Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burn’d,
As home his footsteps he hath turn’d,
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no Minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonour’d, and unsung.¹
There are two such men: Donald John Trump and Elon Reeve Musk. This post is about the latter and more dangerous one.
Musk claims citizenship of three nations, South Africa, Canada, and the United States. He neither pays allegiance to nor honors any of them. He came to the United States from his native South Africa via Canada, where he studied at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. He left South Africa to avoid the universal military draft. He has Canadian citizenship through his mother, and chose to go there because he thought it would smooth his transition into the U. S.
He is by definition a carpetbagger: a person who enters a country not his own to rape and pillage its government, defraud its people, and enrich himself by profiteering.
A country not his own? He was naturalized in 2002. We will accept that Musk is an American citizen We will not accept his being American.
What American would turn on his own people as Musk has done? Given carte blanche by Trump, his nominal boss, Musk has launched a slash-and-burn campaign through a host of federal agencies. In most cases individuals are not targeted. Rather, probationary employees who are not yet protected by union membership are being cut en masse. According to Reuters news agency, the total number of federal workers fired as of Feb. 14 was about 10,000,² but so much confusion surrounds the massacre that no one in government seems to be keeping a hard number of fired individuals.
And what of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) purportedly headed by Musk that is behind the slaughter? Let's start with the index site you reach searching for DOGE. At the top is this invitation: "DOGE is looking for help from the general public! Please DM insight for reducing waste, fraud, and abuse . . ."
This is a tool used by despotic governments for centuries, asking citizens to report anyone who violates a law. In the past it has been used to help police states identify Christians and Jews, among others. Now it's looking for alleged budget thieves. But it could just as easily mark LGBTQ or transgender citizens.
You can find DOGE at https://doge.gov/, but past the front page you will find nothing but bar graphs of questionable authenticity and pages of Trump lies. There is no "About Us" page to provide a mission statement, number of employees, or other material expected in the name of transparency and disclosure. I suggest you avoid it. To quote the character Bobby Dupea in the 1970 film Five Easy Pieces, "it makes me puke."
Most new departments are created by Congress and put through the process of budgeting, vetting leaders, etc. DOGE was created by presidential fiat. There are precedents for such actions, but in this case it appears to be just one more instance of Donny John thumbing his nose at protocol.
From the start it was clear that Musk would be the head of this cut-from-whole-cloth department. The head of a department within the Executive Branch should properly be of secretarial rank, but Musk is a special government employee--a temp. But a temp who has extraordinary powers of hiring, firing, closing entire agencies, barring members of Congress from entering federal buildings, and at least in one case meeting with a foreign head of state, seemingly usurping the place of the Secretary of State.
That meeting led to Musk's Tesla company gaining ground in India,³ a clear violation of the Foreign Emoluments Clause of the Constitution. We wait for Congress to weigh in on these many and various Constitutional violations that Trump and Musk commit daily.
--- Diogenes, 20 February 2025
Sir Walter Scott, "The Lay of the Last Minstrel," Canto VI, stanza 1, 1805. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Lay_of_the_Last_Minstrel/Canto_6 . Accessed Feb. 18, 2025, 13:20 EST.
² "Nearly 10,000 fired as Trump and Musk step up government purge," Reuters, Feb. 14, 2025, https://www.reuters.com/world/us/thousands-fired-trump-musk-take-ax-us-government-offices-2025-02-14/ . Accessed Feb. 20, 2025, 14:05 EST.
³ "Tesla Begins Hiring In India After PM Modi-Elon Musk Meet In US," New Delhi Television, Feb. 18, 2025, https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/tesla-begins-hiring-in-india-after-pm-modi-elon-musk-meet-in-us-7735088 . Accessed Feb. 20, 2025, 16:13 EST.
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