The great thing about the New York Times is that it's always willing to say the quiet part out loud in terms of what the left is thinking, and right now, what they're thinking is simultaneously gross and hilarious.
As all conversations do with the left, it involves Elon Musk, who wears so many hats it'd be a fun trivia question to name all the businesses he runs, but the one the left is furious about is that he's got the ear of President Donald Trump. According to them, Trump is effectively letting Musk have run of the government, and he's destroying it from within with such reckless abandon that America's collapse is imminent. Won't someone think of the Constitution?
Of course, that's all artificial panic being peddled by people who actually are panicked as they watch their beloved bureaucracy get whittled down by a man with a habit of streamlining everything he touches. It enrages them, but it's not what grosses them out, which is what the New York Times piece outlines for us.
What has them clutching their pearls is the fact that Musk is listening to you, speaking with you, hanging out with you.
The unwashed, uneducated yokels in flyover country who cling to their God and their guns. You probably spend your time reading the Bible while you wave an American flag and say racist stuff all day. Oh, and you're probably white.
Even more horrifying is the fact that conservative activists, whom they despise beyond all reason, talk to and interact with Musk directly. Glenn Greenwald put the horror the left feels in simple terms on a post on X while commenting on the NYT piece:
Gross! The ordinary people and the unlicensed peasants are able to speak with and even influence elites in DC who are running the government. The NYT is horrified.
Gross! The ordinary people and the unlicensed peasants are able to speak with and even influence elites in DC who are running the government. The NYT is horrified. pic.twitter.com/QkKC9tCaJi
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) February 26, 2025
The piece itself reads exactly how Greenwald described it:
As his operation targets spending considered unaligned with President Trump’s agenda, Mr. Musk has personally appealed to users of his social media platform to help root out what he has termed “waste, fraud and abuse.” He has been responsive to complaints that go viral, with his team trumpeting the apparent changes pushed through as a result. And for at least two prominent conservative activists, a Trump administration so carefully attuned to right-wing social media has created the opportunity to build an extraordinary pipeline of influence and access.
In multiple instances, viral posts by Chaya Raichik, who is the creator of the Libs of TikTok account and regularly attacks transgender people online, and Christopher Rufo, a writer who has worked to push conservatives further right on education issues, have prompted quick adjustments to public-facing government documents and even policy. Most of their efforts have centered on the Education Department, which Mr. Trump has said he wants to eliminate, though other agencies have become targets, too.
I bet Musk doesn't even wash his hands after.
The rest of the piece is funny to read, though unintentionally so. The NYT lists Raichik and Rufo's work in discovering things in the government that should not be there, including continued DEI practices, waste, and redundancies. The article attempts to put reasons why these things should be there, but only makes it more obvious that Musk is doing the people's work.
And that's exactly what's happening here. Rufo and Raichik are oftentimes passed the information from people like you and me. Using their platforms that they built over time, they drag these things into the light where Musk can see it more clearly, then Musk gets his team on it and elevate it to someone with the authority to destroy it, sometimes that person being Trump himself.
It's not just these two, either. Musk doesn't just interact with influencers. He interacts with people of all stripes, taking their advice, listening to their suggestions, and acting accordingly.
And this is what truly drives the left bonkers.
The left values authority, and no one has more authority than over-educated elites. They're the ones who know best! How dare the unwashed take control of something they're not qualified to run?
But that's exactly how America functions. The elite don't own America, despite them constantly mistaking that they do. We're a representative government. Our leaders are us. E pluribis unum. The presidency itself, the most powerful position in the world, is something anyone can become. We are a nation of presidents-in-waiting.
The left's elitist mentality is that fancy degrees, solid connections, and money make a person qualified. The American mentality is that the man in the gutter could rise to be the most influential man in history. They hate that thought. They think they're entitled to power, and they hate you for thinking you should have a share in it. They hate Musk for proving that you could ever be so influential in how things are run in this country.
Always remember that this is how they see you. You are a subject, not a citizen. Given the chance, they'd throw you out and slam the door. Don't let them.
