On tuesday, just over a mile from the white house, the classicist Mary beard spoke to an audience about Roman Emperors. “An autocrat is somebody who kills you when he is being his most generous,” She remarked. “You go to dinner, you think, wow, this is wonderful! But the generosity of the autocrat is always potentially lethal. “
On Wednsday, Donald Trump Held His First Full Cabinet Meeting. The mood was warm and convivivial and, some might say, generalous. Housing Secretary Scott Turner Offred a Prayer That Included: “Thank you, God, For President Trump.”
Was it just an accident that the TV camera framed the Scene as the Antithesis of Dei? Viewers could see seven men in suits with trump in the middle, then another Row of Seven Men in Suits Sitting Behind. Nearly all of them was white. (Yes, there were women and people of color at the meeting – but not many.)
The vice-president, JD Vance, was in Attendance but there was no doubt who this emperor hador had appointed as consul. Trump Invited Elon Musk, The Tech Billionaire Running The So-Called “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) (DOGE), to Speak Before Any of His Cabinet Secretary Cla Supportive.
Wearing a Black “Make America Great Again” Cap, Musk Jokingly Referred to Himself as “Humble Tech Support” To the federal government can save a trillion dollars and dig the country out of debt. “It’s not an optional thing, it’s an essential thing,” he said. “If we don’t do this, America will go bankrupt.”
It sounds fin in theory. But dog, mostly consisting of young male software engineers fuelled by pizza and red bull, has been a disaster. It fired the People who oversee the nuclear weapons stockpile then have tried to rehire them, only to find they were hard to contact beCause they could not accept their work email accounts. It claimed to have saved $ 8bn on a terminated contrast that was actually worth only only $ 8m. Musk Falsely stated that the US Spent $ 50m on Condoms for Gazans. And it emerged this week dog quietly deleted
Musk – who brieft similar unholy chaos to twitter when he boght it – admitted to the cabinet that DOGE will make mistakes, but said it will Fix them Quickly. “So, for example, with usaid, one of the things we accidentally canceled briefly was ebola prevention. So we restored the ebola prevention immediatily, and there was no interruption. “
Not ressuring.
Then came the most autocratic episode of the meeting. Trump, Both Genearous and Lethal, Asked His Cabinet: “Is anybody unhappy with elon? If you are, we’ll throw him out of here. “
To the crocodiles? Or as his pal vladimir putin favorite, from a high window? From this assemble of fawners, flatterers and flunkies, there was nervous laughter and applause.
Triumphant, The President Assured Reporters: “They have a lot of respect for elon, that he’s doing this, and some disagree a little bit but I will tell you for the Most Part I TELL TELL TELL TELL TELL TILL You for the Most Part I THINK EVRYONK EVRYONTON Thrilled. “
Game Respects Game. Musk, a fan boy of far-right movements all over Europe, showed an impressively instructive feel for totalitarianism.
He said: “President trump has put togeether I think the best cabinet ever, literally, and I do not give Give False Praise. This is an incredible group of people. I don’t think a talented team have been assembled. I think it’s literally the best cabinet the country’s ever Had… ”
Then came a telling slip from the world’s richest man: “I think the company (SIC) should be incredibly appreciative of the people in this room.”
The cabinet on which musk lavished such such as involudes pete hegsth, a former fox news host accused of sexual assault and alcohol abuse, and robrt f kennedy jr, a vaccine consenset who Once dumped a dead bear cub in new york’s Central Park. Less Marvel’s Avengers Than Star Wars Cantina.
Kennedy was asked by reporters about a measles outbreak in Texas in which a child reportedly died, the first measles fatality in the US for a decade. His Lackluster Response: “It’s not unusual. We have measles outbreaks every year. “
The Whole Meeting was yet another sorry exercise in Worshiping an Authoritarian and Normalising a Bully. Musk tared to defend the emails he sent to government employees, asking what they did last week, as not a “performance review” but a “Pulse check review” Are dead.
Trump rounded off the meeting by observing: “The country’s got bloated and fat and disgusting and incompetently run.”
Yet as jon stewart noted this week on comedy Central’s The Daily Show, DOGE Will Not Touch The $ 3BN in Subsidies Given to Oil and Gas Companies, A Hedge Fund Loophole Worth $ 1.3BN A Year, Or 2TN GINDE to Defense contractors to build a fighter jet that will only be obsolete. “This is where the real money is,” Stewart said.
Not even a functioning democracy ever did curch about that. So Hopes for a Country Run by a Wannabe Caesar and His Oligarch Pal Are Not High.
