Welcome to the Holodeck, Weirdos

Human identities are complex and multilayered, despite what oddities like JD Vance and The Donald think, which is why my many labels can be attached to my identity. “Eccentric,” “Disabled,” and “Adolescent/young Adult Cancer Survivor” are all applicable. However, the label I’ve worn since slightly before puberty is “Trekkie.” I was born just in time to experience the rebirth of Star Trek in the late 80’s and 90’s, so, I’ve seen almost every series.

This is relevant to our current situation, because Elon Musk interviewed Donald Trump either last night or 300 years ago, depending on your information time zone. I did not watch, because I knew what was coming down the line: Non-stop, delusional fantasies. And, based on the first five minutes of the interview, it did not disappoint. A bizarrely slurring Trump asserted that all Americans are terrified of Immigrants and that there’s a border crisis. This particular American turned off the Weirdo Rambling at that point, as this particular American lives about 50 miles (80 km) north of the border, and I only think of the border when there’s awful traffic on I-5 South on a three day weekend. And even that’s in the abstract, “Why do these people have to take a damned RV to Mexico?” sense. People coming into the country only crosses my mind when talking with my Mexican American friends and neighbors, and, frankly, I’m glad they’re here, because they’re delightful, and America needs an influx of kind, hard-working, honest people.

I’m discussing delusional oligarchs and Star Trek not only because guys like Elon Musk and Ttump are working their hardest to delay a post-scarcity utopian existence of diversity and joyful exploration, but because they’ve spent their whole lives making reality into their personal Holodeck.

Back to Trek; the franchise posits that, in the future, energy can be converted into matter, making both solid holograms and instant creation of real items from matter a reality. In the series, this technology is used to create the Holodeck — a large room in which one can live out all of their fantasies without reality infringing upon it. Even though it’s a somewhat controversial concept in fandom, it’s a useful one when descibing the ascent of the Weirdos like Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and Peter Thiel (who is a dangerous immigrant that keeps me awake at night)(it’s a cheap shot, but we can never forget the Heritage Foundation’s mantra is, “Rules for thee; not for me!”). They’re trying to make reality into their personal holodeck. The problem is, of course, that Star Trek is a fictional setting, and we exist in an objective reality that can not readily create Gilligan’s Island populated by Playboy Playmates (Hey, don’t knock my fantasies).

My question, and it explains The Weirdos so well, is, “What if you were born on a Holodeck in Trek, and were never forced to leave?” Because that is the unmedicated true reality of the Weirdos’ hostile relationship with reality, which, based on those insane first five minutes, suggests that neither men are aware of a reality beyond the Holodeck they’ve built for themselves. Stick with me, because, again, we’re talking about a reality-distortion field that turns “lies” into “alternate facts.” There aren’t many times I miss being in high school, but the opportunity to harangue my teachers about “Alternate correct answers” is definitely one. But that’s just the level of delusion and privilege these twits inhabit.

Donald Trump’s father, Fred Trump Sr., was an actual, literal millionaire, unlike his son. His niece, Mary Trump, has literally written a book about how Freddie’s abusive, dysfunctional relationship with his family gave The Donald carte blanche with the family resources. Here’s where we have to return to objective reality, and our normal childhood experiences. Young children are deeply delusional. That’s not an attack on kids, it’s a basic truth; they simply haven’t had enough time here to realize that being an astronaut isn’t a likely goal. And it’s delightful and charming, because it represents a mind that hasn’t been broken and rebuilt around a broken world. That latter mindset is what everyone outside of the Holodeck experiences — when I was 4, I wanted to be a zookeeper-paleontologist-ninja. I knew, by second grade, that career path wasn’t viable, and I should dream about being an astronaut or musician. Both of which were still somewhat delusional goals, but, my point is, by the age of 7, most humans can begin distinguishing between internal fantasies and objective reality. Trump and the weirdos never had reality encroach on their fantasies like that. Trump got to to be whatever he wanted, in the moment, because he had an army of assistants and personnel working overtime to reshape reality so that it didn’t penetrate the Holodeck. Elon Musk may lie about working for days on-end (he played Solitaire on his computer; we’ve all done it), but his dream was always to be so insanely rich that consequences were completely detached from his actions, and his comfortably upper-middle class life in South Africa might not have created the same “delusional fantasies can now be entertained by overpaid nannies” childhood that Trump clearly had, but he was almost entirely sheltered from the sort of social and economic upheavals that South Africa experienced as formal Apartheid ended. It depends on how removed from reality one wishes to view gated, guarded suburban communities are from reality (pretty fuckin’ far, if they’re anything like gated communities in the US).

If the interview on Twitter was any indication, Musk has just recently returned to Earth from a decades-long vacation on Mars, far, far away from anyone talking about how Twitter lost $20 billion in market capitalization since 2021. Part of the perks of this level of privilege is that the underlings can figure out how to pay themselves after they heap you with lavish praise.

When these insane weirdos leave the holodeck for, say, a dinner with Miriam Adelson; everyone immediately recognizes them as creepy and weird, because they never had to develop anything like a personality or personal principles and morality. Even for the sturdiest, most-curmudgeonly, misanthropic introverts like myself, the truth is that humans are an innately social species. I could’ve probably spent my entire childhood in a library, if left to my own devices, but, because I wasn’t in the Holodeck o’ Privilege, I had to leave for school or when it closed. I didn’t have an army of nannies and builders who could’ve turned my childhood home into a vast personal library. So, I had to become something more than a four-year-old future ninja-explorer, simply to continue to interact with the librarians. Outside of the Holodeck, humans are not required to interact with you, so, personality and some sort of basic impulse control must be developed simply as a survival strategy so the other kids will play with you. Donald Trump and Elon Musk never had to go through that process, I promise you, which is why they are so unrelentingly and aggressively creepy. They’re uniquely uncharismatic and boring, because they’ve never had to persuade or cajole friends to try a new video game. They have never had friends, only close employees or colleagues, all of whom were literally paid to be in the same zipcode as the Weirdos. Everyone who has the option not to interact with them doesn’t. JD Vance represents what happens when that weird, creepy kid from Sixth Grade Homeroom doesn’t have money to pave a new, alternate reality, but he wants it as an about-to-be-divorced man. Seriously, how awful must one be to think that, “I know she’s not white, but I love her” is anything but a back-handed compliment, at best?

And this is where we start the dark turn toward Project 2025, and the impending dangers of authoritarianism, because losers like Trump and Musk have decided that it’s better to completely upend society and force everyone in it into some bizarre form of feudal peasantry and/or servitude in service of their insane delusions before seeing a therapist. That would literally be all it took — some antideppressants, a stint in substance abuse rehab, and a personality transplant — to make them tolerable in the line at a supermarket. They have no desire to be someone you’d actually enjoy talking to, so their current plan — based on the information available to me — is to launch the nukes, bunker down in the Holodeck, and then, when the radioactivity and lynch mobs have dispersed, emerge from the Holodeck to rebuild. It’s a completely insane, unrealistic plan, but, again, these weirdos have never, ever experienced anything close to reality. And they’re working hard to ensure they never do. They’re happy to bulldoze you and yours to pave way for their Holodeck expansion, though.