“There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt — until recently … and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties.”
If you have been watching what Elon is doing with the USAID, it is not getting rid of it, it is placing it and what it does more directly under the executive branch’s control and purview. As some would say, ‘taking off the mask’. This is of course, because he is too stupid to understand how politically useful having NGO slight-of-hand is for the U.S.
It does make sense if you believe the era of U.S. soft-power domination is completely over (or is in-efficient/woke/ineffective, take your pick of the buzzwords). What we are seeing is a complete buy-in on traditional fascist ‘efficiency’ propaganda, without the savvy that the neo-liberal post-fascists displayed in earlier times. As far as I can tell the belief is that the facade costs money and has no benefits so it must be discarded. No good will come of it, but it was no good to begin with.
It’s just fascists shooting themselves in the foot because they don’t actually understand where modern fascism gets it’s power and stability from, the obfuscation of power. They seem to have this deep need to not just be recognized as powerful by the silent elite, but to be seen as powerful by people on social media platforms (who they likely see as ‘the masses’). The follow-up question is if they will try to run with the old fascist ‘clash of civilizations’ narrative after shooting themselves in the foot, or if they will just content themselves with just fucking things up for workers and bullying their reluctant allies. It is unclear at this point.
Trying to take it over is at least fucking with the establishment. I’d rather them waste political power going tit for tat than fucking us.
No offense, but you are still stuck in a liberal mindset, and it is affecting your analysis.
Elon can’t ‘waste political power’. That concept is based on the idea of ‘political capital’, which is based on the idea that political power is based on a mandate from the masses. Our political economy just doesn’t work that way, Elon doesn’t really have a mandate outside of what Trump gives him, which means he has effectively unlimited political ability because he doesn’t ever have to answer for what he does. Not only that, but everything, and I mean everything, he does to the federal government will have downstream effects on us, and much of it, especially stuff fucking with public education (something the Valley has been trying to reduce or get rid of since the 90’s) will fuck us. He can waste time, but unless he actively fucks over Trump, he can’t waste political power.