The Wonderful Wizards of White People
Apparently, some people actually believe a felon with six bankruptcies and a Nazi-saluting car salesman will protect them from waste, fraud, abuse ... and Black people.
But what a fool believes he sees
no wise man has the power to reason away.
What seems to be
is always better than nothing…
Than, nothing at all— "What a Fool Believes," The Doobie Brothers
Once upon a time, an immigrant used wealth, fear and racism to become the most powerful wizard in the land.
Born into a family of wealthy wizards in a land of white supremacy, the wizard was a mediocre magician. He knew a few lines of spell-casting code but was great at convincing people he was a powerful warlock. So, he bought one of the kingdom’s largest sorcery media companies and gained control of the entire government.
As his wealth and influence grew, the citizens began questioning his powers. If he was such a wonderful wizard, why didn’t he just abracadabra all their problems away? Did he even know magic, or was he a run-of-the-mill illusionist with no moral compass? Even with their doubts, no one challenged his authority. After all, the wizard was the only one who could protect them from the wickedest witch of all:
Black people.
This story is not about Elon Musk, Donald Trump or the authoritarian fearmonger who scammed the good citizens of Oz. It’s not about wizards, witches or white people.
This story is about what fools believe.
Of all the supervillains whose legacies have been whitewashed out of the American fairytale, perhaps sherrif-turned-senator-turned-judge Julius J. DuBose is the evilest of them of all.
As a politician-turned-murderer, DuBose was more racist than the serial killer, senator and South Carolina Governor Benjamin “Pitchfork” Tillman. White supremacist traitor Wade Hampton III’s Red Shirts had nothing on DuBose’s army of racial terrorists. DuBose raped more women than Thomas Jefferson and ran a shadow government longer than Louisiana’s John McEnery.
Raised in a prominent Memphis, Tenn., family of enslavers, DuBose earned advanced degrees in racism at universities in Mississippi and Alabama. After murdering a man in Arkansas, he served in the Confederate Army and gained controlling interest in Memphis’ two most prominent newspapers — one specializing in “gossip and hyperbole.” The second had a more “commercial appeal.” As a state senator, he famously said, “I believe in the law of revenge,” which sounds cool … unless, like DuBose, the quote came from a person elected to enforce the law, write or interpret the law. Despite being elected sheriff, state senator and criminal court judge, most of DuBose’s power came from another source.
You may have heard of DuBose’s frat brother, lifelong friend and superior officer, Nathaniel Bedford Forrest. He was undoubtedly a grand wizard, but DuBose owned the media. DuBose had political power and was in “command of the land forces” of the “circle of brothers.”
Julius J. DuBose was a founding member of the Ku Klux Klan.
If you’re wondering how an alleged rapist, murderer and terrorist could become the most popular judge in the South, there’s a good reason this not-so-grand wizard was endowed with so much power.
This story is about the Department of Government Efficiency.
On Wednesday, reports surfaced that Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Grifters and Embezzlers (DOGE) has “God Mode access” access to government data that could allow him or President Donald Trump to target their political enemies.
The Atlantic reports:
At NASA, for example, it could mean access to knowledge about sensitive government technologies used for defense. At the CDC, such ability could expose millions of Americans’ health data and allow DOGE to access labs that store deadly pathogens. At Treasury, such access would allow Musk’s employees to view Americans’ names, Social Security numbers, and financial information …
At USAID and other agencies whose employees we spoke with, leaders explained that Musk’s team could copy and remove information from government servers without anybody knowing. The team could then feed this classified information into AI tools, either for training purposes or to mine the data for insights. (Members of DOGE already reportedly have put sensitive data from the Education Department into AI software.) Within USAID, DOGE has full access to human-resources information—Social Security numbers, addresses, reputational data such as performance reviews, plus classified information and disciplinary information.
Ostensibly, Trump granted Musk unfettered access to this information because he has been tasked with reducing government spending. The Washington Post points out that the billions of dollars recovered by DOGE could be passed to taxpayers in the form of dividend checks. Another report by the New York Times points out that the department’s most significant savings appears to be from a calculating error, noting that all of DOGE’s touted savings “lacked specific documentation.” In fact, the only savings that can be confirmed seem to come from the salaries of the government workers who the Trump administration fired.
What if this whole thing is just something fools believe?
There is not a single shred of confirmed evidence on the face of the earth that Donald’s Office of Giving to Elon (DOGE) is doing what it claims. There is more proof that they are incompetent. On Tuesday, DOGE’s “wall of receipts” magically disappeared “after The New York Times and other media outlets pointed out they were riddled with errors.” Even Musk acknowledges small “mistakes” like cutting ebola prevention and being unable to do math. Even if taxpayers are willing to let these Dimwits, Oligarchs and Government Extremists (DOGE) destroy public health and safety in exchange for a few hundred dollars, it doesn’t mean these Dumbasses Overthrowing Government Effectiveness (DOGE) are making the government efficient. Firing FAA workers and nuclear scientists might save money, but cleaning up after plane crashes and atomic explosions is not very efficient.
DOGE might not even exist. Trump has the authority to hire advisers like Musk. However, as ProPublica notes, if the so-called Department of Government Efficiency is a federal agency, it’s legally required to open its records to the public. If Musk is the DOGEfather, then he is subject to security clearances and financial disclosures. If it’s not a federal agency, then Musk’s Nazi Youth hacking team aren’t federal workers and have no authority to be downloading my Social Security number.
To be fair, not all of this is white people’s fault.
By reporting on DOGE employees and Musk as if they are government officials, the mainstream media is as complicit as the klansmen who protected DuBose. Under the guise of journalistic objectivity, the most respected journalism outlets continue to report on Donald Trump's “attack on DEI” — not his attack on civil rights and equal protection under the law. They cover Trump’s plan to end birthright citizenship as if it is a policy goal, not dictatorial destruction of a constitutional right. That’s why, under the guise of “free markets and personal liberty,” the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post is openly siding with capitalism and the individual right to be racist. It’s why the L.A. Times owner and actual medical doctor Patrick Soon-Shiong supports a health and human services secretary who believes in magic medicine. By mindlessly using Donald Trump’s language, the oligarchs who control the media are commanders of Trump’s ground troops. They are as concerned with objectivity as much as a raping, murdering criminal who is in charge of dispensing justice.
This is how evil men become wizards.
This is how Black people become wicked witches.
On Saturday, March 5, 1892, Judge Julius J. DuBose deputized a group of klansmen and sent them to a Black-owned grocery store to arrest three Black men who broke up a fight between a Black kid and a white boy. DuBose had already issued a written threat in his newspapers, so the men in the Black community had armed themselves. After the white guys were turned away, DuBose sent more deputies, who arrested three Black men. On Wednesday, March 9, 1892, DuBose opened the cell for a lynch mob and had reporters for his newspaper detail “the mob’s work:”
“The victims bled freely. Each of their heads was buried in a pool of blood, so deep and so copious that at dusk last evening, notwithstanding the carmine fluid had lain on on the absorbent clay and in the glaring heat of the sun all during the day, it still remained in a liquid state. About the heads and bodies of the victims were numerous small punctures in the ground that had been made by stray bullets aimed at the more animate clay.”
When Julius DuBose’s nemesis called him out, he called for a “lynching bee” and turned her into the wicked witch of the South.
A year after calling for Ida B. Wells’ lynching, DuBose was impeached from his position as a judge and banned from holding office in the state. His list of charges included:
He kept a “sweat box” at the courthouse, where he would send lawyers, jurors, and other judges who disagreed with him.
Arresting people for examining the voter rolls.
Arresting anyone who sold guns to Black citizens.
Running a house of prostitution.
Intimidating witnesses.
Raping women in his chambers.
Ordering mob lynchings.
Destroying the newspapers of his rival.
Using the klan to run his enemies out of town.
The Tennessee legislature reversed his impeachment, and DuBose was never charged with a crime. A white mob destroyed Ida B. Wells’ newspaper, and she never returned to Memphis. In 1894, the New York Times referred to the only woman brave enough to call out one of the wickedest men who ever walked the face of the earth as a “slanderous and dirty-minded mulatress.”
But this story is not about Ida B. Wells. It’s about the fools who believed two billionaires created a new government agency and filled it with a bunch of white boys who just happen to be racist — all because they are trying to make the government smaller. It’s about the people who want a man who declared bankruptcy six times to run their government like a business. It’s about the group with the lowest unemployment rate, the highest homeownership rate, five times the wealth, most of the history lessons, most of the school funding, and every measurable institutional system tilted in their favor also believing that diversity, equity and inclusion will make America unfair to white people.
They “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.”
That’s what a fool believes.
The thing that drives me crazy is that we are being ruled by the most mediocre white folks ever.
Mediocrity is having an entire system created to benefit you exclusively yet still the most miserably scared creature in the system