I’ve been reading a detective novel set in Venice, which, without mentioning the word itself, reminded me of the the Italian noun ‘doge.’ Why is it, I wondered, that it has such a fascist ring to it? For some reason, I get an Il Duce vibe every time I hear it, and I’ve been hearing it a lot lately. This is because Elon Musk, the South African multibillionaire who bought Trump the presidency, has declared himself Doge of the federal government. I know, he’s not the actual Doge and that DOGE is just his cute name for his new fiefdom, but bear with me.
For those out of the loop on Medieval titles, a doge is the absolute ruler of an Italian city-state such as Venice or Genoa. In the day, the Doge was an elected office, but the term was life; the Doge’s job was to represent the local oligarchy. Definitely a supreme leader type, to which Italy is prone. So this is what Musk is modeling himself after, and don’t think he doesn’t know it. He even pronounces it the same.
It always seemed like such a typically European thing, these fascist leaders. Not something we Americans would ever have to worry about. After all, wasn’t it Sinclair Lewis who wrote It Can’t Happen Here? And yet, here we are battling fascism in America — America, a beacon of democracy the world over. I confess, I was surprised. Lewis, however, would probably NOT be surprised to see America “go fascist.” Unlike the rest of us, he knew it could happen here, and now, let’s face it, it has.
As for this Doge nonsense, Musk is all over it. Not only is it the name of this uber department which he’s created for himself, it’s also the name of his favorite cryptocurrency. Using the government as the means to your own private jokes at the expense of the governed is sociopathic. Using it to advertise a pet investment product, well, what can we say? Dignity is not a virtue that Musk and Trump possess, if in fact they have any virtues at all.
Elon Musk in his new role as Terminator of the American way of life now gets to put his patchy efficiency skills to the test in a complete, multi-billion dollar slash and burn on the federal government. In the process, he will fire tens of thousands of federal employees and eliminate whole swathes of congressionally approved programs, without an iota of oversight or constitutional authority. You know how tech bros love to disrupt. Musk is here to disrupt the federal government, so that he and Trump can install a new bureaucracy with which to crush the American people into submission. They’re thinking long term, you see.
It’s worth remembering that in every case of tech bro disruption, real people have suffered and lost their jobs, whole industries world-wide have been destroyed, whole communities as well, as the oligarchs gobble up our housing stock in the ongoing corporatization of real estate. Future You will own nothing once they’re through. The oligarchs will own it all and if we’re lucky, they’ll rent it back to us for a nominal fee, right down to the air we breathe.
I don’t think it can be stressed enough that quality of life for all but the very wealthy is being destroyed, and the rich, especially the rich young disrupters of the tech industry, truly don’t care. Why should they? They’re getting what they want, which is everything and then some.
But compared to other American oligarchs, Musk is in a league of his own. Sure, he’s the richest guy in the galaxy but it goes way beyond that. For starters, he makes no effort to hide his fascist views or his basic hatefulness. Moreover, it’s hard not to think that he’s been having a laugh at the public’s expense, made all the more rich because so many of us still aren’t in on the joke. The punch line, of course, is that he’s a fascist and he’s totally open about it, and people still think he’s great. He can call new agency DOGE, he can sig heil at a Trump rally — twice! — and make Nazi jokes on X, and still people don’t call him on it. If you’re him, it must be pretty hilarious.
There’s an old flick called A Face In The Crowd which stars, of all people, Andy Griffith as a somewhat sociopathic populist hero who gets caught on a live mic making fun of his audience. In the film, the duped American audience was not amused and they dropped him like a hot potato. This was 1957, when people apparently still had values and some pride. But today, Trump and his freak show cabinet are wide open about all their mean-spirited, undemocratic views, and still Trump’s supporters support them. Congress approves or fails to condemn. The media maintains Trump-friendly neutrality.
In the end, you have to ask yourself, what would it take for Musk to fail? Or Trump for that matter? As The Last Poets said, in a song worth remembering in these dark and dangerous times, “Better get busy before we all are through….”
Photo Credit: Bundesarchiv, Bild 147-0510 / CC-BY-SA 3.0
