It would be impressive if it were not so depressing. | Image: Kristen Radtke / The Verge; The National Museum of American Diplomacy
Letâs pause and look at what the Elon Musk administration has done so far.
Thereâs been a lot of panic about the immediate but somewhat abstract constitutional crisis as Elon Muskâs misleadingly-named Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) rips the government apart. And as much fun as we all are having watching Congress render itself irrelevant and wondering whether the courts even matter, thereâs a concrete nightmare looming. Mass unemployment, the defunding of crucial social programs, and just plain incompetence mean that America, as we know it, is already in for hard times.
The degree to which we have failed not merely ourselves but also our children and grandchildren is breathtaking
The scale of destruction in the past four weeks starts at the Soviet devotion to Lysenkoist biological theories, and at maximum, is the American version of Maoâs Cultural Revolution: a disastrous triumph of ideological purity over basic reality. I am not sure it has occurred to the majority of people that we are about to make a Great Leap Forward and destroy our prosperous, relatively peaceful society.
Musk has, in the short term, set us up for a shock to the economy from both une …
