Democrats and the Fight Against the Middle Class

It has been somewhat difficult to place the opposition to Trump in a context where it all makes sense. The simplest explanation behind the difficulty is that there is no sense behind it. This is not to suggest that there is no sense in opposing Trump, although there is an argument to be made. There are no rational goals behind the opposition. His platform is more popular than he is. This opposition is not a response to what he is doing meant to generate support for Democrats. It is sound and fury, which may come to signify far more than is wished.  Instead of considering the opposition to DOGE, his sex recognition, DEI, and deportation Executive Orders as separate, it is better to see it all as a continuous spectrum. The most consistent element is that the opposition, lacking any principle, reacts to everything as if it is the one thing that will finally bring Trump down. In so doing, they select positions that are overwhelmingly unpopular. Being met with apathy seems to only derange them further. At best, the opposition to Trump can be described as an id fueled counter-reaction. At worst, especially considering the domestic terrorism aimed at Tesla, and attempts to short its stock, it is the willingness to harm the country if it harms Trump politically. It is also how the Democrats make themselves irrelevant.

There is an internet meme comparing equality with equity. In the image a man and two boys are watching a baseball game over a fence. Each has a box to stand to see over the fence. The youngest boy, even with his box, is unable to see over the fence. This is equality. Everyone gets the same thing. In the next image the man stands without a box and the youngest boy has two. Both can easily see over the fence. This is equity. The idea is that groups get the accommodations they need to reach the same level as others who need no assistance. The image is fairly convincing and difficult to argue against. It rests on the assumption that everyone should be guaranteed access, even if they can't meet the standard for access. In the case of the image, the standard is sufficient money to buy tickets. There are variations on the image that lean closer to utopian visions where the fence is removed or where access is extended in some other way. There is also a variation that is especially relevant here. In it, the man has his body sawed in half, the older boy has his legs sawed off, and all three end up with the same level of access. This is equity in reality.

Proponents of DEI programs seem to have no idea what they are advocating for. They start from the conclusion that the concept is inherently good to avoid the obvious fact that it is nothing but demeaning and harmful, not to mention illegal. DEI stands for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. When people oppose DEI in hiring they are cast as racist for opposing diversity and inclusion. The problem is equity. The idea of DEI is that if a workforce doesn't match the racial and sexual ratios of the society as a whole, it is a sign of discrimination needing remedy. Again, the idea is that accommodations are made to include more diversity. Consider how that works in reality. 

The Obama administration wanted to increase the racial and sexual diversity of the air traffic controller workforce. Traditionally air traffic controllers were mostly trained through the Air Traffic Collegiate Training Initiative (CTI), military veterans, and a smaller number from the general public. To be hired, applicants would need to pass a rigorous test for consideration. The test was seen as a barrier to black applicants, who passed at a lower rate than white applicants. To make accommodations to ensure more blacks applicants were hired, the FAA replaced the rigorous technical exam with a biographical screening and deemphasized military and air traffic experience. One immediate result of this change is that in 2014, 1000 applicants from CTI programs who passed the rigorous technical exam were not hired because they didn't pass the subjective and opaque personal screening. At least one applicant received 100 on the exam. The applicants have filed a class action lawsuit against the FAA alleging racial discrimination. Not only were qualified candidates turned away, individuals who cheated on the test or were given extra guidance were hired.

In March of this year The Daily Mail published a recording of a member of the National Black Coalition of Federal Aviation Employees (NBCFAE) sharing exam questions and important buzzwords for hiring. The advice was for minority candidates and was withheld from white applicants. In the article a member of NBCFAE is quoted as saying, "I know several people who cheated and I know several people who are controlling planes as we speak." The thing about DEI is that once you start hiring for diversity, competency decreases in relevancy and we are left with no objective standards. DEI works by removing advantage to create equity. In this case, the advantage removed was practical experience and proven technical expertise. There is no good faith argument for lowering standards to include diversity. So the advocates of DEI simply deny that standards are lowered when other factors are elevated to importance. The most pernicious aspect of the DEI concept is that it treats people as representatives of their race or sexuality rather than as individuals. This conflicts with the Civil Rights Act, which denies the use of race in hiring. This is the simple argument in support of President Trumps Executive Order banning DEI in federal hiring.

The opposition to Trump ending DEI is unique as well as exemplary of the opposition to President Trump as a whole. As with all of the opposition to President Trump, the challenge to rescinding DEI is a reaction rather than rational. What makes it unique is that the ire is directed degrees of separation from President Trump and his administration. Instead of activism against the government, there is activism against corporations following Trump's lead to end DEI. They are punishing Target and Amazon for ending their systems of racism through ostensible boycotts. What makes this opposition truly exemplary is that the advocates are so confused by their reactionary hate that they demand the opposite of their claimed desire. The advocates believe they are opposing racism. However, by supporting hiring based on race, they are ironically supporting racism. Not only are they supporting racism, they are doing it by advocating for a field led by whites at a rate higher than their percentage of the general population. 

It is a field with a growing body of evidence that shows it increases tension over diversity. It is not clear that there is any harm Trump's opponent's would not advocate for if he was decisively against it. There is a social media meme that if Trump came out in support of breathing, his opponents would start wearing plastic bags. It is arguable that the Democrats are rejecting historic core values now that Trump shares them.

Since FDR's New Deal, support for Social Security and social safety nets in general, strengthening workers' rights, and unionization have been central pillars of the Democrat Party. Currently, the Social Security Trust is projected to run out by 2034. The Inspector General for The Social Security Administration has found over $72 billion in improper payments from 2015 - 2022. At the same time, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), of the between $233 billion and $521 billion in US funds lost to fraud, 53% is lost through Medicaid and Medicare. If these programs are important to Democrats, one would expect them to embrace any opportunity to strengthen and preserve them. Under President Trump, the Democrats stand in opposition to current attempts to remove waste and fraud from these programs.

While Democrats claim that President Trump wants to give tax breaks to billionaire friends, central aspects of his platform would remove taxes on tips, Social Security, overtime, and on anyone earning less than $150,000. These are hardly things billionaires are clamoring for. One might see these as areas of possible bipartisanship, since these moves would provide major increases in take home pay for the average worker. Instead, Democrats are blatantly lying about the intended beneficiaries of the changed tax policy. There have been two approaches to dealing with the bankruptcy of the Social Security Trust, either raise the retirement age or ignore the issue until someone else is responsible for dealing with it. One interesting aspect of the Trump administration is that several of the successful billionaires on his cabinet are historically Democrats. This speaks to their solutions for these established problems. In an interview with David Friedburg and Chamath Pallhapitiya, of the All-In Podcast, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick rejects the traditional Republican solution for Social Security of raising the retirement age. He sees it as taking money from Social Security recipients who deserve it. 

The GAO reports that the federal government made over $230 billion in improper payments in the fiscal year ending October 1, 2023. In an April 2024 report, the GAO estimates that we lost between $233 billion and $521 billion to fraud annually from 2018 - 2022. The government is more capable of recording this waste and criminal fraud after it happens than it is preventing it. Our current national debt is $36 trillion. The interests on that debt costs $3 billion daily. To attack this massive debt and secure the long term health of our social safety net programs, Lutnick plans to bring in an additional trillion dollars in revenue while Elon Musk cuts a trillion dollars in waste and fraud through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Reducing our debt and deficit is vital to the future economic stability and security of the US. So, obviously this is the thing the Democrats protest most visibly and intensely. The protest epitomizes the opposition to this Trump administration as a whole: imagine things to be angry about and then use that anger to justify derangement. I have been told that describing the activity against Trump as derangement may be insulting. I can think of no more accurate a word to describe the behavior associated with the protests.

Musk, the richest man in the world, has been accused of using private data to steal money from voters. Nothing should make clear the degree to which this ire is projection than to accuse a man with more money than he could spend of only being motivated by acquiring more of it. Along the same line, he has been accused of using his position to benefit his companies, which is a reasonable concern. SpaceX has valuable contracts with the government, both for rockets and its satellite internet service, Starlink. We should be wary of potential conflicts of interests. It is not a current concern because there are no competitors offering the same services at a comparable price and quality. The Starlink service has played a crucial role in establishing communication after the devastation of Hurricane Helene in North Carolina and for the Ukraine military in its conflict with Russia. Due to technical issues with competitor Boeing's Starliner, astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams had their 8 day mission aboard the International Space Station turn into one of 9 months. They were finally returned to Earth aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 and Dragon capsule. There was a surprising lack of media coverage for something that would have been widely celebrated if done by another company. Instead of praise or neutrality for removing $4 billion dollars in waste from government spending everyday, rescuing stranded astronauts, and establishing communications for people in crisis, people are doing their best to ruin Musk in ways that would be laughable if not for the growing risk of harm associated with their actions.

In a darkly ironic turn, the people comparing President Trump and Musk to nazis have borrowed heavily from the playbook of Nazi propagandist, Joseph Goebbels. He famously said, "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." The lie here is that President Trump is somehow stealing democracy by doing the things that he ran on, which earned him the popular vote as well as a decisive electoral college win. There have been months of complaint that Elon Musk was not elected, which is true and irrelevant. President Trump was elected while promising to utilize Musk exactly as he is to streamline the government. While not yet an axiom, there is an observable reaction to President Trump now seen in the reaction to Musk: Dressing your enemy in the proper costume allows the justification of any action against him. With President Trump, the costume of Russian collaborator allowed his opponents to attempt to unseat a constitutionally elected president over an entirely invented premise.

Unlike impeachment, there is no mechanism for removing a presidential appointee aside from the will of the President. I will generously describe the protests directed at Musk as an attempt to pressure the president to dismiss Musk. I say generously, because when asked what Musk is doing that is worthy of protest, protestors offer caricatures of an authoritarian for a man wielding no decisive power. Musk's role is only advisory. At the same time, President Trump is impervious to external pressure and wants Musk there for as long as possible. From this standpoint, it is difficult to see anything rational behind the actions that are ostensibly against Musk, which is why I label them the product of derangement.

There have been arson attacks on at least 15 Tesla dealerships and facilities in 9 states. There are daily videos of individuals keying privately owned Teslas on public streets. The Teslas themselves capture the incidents on video, which have led to arrests. In the few videos where the vandal is confronted, their level of contrition is almost embarrassing after they have come down from the high of role playing as a hero saving democracy. Far more concerning are the individuals cutting off and stopping Teslas in traffic to attack the drivers, usually women. Derangement is the only explanation for a man attacking a woman over her car purchase in the hopes of harming the manufacturer of the car.

It should be noted that the furor over Teslas has driven the value of Tesla stock down dramatically. It should also be noted that the harm to Musk is more to his feelings for the company he built to prosperity and the workers in it than to his bottomline. He only holds approximately 12% of Tesla shares. Despite the attack on Tesla, he remains the richest man in the world. The greater harm is to 401K accounts and retirement funds from a stock that has been a wealth driver. The same people cheering the drop in share price for Tesla stocks are pulling out their hair over the impact to their 401Ks following the drop in the S&P in response to President Trump's announcement of tariffs for our trade partners.

This is who the Democrats are now. Not a single elected Democrat will condemn the vandalism and destruction without some caveat. They justify the action as the result of understandable rage instead of obvious criminality and emotional dysregulation. They own this. They are willing to lie about the function of DOGE to rile their supporters. They accuse Musk and DOGE of stripping funds from Social Security and Medicaid when the opposite is true. The actions of the DOGE team are recorded on their website in almost real time. Musk and his DOGE team detail many of their surprising findings in an interview with FOX News' Brett Baier and in a campaign event in Wisconsin. During the Wisconsin event, keeping with President Trump's promise. Musk told the crowd,

"DOGE will make sure you get your Social Security, DOGE will make sure you get your Medicaid. There will be no cuts to legitimate payments. whatsoever."

One thing that might result in cuts to payments is the amount of fraud confronting the system. The DOGE team found 15 million people over the age of 120 marked alive. This has been an identified problem in the system since 2008. The oldest person in the US, Naomi Whitehead, is 114 years and 195 days old. The team also learned that 40% of the daily calls to change direct deposit information was fraudulent. One of the more shocking findings in the Social Security system was the number of non-citizens assigned Social Security numbers shared by Antonio Gracias. They found that the Social Security Administration automatically sent a Social Security card to over 5 million illegal immigrants paroled into the country during the Biden administration with no identity check. The defaults for these numbers were set for maximum inclusion in social safety programs and payout. 1.3 million are already on Medicaid. Because Social Security numbers are used to verify voters, an unknown number were registered for and actually voted in the last election.

A Social Security Administration whistleblower explained that DOGE had only touched the surface of the issue. She offered corroboration to Musk's accusation that the Biden administration was attempting to mass import a new class of voters by instantly embedding them in the legal framework for citizens.

Musk noted,"One of the things I learned at Paypal was...you know who complains the loudest and with the most amount of fake righteous indignation? The fraudster." This may be the best explanation for the intensity of the protests centered on Tesla. It is obviously not because Musk and his DOGE team are finding exactly how the already recorded fraud happens. There is a growing body of evidence that the national protests are sponsored and paid for. This is not to suggest that every protestor is paid, but when protestors at a single site all leave at the same time, it suggests they all were. Our taxes are being used to undermine a US manufacturer. DOGE started with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Although the acronym suggests that it is an aid agency, it is a tool of US statecraft used to promote soft power at its best, at its worst it is a tool of cultural imperialism. The DOGE team found expenditures for promoting outlandish things like DEI in Serbia, a sex change clinic in India, and an Iraqi Sesame Street. They also found that some funds sent overseas had been used to benefit groups listed as terrorists by our state department. USAID sent money into ideological Non-Governmental organizations without auditing the spending. DOGE found that those funds benefitted both parties but was much more heavily weighted towards NGOs supporting the Democrats and their political priorities. 

It is fascinating watching the Democrats and their supporters attack Musk and DOGE for ending things they could not argue for in good faith. According to the March Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll, 3 in 4 voters support the effort of DOGE. The trap for Democrats is that instead of showing leadership, they are being led by their followers, 66% of whom just want to fight Trump even if nothing gets done, even if the problems voters list remain unaddressed. Most critical, they want the Democrats to fight Trump even if it means taking the side opposed by 80% of voters, like men in women's sports. It is difficult to disguise that they are fighting for power for themselves instead of the needs of voters. In the end they have left themselves with nothing that voters want that is worth fighting for. They are boxing themselves into political irrelevance.