for Musk’s Optimus humanoid robot project; no stand-alone company has been established for Optimus, but if the current model is commercialized at the price promised (20 thousand dollars a unit—cheaper than a car), this will be a huge revenue generator for Musk. Musk’s associated xAI venture raised 6 billion dollars last year and presently enjoys a 24-billion-dollar market valuation, but this venture, too, is still at an early stage of commercialization. Musk’s AI software will serve as the operating system for the Optimus robot. If you haven’t seen this thing yet, check it out. It’s mind blowing.
The special case is X, formally Twitter, which Musk bought for 44 billion dollars in 2022. It has seen its value drop to around 20 billion by late 2024. Much is made of this on the left. To be sure, X is a net loser for Musk (albeit the company was overvalued when he bought it). But he didn’t buy Twitter to make money, He bought the platform to liberate speech from the corporate state censorship-industrial complex.
Indeed, X may be Musk’s greatest contributions to humanity. One reason populism is ascendent is because Musk ended the suppression of conservative and liberal voices on the platform, which in turn allowed rational people to expose the irrationality of woke progressivism. Liberating Twitter from the woke scolds and corporate state censors had knock-on effects, compelling other platforms to follow suit. That Musk bought Twitter at a loss testifies to his devotion to free speech and democratic governance.
There is a lot of wishful thinking out there that Musk’s businesses are in free fall. In the minds of progressives, Musk has become a Trump-level boogeyman, and his detractors relish in forecasting his demise—which is far from imminent. Folks should expect this type of hyperbole from progressives. The rank and file are committed to the self-fulfilling prophecy—believe in something hard enough and it will become true—even if the desired outcome must be imagined.
We see that imagination hard at work when progressives take a single data point in a purple state—Susan Crawford’s victory over Brad Schimel in the race for the supreme court of Wisconsin—as proof that MAGA’s run is over. Never mind that Wisconsinites remained committed to democracy enough to put voter ID in the state constitution, a hammer blow to the progressive project to undermine the integrity of the electoral system. Okay, so they won an election. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
For today’s left, there must always be an evil entity or force threatening whatever the left portrays as the good. If it’s not racist white police officers hunting down black men, ICE agents rounding up brown people, trans erasure, or Russia trying to take over the world, then it’s entrepreneurs trying to end Medicare and Social Security by identifying waste, fraud, and abuse in government (that overwhelmingly benefits Democrats) and advocate for getting government off the backs of those who add value to society.
What the left can’t acknowledge is the significance of catching rockets out of the sky, rescuing stranded astronauts, putting a civilian crew in orbit around the globe from north to south—for the first time in history. The left can’t acknowledge that Trump is taking on the globalists and Wall Street that only fifteen years was the (alleged) cause of the Occupy movement. Everything Trump and Musk do must be bad because this serves a performative end: that of resistance for resistance sake. For without resistance—to whatever—the left has no purpose. It lost whatever purpose it had when it abandoned the working class and common sense decades ago.
freedom and reason 