David Dvorkin @DavidDvorkin@qoto.org

#introduction
Before retiring, I was an aerospace engineer (Apollo, Viking Mars lander), software developer, and tech writer. But that was to pay the bills. I think of myself as a writer -- mostly sf, some horror, some mystery, some (yet unpublished) fantasy. Lots of details at www.dvorkin.com

My wife and I also help writers self-publish. You can find out more at www.dldbooks.com

In theory, I should be writing much more now that I'm retired. In practice, that's not happening. I blame the Internet.

Everything is going perfectly according to Donald Trump's subtle, sophisticated, brilliant, intricate, and high-level plan, which is to reveal that Donald Trump is an ignorant, demented, arrogant, smug buffoon.

Elon Musk is an American.

Elon Musk is an infected cyst in the American soul, but he’s an American cyst.

He is an evil, psychopathic, narcissistic, greedy oaf, but he is an American oaf.

He is a posturing and deeply insecure fool who spent a fortune on cosmetic surgery to change his appearance from twerpy nebbish to creepy ogre that he apparently thinks makes him look more masculine and who wears lifts in his shoes for the same reason, but he’s an American fool.

He’s a drug-addled, pompous zany, but he’s an American zany.
He’s a louse who fathers children and then doesn’t provide for them, but he’s an American louse.

He’s a man without honor, but he’s a dishonorable American.

He’s a Nazi, but he’s an American Nazi.

He is the evil embodiment of the worst of capitalism, but he’s an American evil embodiment.
He is the lowest of the low, human vileness embodied, slime from the deepest levels of the sewer, but he’s American slime.
Throughout its history, America has produced its full share of such foul men, and most of them were born here.

Here is the beginning of the US naturalization oath, the oath of citizenship, which Musk swore when he became an American citizen in 2002: “I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen…” He was a Canadian citizen and a South African citizen, and I assume that in the eyes of those two countries, he retains those citizenships, but under American law, he is no longer a citizen of either of those countries but is instead an American citizen.

Now, the stories about his violating the terms of his US visa could well be true, and in that case, his citizenship should be revoked and he should be expelled from the US. We know that’s not going to happen while the malevolent orange toad squats in the White House—and given Musk’s ability and willingness to use his immense wealth both to reward and to threaten, probably even not after the toad is gone. It should happen, but it won’t. But even if it does happen eventually, until then Elon Musk is a US citizen. He is an American.

Musk is contemptible because of who he is and what he’s done, not because of his foreign birth. He is a contemptible American, just like his … friend? crony? boss? servant? … President Slime and the many, many contemptible Americans making up the Slime Administration.

I was prompted to write this because of posts I’ve seen on various social media platforms attacking Musk as a foreigner, a South African, an Afrikaner. These posts have come from people on the political left. It’s no surprise that the left despises Musk, but expressing that feeling in terms of Musk’s foreign origins is no different from the right’s hating the foreign origin of, say, George Soros. It is othering the foreigner, and it’s despicable. As a former South African citizen who swore the same US naturalization oath as Musk did, I’m outraged by this rejection by my fellow leftists, this smirking relegation of naturalized citizens like me to a separate and inferior status and by the hatred directed at white South Africans.

The left uses “white South African” as the embodiment of evil in general and racism in particular. I’ve seen things said online about white South Africans by leftists who would never tolerate similar things being said about other racial/national/ethnic groups. And yet, in 1992, more than two-thirds of white South Africans voted to end Apartheid and transition to full democracy. Compare that to the almost half of Americans who voted in 2024 to make a demented, crooked, openly anti-democratic traitor America’s president.

(By the way, Musk was not an Afrikaner, and “Afrikaner” is not a synonym for “white South African.” He was an English South African. “Was”? Yes, because he’s now an American.)

Is Musk a prime mover behind the current administration’s tsunami of evil or merely a tool? Who can say? I suspect he’s a tool, and I also expect that the weird bromance between Musk and President Toad will end soon and abruptly.

The toad can’t stand not being the center of attention, and even his awe of Musk’s vast wealth might be less powerful than his resentment at being upstaged. Or Musk’s wealth could vanish quickly. His wealth is a house of cards built largely on the stock value of Tesla. That stock value is already dropping and will probably drop far more because of increased competition, poor Tesla EV quality, and the buying public’s growing hatred of Musk. When the wealth departs, it will take with it Trump’s weird fascination with conman Elon, and Musk will be shoved out and quickly forgotten.

If Trump dies in office—extremely likely—then the behind-the-scenes power struggle will be as vicious, if less bloody, as those of ancient Rome or the USSR. J D Vance will be the nominal president, but who can say who will be the real power in the White House? It won’t be Musk. He’s hitched his star too tightly to Trump’s wagon and will go down with it.

The power struggle seems to be already under way. Musk’s departure could have happened by the time you read this. His place will be taken by some equally morally repulsive slime, probably a native-born one. The rest of the scum will simply continue to genuflect at the base of the toadstool.

Or perhaps, unknown to him, Musk’s role from the beginning was to be a lightning rod for public anger and political backlash when Trump’s policies flush the US economy down the toilet. Musk will then be a convenient and already hated scapegoat—an American scapegoat.

Elon Musk Is an American

He's an infected cyst in the American soul, but he’s an American cyst.

https://eyeblister.blogspot.com/2025/02/elon-musk-is-american.html

I'd like to think this is meant as a joke.

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Dementident Trump.

Prime Minister Muskovy.

Drones!!! Oh, my god!! They're everywhere! They're eviscerating cows and abducting people and implanting control devices in them and poisoning wells and draining the blood of Christian children to make matzo and spreading porn to make our kids gay transsexual commies and lots of other terrible sutff! Somebody do something!!!

They're completely out in the open. Drunk with what they think will be total power, the rightwingshits are preparing to eliminate Social Security and Medicare.

Walkers at the ready! Allons, my fellow seniors! Get ready for the Slow March on Washington!

Embrace that third rail, fools.

I wish people would stop referring to it as vaccine skepticism. It's science denialism. It's the rejection of generations of magnificant scientific progress and the embrace of ignorance.

Two months from now, the crazies will be in control.

One advantage to my not having become a big-name writer is that no young writer has met me, his writing idol, only to be gravely disillusioned and disappointed. So there's that.

This will be remembered as the election where a majority of Americans stopped even pretending to pay lip service to their country's ideals.

In the supermarket today, I saw what might well be the stupidest t-shirt I've ever seen. On the front it said "Trump". There might have been more, but that's all I saw as the man walked by. On the back, there was a painting of Trump and Vance as tough guys in string ties and black hats, with a vaguely TV-Old-West background. Beneath that, it said, "I'm voting for the outlaw and the hillbilly." The orange buffoon's idiot followers live in a world of TV-show illusion.

What does it mean if my profile can't be found when I click on it? Have I ceased to exist?

Back in 2019, I published my Apollo memoir, WHEN WE LANDED ON THE MOON, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11. Every now and then, it still sells a copy. I think of it as the little rocket that could. It's a bit like Voyager. Just when it seems to be dead, it transmits more data, or in this case royalties. Putt, putt, putt.

I (white) thought that when Obama was elected, but I was quickly disillusioned.

Five years and five days ago, for the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing, I published a short memoir of my time working at NASA on the Apollo program, titled "When We Landed on the Moon".

It's not the catchiest title, but it is much snazzier than the more descriptive title "How I Worked at a Desk at NASA During Apollo Writing Fortran Code and Entering Lots of Data on Punch Cards and Poring over Piles of Computer Printout".

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1080633405/

This is America's Enabling Act.

People who sneered at science fiction are now living it, but they still sneer at science fiction.