Sometimes, our reflexes can get us into trouble.
Particularly, when what we’re talking about involves political reflexes—the need to support some notion just because the person leading the party we support at the moment likes the idea.
The defensive reaction Republicans have taken regarding billionaire Elon Musk’s ham-handed and ineffectual attempts to promote government efficiency is but the latest example of this..
Musk has become one of the most controversial and divisive figures in modern memory. Polls show that more people think he’s doing harm rather than good—and the number of people who view him unfavorably keeps climbing.
If he were a piece of rock, Musk would be radioactive.
Some of his unpopularity can be attributed to Musk’s personal qualities. It’s become almost a cliché to note that he resembles and often conducts himself as if he were the villain in a James Bond movie. The man’s arrogance combined with the oblivious lack of concern for the damage his work might do to ordinary lives makes him fit company for Goldfinger and Blofeld.
But not all the fault is his.
Some of it also must be attributed to the way President Donald Trump assigned him to go about his task of seeking out and eliminating government inefficiencies.
Musk’s position exists largely outside the structure of our government, which—until now—has had safeguards built into its workings to protect the people that government is supposed to serve. Musk attends Cabinet meetings even though he holds no Cabinet post and is not part of any traditional department of the executive branch. He roams through the records, holdings and operations of the federal government unvetted and unchecked by any of the traditional guardrails built into the system to prevent abuse and protect us from malfeasance.
Musk’s vocal partisan defenders say this is all right because he’s doing good work.
Everyone is in favor of uncovering waste and making government work more efficiently, right?
Well, yes, probably.
But that’s not really the test.
The test always has been whether one would like to have the other side exercise similar powers. Would we be comfortable with political opponents doing what we’re doing now?
Republicans, for the most part, like Musk and what he’s doing because slashing the federal budget has long been a priority for them. They’re willing to watch the billionaire mogul and his crew cut corners, ignore traffic signs and run pedestrians right off the road because they think he’s on the right course.
But would they be so comfortable if the shoe were on the other foot?
If, say, Kamala Harris had won the presidential election last November—which could have happened if 180,000 votes in three states had switched—and she decided to give another billionaire, George Soros, carte blanche to figure out ways to make government more responsive to its citizens.
Again, making government more responsive to the needs of the citizens it represents is—at least in theory—a goal we all share.
My guess, though, is that conservatives would be less than enthusiastic about having Soros, long their bete noire, and his minions running wild in the government’s records, pulling whatever files they wanted with no one watching or stopping them.
We even could make it a little more limited in scope.
Suppose a President Harris had decided to give former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg a more defined task. Suppose she’d asked him to figure out ways to reduce the appalling numbers of gun-related deaths in this country—and that Bloomberg would be allowed to ignore or circumvent the laws blocking the collection of such data that Congresses long obsequious to the National Rifle Association and the gun lobby had passed.
Would conservatives and Republicans allow that to happen without a peep?
Probably not.
One suspects that the NRA, its flacks, flunkies and pet legislators would want to say a word or two about that.
Think these examples are absurd?
One hopes, just as one hopes we once again will become a nation of laws.
But the reality is that a precedent has been set.
The next time a president wants to do something that she or he might struggle to move through Congress or that does not have clear legal sanction, all she or he has to do is cite the Musk precedent.
It’s likely to be a costly one.