Thoughts On Elon-ism
Analyzing the billionaire’s ideology and the anti-woke moment
Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter may be the most positive development of 2022. Banned accounts are returning, Twitter’s “Truth and Safety Council” is gone, and the tech platform’s censorship and shadow banning is being exposed. Free speech appears back in style at Twitter under Musk’s watch. Of course, not everything is perfect with the new Twitter. There are still accounts wrongly banned or getting banned. But Musk’s Twitter is obviously superior to Yoel Roth’s Twitter.
Elon himself contributes to the better atmosphere of the new Twitter. He regularly engages with right-wing ideas and dunks on journalists. With just one tweet, he can determine the discourse, whether it’s through mocking gender pronouns or interacting with the “wrong” account. Musk arguably serves as the new Donald Trump on Twitter in Trump’s absence. (Yes, it’s strange Trump refuses to tweet despite being reinstated, but that’s a whole other discussion.)
Musk’s moves makes some right-wingers wonder if he is /our guy/? From the Dissident Right’s perspective, the answer would be no. For most conservatives, the answer is probably yes. Elon espouses a particular ideology in his tweets. Call it Elon-ism.
This political view isn’t unique to him; it’s gone by different names in the past. In the 2000s, Elon would’ve been called a “South Park Republican.” In 2018, he would’ve been labeled a member of the “Intellectual Dark Web.” Last year, Elon would’ve found himself among the “Barstool conservatives.”
These terms don’t quite describe the exact same thing. South Park Republican was primarily used to categorize libertarians who didn’t like political correctness or George W. Bush. Intellectual Dark Web described extremely pompous ex-liberals who felt the Left had gone too far. Barstool conservatives evoked frat bros wanting their right to party free of diversity quotas. But the point of these terms is to describe a type of person who hates PC/wokeness but is not a social conservative.
Elonism is the best term for this sentiment now. No one has used South Park Republican in at least 10 years, IDW described a very narrow set of narcissistic personalities, and Barstool conservative is too tied to the questionable sports website. Elonism isn’t limited by these things. Musk the man embodies the anti-woke centrism espoused by these types.
Elonism doesn’t describe everything Musk believes in. Elonists don’t necessarily share their namesake’s love for China or AI. The billionaire’s view on the culture war defines it.
Musk says he is getting into politics to save civilization. The primary threat to civilization, in his opinion, is the “woke mind virus.”
Musk doesn’t define what exactly the woke mind virus, but he doesn’t really need to. Most people recognize “wokeness” as a more aggressive form of political correctness. In popular imagination, PC was just about speech police. It required you to say Native American instead of Indian and gay instead of homosexual. Most people perceive wokeness to require an affirmative belief in drag queen story hour and Black Lives Matter. It’s perceived as a more invasive problem than political correctness. But the two concepts are on the same wavelength.
People see wokeness as bad. It restricts what they can say and think. It tells their kids to change genders and apologize for being white. That’s about all they need to know about it. Ordinary people knew what political correctness meant without a solid definition. The same is true for wokeness.
Musk is not a social conservative. Tesla covers its employees going out of state to have abortions. He’s considered to be an agnostic. He advocates for “transhumanism.” He intentionally had kids out of wedlock.
Yet, right now, he is the most popular figure among conservatives
Social conservatism animated the culture war of the past. The Moral Majority and other religious groups manned the barricades against the decline of American culture. The battle over pornography, gay influence, violent media, and vulgar music had a strong religious element. There still is a religious element in our current fights, but it’s not as predominant. Musk, the great culture warrior of our time, is an agnostic who wishes Nine Inch Nails liked him as much as he likes their music. The culture warriors of the past wanted Nine Inch Nails banned and maybe would’ve protested at a non-believer owning Twitter.
The Left understands this development. The liberal New Republic published an article this week that declared: “The Anti-Woke Right Is Losing Its Religion.” The article,written by Charlotte Kilpatrick, focused on Trump rather than Elon (who’s never even mentioned). But its points apply to Elonism.
Remarkably, ever since Trump assumed office, the Republican Party has undergone a realignment that mirrors the former president’s own predispositions, in that it no longer strictly adheres to a religious worldview. When Trump announced his candidacy the multiply-divorced, pussy-grabbing New York businessman didn’t inspire his followers by preaching about attacks on Christianity or “traditional values,” as so many of his forebears had. Instead, he stirred fear of racial displacement and the need to preserve an “American” identity. MAGA wasn’t fighting a crusade against the godless; it was fighting wokeness. Instead of a culture war rooted in Bible verses, this new revival of right-wing ideology is now grounded in a secular struggle that no longer requires Jesus to play a role in the fight against progressive values.
Why this change? Because Americans, including Republicans, are becoming more secular:
One reason for this ideological shift is that Americans of both political parties are becoming less religious. A Gallup poll from March of last year revealed that 47 percent all Americans belonged to a church, synagogue, or mosque, which was down from 50 percent in 2018 and 70 percent in 1999. The decline is mostly due to an increasing number of Americans who claim no religious preference at all. The number of Americans who do not identify with any religion was 8 percent between 1998 and 2000 and grew to 21 percent by 2021. The trend can also be found within the Republican Party: Since Trump assumed office, the number of Republicans who said “to be truly American it was important to be Christian” dropped from 63 percent in 2016 to 48 percent by 2020.
Whether this is a good or bad thing is another discussion. But it’s what’s happening in our country and the culture war reflects that.
There is a major difference between Elonism and the culture war outlined by Miss Kilpatrick. Elon doesn’t touch race and identity issues. His culture war doesn’t involve immigration or anti-white racism. The Great Replacement doesn’t factor into his civilizational struggle. It’s all about free speech and an ideology that strangles it. This is less controversial than what Tucker Carlson or Donald Trump espouse. Dave Chappelle would never invite Tucker to one of his shows, but he brings Elon out on stage. Elonism appeals more to normies who quiver at accusations of racism. Think Joe Rogan listeners.
As stated before, Musk is doing good work with Twitter. It doesn’t matter if he’s our guy if he allows us to speak more freely on the internet. But there is something problematic about his anti-wokeness. Frankly, it’s without any substance. It’s a crusade without fundamental principles or a defined civilization it envisions. It can’t stand the Left and that’s it. That’s good enough for Twitter. However, it’s not good enough for a serious political movement. You have to defend something more than Dave Chappelle jokes and Aunt Jemima from the long claws of wokeness.
The bad news is that Republicans would be content with this substance-free anti-wokeness. They can do their stump speeches railing against wokeness and then return to Washington to support another black holiday. Conservative media will cheer any tough talk against wokeness–even if it means nothing at all. Republicans can sound like culture warriors by excoriating the woke but change nothing about their policy priorities. It’s just red meat to stir up the base.
Elonism could become the official GOP ideology. It would allow the party to accept the New America while retaining the base through anti-woke grandstanding. No need to talk about immigration, trade, or non-interventionism like Trump did. The new party can get back to business with only a slight change in style.
Elonism works for Twitter. But it doesn’t work for what the Right wants to achieve in politics.
This is a really good article. I have say Ron DeSantis is the standard bearer of Elonism. He commissioned those migrant flights a couple of times to own the libs but he has not done any other migrant transports anymore, while Texas has been bussing migrants everyday. He is anti - wokeness but supports 2010 liberal consensus on race, Title IX etc. It was Trump alone who challenged the liberal consensus, by directly challenging immigration and talking about identity issues.