The Pros and Cons of Elon Musk's Twitter Rebellion

One of my favorite moments in the Star Trek movie franchise occurs near the end of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. The details of the plot aren’t important here, other than that the Klingon villain, Kruge, played by Christopher Lloyd, is holding Kirk, Spock, and an Enterprise landing party hostage on a planet that is in the process of destroying itself. Kruge threatens to doom himself and his hostages if Kirk doesn’t surrender something called, “the Genesis Device.”

Spock, who had died in the previous film, has been brought back to life by the Genesis device but is aging rapidly because of it and must get off the planet immediately or die. When Kruge has the rest of the landing party beamed up to his ship as prisoners, the following exchange occurs between Kirk and Kruge:

Kirk: Take the Vulcan, too.

Kruge: No!

Kirk: But, why?

Kruge: Because you wish it.

Kruge doesn’t know what is happening to Spock or why Kirk has an interest in getting Spock off the planet, especially considering he’d be Kruge’s prisoner. He only knows Kirk wishes it and anything Kirk desires is likely against his own interests.

What a wonderful analogy for so many of the figures who have stood up to oppose the Washington, D.C. empire over the past several years. I don’t agree on much with Donald Trump, Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Green, Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald, or Bari Weiss. But it is apparent the empire fears and loathes these people and will do anything it can to destroy them.

Therefore, I am inclined to do whatever I can to defend them against the empire’s attacks. Should the empire deign to ask why I wouldn’t allow this collection of mercantilists, socialists, and statists (but I repeat myself) to be crushed, my answer is the same as Kruge’s:

“Because you wish it.”

The latest in this cast of opposition characters is self-described socialist Elon Musk. Musk claims to have purchased Twitter primarily to change its content moderation policies to allow for freer speech, something he claims is essential to “democracy.”

That all sounds wonderful to the average, miseducated American and there is good reason to believe Musk is sincere. He spent $44 billion on a company that currently makes $5 billion in gross revenues – and loses money. No likely combination of revenue growth or cost cutting will make this a wise business investment anytime soon.

Taking Musk at his word, it is worthwhile to unpack just what Musk is championing. On one hand, anything the empire is opposing this strenuously is on its face a good for the rest of us. But we should have open eyes about what Musk is offering in its place. There are several assumptions most people take for granted that need to be challenged. They include free speech, democracy, and liberty.

Musk evidently shares the empire’s stated ideal of democracy as an end in itself. In deciding whether to allow former President Trump to return to Twitter, Musk held a Twitter poll. When it came out in favor of allowing Trump’s return, Musk tweeted the results with the Latin phrase, “Vox Populi Vox Dei ("the voice of the people is the voice of God”).

Of course, the American system has never assumed democracy is an end in itself. On the contrary, it includes many anti-democratic elements alongside the democratic ones. The reason for having a bicameral legislature, presidential veto, independent judiciary, and Bill of Rights is to protect individuals and constituent polities from democracy.

That’s what makes Musk’s Trump poll so ironic. He suggests a majority vote has something to do with free speech when the First Amendment was written to defend free speech against democracy. The 2nd Amendment was written to protect the right to keep and bear arms against democracy. And so on with all ten amendments in the Bill of Rights, the last to protect individuals from the accumulation of power even in one, central government, however democratically elected its representatives.