OPINION:
Just like many viruses, Trump Derangement Syndrome is mutating. A recent variant is taking on added virulence. Epitomized by the words “Hands Off,” the hatred of the left for President Trump is finding a new dynamism in expressing disdain and worse for Elon Musk, the president’s designated government efficiency czar.
A spate of demonstrations, seemingly orchestrated from a single source, articulates that Mr. Musk is violating a host of laws and moral dictates in his work to reduce government waste and inefficiency. The primary focus of the opposition is not the work being performed by Musk’s DOGE team; rather, it is the notion that Mr. Musk was not elected and therefore should not be engaging in the work assigned to him by the president of the United States.
This concern is misplaced, as the history of our republic amply demonstrates. Of course, this concern is merely a subterfuge for TDS generally and the underlying desire to get rid of Mr. Trump. Nonetheless, it seems appropriate to examine the merits of the argument that Mr. Musk should not be doing the work he is doing because he is “unelected.”
More than two centuries of American governance demonstrate the inanity of the arguments regarding Mr. Musk. Many presidents, perhaps even a majority, have had a multitude of unelected and unconfirmed advisers who have played prominent, if not decisive, roles in their policymaking.
History records the prominent role played by various individuals who were either never elected or elected to posts that would not suggest a role as a presidential adviser. Marc Hanna, a senator from Ohio, acted prominently as an unconfirmed adviser to President McKinley throughout much of McKinley’s political career. He even resided in the White House for a time. For a number of years, he was the president’s eminence grise, providing wide-ranging advice that McKinley apparently took willingly.
Completely unelected was Edward House, known popularly as “Colonel House,” who served as a visible adviser and policymaker to President Wilson. He acted as a multifaceted counselor to Wilson, formulating and helping implement many of the president’s foreign policy initiatives. He also, at one time, lived in the White House. House’s role was as ubiquitous as that of Mr. Musk, and he served his president in much the same manner as Mr. Musk advises Mr. Trump, but with a principal focus on foreign rather than domestic matters.
House’s example was followed by Louis Howe, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s principal unelected adviser. Behind the scenes, Howe played a significant role in conceptualizing and implementing the New Deal (and he lived in the Lincoln Bedroom for a time). He competed with at least two other unelected Roosevelt advisers: Roosevelt’s mother and his wife.
The record is replete with evidence of the extent to which Roosevelt relied on his mother, Sara, in every aspect of his personal and political life. Eleanor Roosevelt, the first lady, made no secret of her efforts to influence her husband’s policies. In many respects, including civil rights for Black Americans, she appears to have been quite influential. Of course, as a reward for her role, she became the target of those who objected to her influence.
In recent years, the role of first ladies has grown and been accepted. There was little clamor against Michelle Obama’s evident role in President Obama’s administration. It was taken for granted that she would have that role. Few demonstrations occurred to protest the unelected first lady’s substantial influence on her husband and his policies.
This leads us to the most dramatic recent example of influence from unelected advisers, namely during the Biden administration. At the very time that we are being besieged by left-wing protests over the unelected Mr. Musk’s influence on Mr. Trump, we are also becoming increasingly aware of the undue influence of unelected advisers on President Biden.
The difference is dramatic. Mr. Trump has made no secret of Mr. Musk’s position in his administration. In the meantime, we still do not know who acted as president of the United States during the Biden administration. Even though it was clear during much of his presidency that Mr. Biden was unable to fulfill the responsibilities of the presidency, some people protesting Mr. Musk’s overt role never saw fit to protest the invisible people who were covertly running our nation.
The hypocrisy is overwhelming. People who are vociferously objecting to Mr. Trump’s selection of Mr. Musk as an important and “unelected” adviser never deemed it necessary to demand to know who was actually in charge in the White House as Mr. Biden became visibly weaker, physically and mentally, and increasingly detached from his responsibilities as our chief executive.
Interestingly, this deep-seated hypocrisy may become the very antidote to the vehement objections on the left to Mr. Musk’s role. It will evidently be difficult for Democrats and others on the left to continue their protests against Mr. Musk as more and more information emerges regarding the manner in which unidentified and unelected Biden advisers were running the nation because of Mr. Biden’s inability to do so. This is an instance where the comportment of the patient may very well provide a cure for the patient’s virus.
• Gerard Leval is a partner in the Washington office of a national law firm. He is the author of “Lobbying for Equality: Jacques Godard and the Struggle for Jewish Civil Rights during the French Revolution,” published by HUC Press.
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