The Age of American Nihilism

This week Elon Musk gave Americans another opportunity to peek behind the curtain at the Department of Government Efficiency (with its now dreaded-by-Democrats acronym, “DOGE”), the federal agency he runs by fiat and with maximal discretion.

The team consists of roughly 30 men (one woman, Amy Gleason, a holdover from the Obama administration, is presumptively its administrator). They are an odd assortment of government officials, tech executives and the kind of young people who spent more time coding as kids than playing outside in the sun.

From all appearances, they seem to be a jovial bunch, enjoying their tasks and believing in the public interest of their mission: shrinking the federal bureaucracy and reducing the national debt, even if it means firing government employees, cancelling grants, shutting down offices and threatening to eliminate entire agencies.

Given their relative youth, they represent a new breed of fiduciary, very much unlike the grumpy, jowly and arthritic bankers from “Mary Poppins.”

Teslas and tuppences, anyone?

All these individuals shared a belief in financial prudence, but Musk’s Men project the image of fraternity brothers who ride to work in custom-built electric cars and at any moment might suit up for a galactic voyage on Space X.

After decades of despair over spiraling governmental debt and a bloated bureaucracy, finally someone has taken out the scalpel. DOGE estimates that it has saved $165 billion from asset sales, contract and lease renegotiations, improper payments and fraud detection, interest on debt, regulatory savings, and, of course, the trimming of the federal workforce.

Many Americans, however, remain decidedly unimpressed. Instead of celebrations of fiscal responsibility, according to a recent Quinnipiac University poll, a slight majority—including 16 percent of Republicans—believe that Musk has been improperly granted too much power.

DOGE is also perceived to be both delinquent and dangerous because a mere 30 algorithmic bureaucrats have access to private data from the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service. At what point does fiscal discipline justify flagrant invasions of personal privacy?

Fewer than 25 percent of Americans, according to an Associated Press-NORC poll, favor eliminating entire federal agencies. And no more than 30 percent approve of large federal layoffs.

Musk is about to step away from his contentious appointment as austerity specialist-in-chief. He will return to his day job as real-life Tony Stark gadget maker. But don’t expect the applause of a grateful nation. A ticker-tape parade with Teslas twisting through Manhattan’s “Canyon of Heroes” is not in the cards.

Some of this cynicism, of course, is related to the Death Star known as Donald Trump. There are tens of millions of Americans who believe that if it comes out of Trump’s mouth, emanates from his Executive Orders, or, frankly, is attributed to his administration, it can’t possibly be good. Sure, DOGE may have saved billions in outright theft, but any signal of public support only ingratiates the ravings of a maniacal dictator.

But it’s far worse than the default position of everything being Trump’s fault.

Welcome to the Age of American Nihilism. Ever since Barack Obama declared American Exceptionalism to be a myth, we have been in an anti-American freefall. A country solidly in the throes of self-loathing blameworthiness. Why do you think Trump’s Make America Great Again sloganeering became so catchy?

Ever since Barack Obama declared American Exceptionalism to be a myth, we have been in an anti-American freefall. A country solidly in the throes of self-loathing blameworthiness. Why do you think Trump’s Make America Great Again sloganeering became so catchy?

Somewhere along the way we settled into the pathologically treacherous vise grip of American mediocrity. Beset by low expectations and an even lower opinion of ourselves. All calls for national greatness are now deemed to be lies.

Chief among them: the United States was never, actually, a force for good. Such was the verdict of “the 1619 Project,” which polluted minds with the ahistorical libel that America’s sole purpose, from the very outset, was to enslave the Black man. Christopher Columbus went from intrepid explorer to Italian outlaw overnight.

With such an irredeemable history, might as well let the nation go to ruin. Dispense with border controls in order to de-privilege the white population. It makes no difference who these new arrivals might be, where they are going or what’s on their minds. All that matters is that they are not from Norway or Finland.

Do away with the high standards of meritocracy, that inexhaustible energy source  blaze that once made the maligned Melting Pot boil over with economic opportunity. Tolerate the stealing of COVID stimulus relief checks, “smash and grab” vandalism, cashless bail, monument defacements, and the mentally ill prowling streets. No need to verify the citizenship, or even identity, of the voting public. Defund the police, torch their precincts and squad cars. Withdraw from Afghanistan as if hosting a Black Friday sale.

Let the vast catalogue of DEI absurdities overtake universities, media, publishing, museums and corporate boardrooms. Biological men claiming to “identify”  as women are allowed to crush their “sisters” in sports competitions. Imagine if men who made no pretense of being women, but who just happened to be short and slow—and therefore hopelessly not NBA material—lobbied for entry into the WNBA. They would be laughed off the court, as they should.

The egalitarian world of racial equity makes such allowances, however. There are now equities in all things, imbalances simplified and condensed as racist in intent. When such liberties are taken with truth, virtues like “hard work,” “nuclear families” and even “calculus” are all prejudged as racist endeavors.

Math is racist? What next, bottled water?

Allow universities, government buildings, railway stations and city arteries to be hijacked by screaming hordes of masked emissaries for terrorists who torched babies and gangraped teenage girls. Let’s show the world the sides we take and the savages we root for.

Only under such perversions of inverted thinking, where moral clarity is on holiday, would the fate of Kilmar Abrego Garcia—an illegal immigrant, confirmed wife-beater and quite plausible gang member—become such an embarrassing national cause. Prepare to see him feted with the honor of throwing out the first pitch at the next Baltimore Orioles homestand.

This is the true measure of our national self-hatred—this shameless anti-American groupthink that far too many have committed to memory as a pledge of allegiance.

This is the true measure of our national self-hatred—this shameless anti-American groupthink that far too many have committed to memory as a pledge of allegiance.

It is a paean to failure. Always standing ready to defend the indefensible. In all instances, settling for less. And let outrage sing as a serenade.

Thane Rosenbaum is a novelist, essayist, law professor and Distinguished University Professor at Touro University, where he directs the Forum on Life, Culture & Society. He is the legal analyst for CBS News Radio. His most recent book is titled “Saving Free Speech … From Itself,” and his forthcoming book is titled, “Beyond Proportionality: Israel’s Just War in Gaza.”