I find myself shaking my head in complete disbelief so much more these days, than usual. Not so much over stuff like whether NIL has ruined college hoops (it has) or whether there are only two sexes (there are), but I can’t seem to understand why it is that people are mad at DOGE and Elon Musk to such an extent that they would torch a Tesla.
His professional life has been defined by industry-leading innovations and improved processes. And when compared over the arc of, say, the last three decades, comparing what he has done with the accomplishments of our most respected business and political leaders, the score is not close as to who has done more to impact our society in a positive way.
Few others have fully comprehended the state of peril that exists on our federal balance sheet, much less done anything meaningful about it.
Along comes our generation’s most impressive change-agent — with more money than his heirs will be able to spend in 10 lifetimes, and no other incentive to pitch in and help except to end the American government’s addiction to spending — and he jumps headfirst into the morass of Washington DC. And he does this for no compensation or benefit, asks for nothing in return, and yet finds himself being compared to a 20th century German dictator responsible for the deaths of millions of Jews.
I guess what really surprises me is how many people misunderstand Elon Musk. But “Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood?” Ralph Waldo Emerson asked nearly 200 years ago, as he explored the question within the context of the rapid change underway in a post-industrial American revolution.
“To be great is to be misunderstood,” he concluded in referencing the indispensability of those throughout history who have, through sheer force of will and personality, altered the trajectory of mankind: Socrates, Luther, Jesus Christ, Galileo, and Newton among so many other “miscreants” of their time, all of whom were either societal outcasts or outright antagonists of their modern-day order and convention.
Where would humanity be without the discoveries, teachings and resistance to so-called “norms” we saw in these people?
This idea has been propagated more throughout the last couple of centuries as society has intermittently benefited from people who think like Elon. And nearly 100 years after Emerson asked the question, George Bernard Shaw took it further:
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends upon the unreasonable man.”
What if Steve Jobs had not asked if there was a better way to listen to music? Or if Bezos had been fine with buying books at Barnes and Noble?
Challenging the status quo often leads to meaningful change, which is why I am so confused over today’s political antinomians and their vitriolic opposition to Elon. The same can be said for the NC Senate’s efforts to push the DAVE Act. Why is the left opposing Senate Leader Berger’s desire to identify and cut wasteful state positions?
Emerson and Shaw were correct in their assessments about mankind. In the moment, change agents rarely think about whether they are misunderstood because they are too busy shaping new pathways and engineering new ways of doing things, better.
Society always craves the next big breakthrough. But just before it happens, how ironic is it that so many scream at what was occurring right in front of their eyes?
And that is what is happening in real time, right now, in DC and in Raleigh; Elon and his DOGE team are digging deep into computer databases, reviewing payment processes, finding billions of dollars in waste, fraud and abuse, and doing all this free of charge, so our citizens can have reliable entitlement payments, and our country might avoid bankruptcy and default.
And while things are not as financially dire in North Carolina, the DAVE Act will have many of the same, positive effects in our state.
How could doing all this possibly be bad?
The only answer I can come up with is that whoever is against such efforts must benefit from the waste. There is no other rational explanation.
If Emerson were writing his essay today, surely, he would mention Einstein, Marie Curie, Jeff Bezos, Ghandi, Harriet Tubman, Steve Jobs, and others.
But I know he would place Elon Musk near the top of the list. I just don’t understand why anyone would disagree.
I would be remiss if I did not also consider another change agent: Donald Trump, who, while not having revolutionized rocket science or automated electric cars, has done more than any other president in modern history to reclaim the mantel of what it means for America to put itself first. His skillful, though at times, interesting, methods in how his critical and intuitive instincts guide policy can seem disjointed. But an objective review of how he has changed the national dialogue relative to so many critical issues facing our nation is not in dispute. No other president in our time has re-defined the pace of play like President Trump.
But that is a piece for another day.