I want you to take a journey with me back in time, deep in the mists of history, to a time when many little dictators ruled a land and the people were controlled in virtually every aspect of their lives, and they accepted this dictatorial control willingly.

Yes, I want you to go all the way back to 2020.

This was an era when almost every single Governor, whether Democrat or Republican, used a virus that for most people was little worse than a common cold as an excuse to decide what businesses were essential and thus could remain open (with all the useless restrictions such as masking and social distancing, of course). Any business that was not favored by the powers-that-be were deemed nonessential and shut down mercilessly. These Governor-Dictators also decided when you could leave your homes and where you could go when you did (no beaches for you!).

I realize most of you aren’t old enough to remember that time, so you might ask yourself: Why did the people accept it? After all, America is the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave, is it not? Does it not have a history of resisting tyrants and being fiercely independent? So how did it happen that so many people went along with these clearly unAmerican actions?

While many things occurred in the decades leading up to Covidtide that laid the foundations for the people’s acquiescence to tyranny, the direct cause was the ability of government, both state and federal, to control the flow of information. Even though it was supposedly an era of unfettered access to media, in 2020 the Elites were able to control what information people saw to a great degree.

This control has always been a reality in traditional forms of media, such as radio and television, but what really made 2020 possible was the Elites’ control over social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. As someone who lived through 2020 (you young people wouldn’t understand), I saw firsthand how any deviance from the Official Narrative was quickly removed and the purveyor punished. Anyone who wanted to even slightly challenge the Narrative had to speak in code and carefully watch what he said. We know now that this censorship was directed by government officials through “suggestions” to social media operators (much like a Mob boss will “suggest” you pay him for “protection”). We also know that almost everything said about the virus was a lie.

This absolute control over the major social media channels allowed the Governor-Dictators to keep their grip on power, and had a significant influence on the 2020 elections as well. Without it, it’s unlikely they would have gotten away with it, at least not to the extreme they did. 

Fast-forward to today, four long years later, and things are different. Yes, the traditional media is still completely a propaganda wing of the Elites (notice how they turned a VP who was widely acknowledged just recently as an embarrassment to her own party into the Second Coming of Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, and Susan B. Anthony rolled into one). Many social media outlets like Facebook are still monitoring your posts, Comrade, to make sure you don’t fall out of line.

But there is one major difference: Twitter. Or should I say, ????.

Eccentric billionaire Elon Musk purchased Twitter in 2022 in what appeared to be a fit of pique over how Twitter was censoring accounts like the Babylon Bee. Many left-leaning pundits predicted Twitter’s demise, especially after Musk eliminated 80% of Twitter’s workforce.

Well, it’s true that Twitter died. But its successor ???? is stronger than ever. Last night ???? hosted a “Spaces” interview between Musk and Donald Trump that at last count had over 1 billion people who listened to at least parts of it. The numbers dwarf anything that State Propaganda Outlet CNN could ever dream of.

The reach of ???? has gotten so significant that the democratic face the Elites show the public has started to disappear. Hours before the Trump interview, EU Commissioner for Internal Market and Services Thierry Breton sent a threatening letter to Musk (which Breton ironically posted on ????), warning the billionaire that if the interview in his view promoted “hatred, disorder, incitement to violence, or…disinformation,” then the EU would punish ????. The reach of ???? has gotten so significant that the democratic face the Elites show the public has started to disappear.Tweet This

The response on ???? was incredible. Breton was severely ratioed and Americans in particular took affront to this obvious election interference by a foreign power (does anyone for a minute think Breton would have sent that letter if Musk were interviewing Kamala Harris?).

Musk, for his part, responded directly to Breton with an obscene meme, letting it be completely clear he wouldn’t comply.

While there’s a danger for those of us who are frequently online to exaggerate the impact of online actions in the real world, it’s hard to overstate how big a deal this is. Just a few years ago all the levers of power were in the hands of Elites who wanted to control our lives, and now, because a billionaire was fed up, there is at least one outlet where information can flow freely. (And note that Musk extended an invitation to Harris as well to come on Spaces with him. She declined.)

For years regular people have been increasingly controlled and manipulated into accepting insanities like abortion and transgenderism. And for years regular people have had no real power to resist that manipulation. But now two slightly-crazy billionaires—Donald Trump and Elon Musk—are representing those regular people and leading a resistance.

Don’t get me wrong: both Trump and Musk are not Catholic paradigms of virtue. Both have not always followed Catholic morality in their personal and professional lives. Both have policy ideas that do not conform to Catholic teaching. But both right now seem to share one thing in common: they are fed up with powerful people dictating reality for everyone else. And because they are themselves powerful people, they can actually do something concrete to fight it.

Elon Musk isn’t our savior, and he alone can’t make the world a better place. But he has done more than most to make it at least possible to resist tyranny and oppression, and for that, I say:

Thank you, Elon Musk.