Imagine a James Bond movie where the bad guy is a foreigner, a billionaire, who wants to be the most powerful man in the universe. He uses his billions to get the president of the United States elected, and the president sets him loose to do his dirty work- trashing the government and creating chaos, accessing secret information and personal data of every American that gives them the power to blackmail and threaten anyone they want to intimidate or control. Their goal is to get even richer and more powerful. The goal of the president is to rule as a dictator with unstoppable power and no limit on his corruption.
That’s not fiction. That’s what’s happening in our country right now.
Where in the constitution does it say that the unelected richest man in America gets to decide which programs live or die, who to hire and fire, and what contracts to revoke? “Who elected Elon Musk?” When life gives you a Bond villain, make Bond-villain lemonade. [Ed Luce at The Financial Times eviscerates Schumer in his column.]
Goldfinger comes to mind. Remember him?
Goldfinger isn’t physically imposing, but he is rich. And smart. Recall how he wipes out some of the head honchos in the US mob through a tricky gas attack? He’s also ruthless, and would step over an ally’s body to make his escape in an instant.
Hmm. Sounds familiar.
CRASH AND BURN
Trump and Musk are in a race to break as much china in the china shop as they can get away with before the courts stop them and if they do get stopped by the lower courts they think the Supremes will be on their side. Since Republicans in Congress are a bunch of spineless boot lickers for Trump, and the Democrats are out of power, Congress is not acting as a check on Trump or Musk as Musk and his crew of juvenile hackers blow up the federal government with Trump’s blessing.
Musk and his band of boys are like drunken dudes on spring break- crashing and trashing every government agency, disregarding the rule of law and established norms. They are throwing out highly trained people who understand how systems work in our government and across the globe. They are destroying precious institutional knowledge which is gained over time and helps us stay safe in a dangerous world. They are also destroying the faith our allies used to have in our country.
The goal (at least one of them) is to shrink government so that Trump can justify tax cuts for the rich that will hugely increase our debt.
Trump also seems to be trying to quiet future critics by getting offsets for some of the plunder that’s coming by limiting a tax loophole here and there and pleasing his struggling working class voters by ending taxes on tips, overtime, and social security payouts. Trump also wants to expand deductions for state and local taxes, which will be popular with many Americans.
President Trump has outlined his tax priorities to Republican lawmakers. Among them was a surprise: the so-called carried interest “loophole.”
That could mean Wall Street will have to brace for a big fight to keep one of its most cherished tax breaks.
Carried interest was one of several items Trump mentioned yesterday, according to Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary. He reiterated ideas he promoted on the campaign trail, including ending taxes on tips, overtime and Social Security payouts, as well as expanding deductions for state and local taxes.
TRUMP VOTERS ARE HAPPY… SO FAR
Many Trump voters are telling reporters that they are happy about what Trump is doing. “Great! I didn’t like big government. Burn it all down!” Trump’s approval rating is sky high at least compared to his past approvals. A new CBS News poll puts President Trump’s approval rating at 53%, which is higher than any rating the network had for Trump in his first term.
But much of the fallout from Trump and Musk’s rapid fire attack on government has not yet hit home. The number of unemployed Americans is about to surge because of the thousands of people expelled from government. People might not like it when information about growing global pandemics is no longer available on the CDC website (bird flu and measles are increasing right now); when Russia and China have rushed into countries where we had growing strategic global influence to exert their influence instead because we abandoned them by removing USAID.
Some of the fall out will not be noticeable for a long time. Researchers who were studying how to prevent diseases and ailments like Altzheimer’s, climate change research, preventing the next pandemic and much more will be abruptly stopped because the Trump government pulled the rug out from under them. This is short sighted. And it is also a violation of the contracts government entered into with universities to do this research who then contracted with researchers to do these studies. Musk and his team are engaged in massive contract violations. No wonder the courts are granting TROs (temporary restraining orders) in case after case.
Trump voters might not like it that Musk and his pee wee gang of hackers are also sticking their noses into their private business.
In recent days, officials affiliated with DOGE have visited the offices of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), according to five people with knowledge of the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private interactions. DOGE officials have also sought access to payment and contracting systems across the Department of Health and Human Services that control hundreds of billions of dollars in annual payments to health-care providers, and they appear to have gained access to at least some of those systems, the people said.
More recently, Musk and his hacking crew have gotten into the Social Security Administration and accessed your personal information.
When Elon Musk decides you don’t get Medicare or limits your Medicaid payments or decides that the Social Security fund is just out of money and too bad for you it has to be shut down, maybe Trump voters won’t be so happy that Trump got rid of our federal government. When you don’t have funding for public schools and your rural hospital closes you might not like that so much either. When FEMA is no longer available to help Americans after another so-called once in a lifetime disaster which is happening routinely now because of climate change, maybe Trump voters will be sorry they voted for him. When it is no longer safe to fly in this country because the number of air traffic controllers has been cut down to save a few bucks so the oligarchs can have more money, Trump voters might realize our federal government was important after all.
Trump is going to use the pretext of cleaning up government and reducing the workforce to justify huge tax breaks for the wealthy. That is coming, Trump voters. I want to see how you justify and excuse that when it happens. How much have you gone down the rabbit hole in support of Donald Trump as he takes a wrecking ball to our country?
Most people don’t like the government until they need it.
WHAT IS THE EXTENT OF TRUMP’S MANDATE?
Trump was elected by a margin of only 1.5 % of the voters. That’s not a mandate for this level of lawless crazy.
The American people who elected Trump expected him to fix two big things: the economic pain they felt from inflation after the pandemic and the lawlessness at the border. What Trump is doing doesn’t fix either one of these pain points for Americans.
Putting immigrants in shackles and taking them to Guantanamo doesn’t cure the problem that too many Americans cannot buy a house these days or get ahead in life. Demonizing DEI might make white dudes feel better, but it doesn’t actually make their lives any better. Tariffs on China won’t bring egg prices down or any prices down for that matter. Insisting that Canada become the 51st state or renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America won’t help Trump voters have better lives.
Americans did not elect Elon Musk to do anything and they did not elect Trump to create wall-to-wall chaos in this country and the world.
ONE NATION UNDER TRUMP
This nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth” (U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863)
We used to live in a country that was an imperfect democracy: “of the people, by the people, and for the people”. But now that Trump’s back for the another even more unleashed, bare knuckled Trump show and thanks to the Supreme Court immunity decision that blew up the fundamental constitutional rule that no man is above the law, Trump is unafraid of consequences for his current criminal acts, and we are suddenly living in a country that is of Trump, by Trump and for Trump that might actually perish from this earth.
King Trump is also getting all up in other countries’ business and telling them what to do. The king has decided he wants to take over Greenland, the Panama Canal, make Canada the 51st state, rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America and turn Gaza into the new Riviera of the Middle East.
A lot of Americans are angry and upset about the amount of chaos Trump has already caused. They want their elected representatives to speak up for them.
THE DEMS MUST REACT FASTER AND LOUDER
There’s a name for what Trump and Musk are doing. It’s called a COUP.
Or a “state capture” https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/05/opinion/elon-musk-donald-trump-government.html
As Jamie Raskin said: “What I see are all the telltale signs of a coup…Elon Musk has basically tried to take control of the country’s communications infrastructure. The governmental financial payments infrastructure. The data infrastructure. And he’s got important nodes of the military infrastructure….At this point I’m with Steve Bannon and Laura Loomer and the people on the Right who have said hey, watch Elon Musk, because he’s the guy trying to centralize all power behind him.”
THE COURTS ARE HOLDING SO FAR
What should the Democrats do? They cannot stop Trump from his “creative” excited utterances about turning Gaza into the Riviera of the Middle East
and engaging in war crimes to do it (it’s against international law to forcibly remove a people from their homeland), or keep him from stocking his cabinet with yes men, incompetents and crazies, but they need to slow him down using every trick in the book.
They should take a page from the Republicans who have been tripping up progress in our country for the last 40 years using the filibuster, cynical delay to get their rightwing judges onto the Supreme Court, and every other possible trick in the book. Our courts are currently standing up to the chaos wrought by Trump and Musk– including judges appointed by Trump, by issuing TROs and then restraining orders and excoriating the attorneys representing the government for failing to comply with the court orders.
The last barrier in a democracy under assault that can prevent autocrats from taking over that country are the courts.
Our courts are the last clear chance to put on the brakes and stop the steal. The good news is that over 55 lawsuits have been filed and so far the courts are deciding against the Trump government. On Saturday, February 8th, a federal judge halted Musk and his team from accessing the Treasury payment systems saying there was a risk of “irreparable harm.”
The order came in response to a lawsuit filed on Friday by Letitia James of New York along with 18 other Democratic state attorneys general, charging that when President Trump gave Mr. Musk the run of government computer systems, he had breached protections enshrined in the Constitution and “failed to faithfully execute the laws enacted by Congress.”
The attorneys general said the president had given “virtually unfettered access” to the federal government’s most sensitive information to young aides who work for Mr. Musk, who runs a program the administration calls the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, though it is not an actual department.
While the group was supposedly assigned to cut costs, members are “attempting to access government data to support initiatives to block federal funds from reaching certain disfavored beneficiaries,” according to the suit. Mr. Musk has publicly stated his intention to “recklessly freeze streams of federal funding without warning,” the suit said, pointing to his social media posts in recent days.
MUSK IS NOT LIKED
The most recent polling shows that Musk is not liked by the majority of Americans and his approvals are going down fast.
In the survey from Quinnipiac University, 53 percent of respondents said they are not in favor “of Elon Musk playing a prominent role in the Trump administration,” while 39 percent said they are in favor of the Tesla and SpaceX CEO playing a prominent role in the Trump administration.
CLASH OF THE TITANS IS COMING
Musk is acting like he’s the president. Trump is the president. Steve Bannon hates Musk. Is it likely that Trump will share the presidency with Musk and function as de facto co-presidents? Doubtful. Once Musk has clobbered the government and freed up more money for tax cuts for the rich, I don’t think Trump will like having a rival on the big stage. A show down may be coming once Musk has done Trump’s dirty work of slashing and burning down our government. Trump will keep Musk around to have a fall guy as he always does. That way if things go bad, Trump can say Musk went too far and he can avoid getting blamed.
WHAT CAN WE DO?
- Support every Democratic candidate running for the House of Representatives especially in tight races to get at least one part of Congress to function again as a check on Trump.
- Keep blue states blue by supporting state legislative races that could help maintain or flip state houses red to blue. That means supporting The States Project and the DLCC.
- Support key governors races like the race in Virginia where Youngkin is term limited and Abigail Spanberger is running and in New Jersey. The Democratic Governors Association is a well run organization that does a great job of that.
- Help Marc Elias keep his head above water by supporting Democracy Docket. Elias is keeping track of all the lawsuits against the Trump administration to push back on the chaos, reinstate programs, keep Musk from getting your personal information at Treasury etc.
- Keep pressure on your electeds in Congress with calls to their offices protesting the damage Trump is doing. They keep track of the numbers and use that to apply pressure.
- Take part in the peaceful protests going on around the country that are not getting enough coverage in the media. Join your local chapter of Indivisible.
- Share this post in your social media and email it to friends to spread the word.
- Above all don’t lose hope. Don’t turn off your news feed. Trump is clearly trying to make our country into a dictatorship. He has fired almost all of the government watchdogs who provide oversight to government agencies. Once Kash Patel is in charge of the FBI, Trump will pursue his “enemies” and seek vengeance with the goal of scaring everyone who would even think of crossing him. The Dept of (In)Justice, now under the control of Pam Bondi, is already going after Trump’s “enemies” by demanding the names of FBI agents who were assigned to investigate January 6th insurrectionists. The Republican Party has become a tool for Trump’s far right take over. Some legacy media is shifting to more of a propaganda news approach which normalizes the autocrat and eases his way to greater power. For example, instead of saying that what Trump/Musk are doing is illegal or a purge or part of a coup, the journalist softens the language by describing their actions as creative or disruptive or the envy of the right wing in England. Rightwing assaults on democracies have happened in other countries and some of those other countries have pushed back and regained their democracies. We could do it too. All this shock and awe is an attempt to make half of the country that didn’t choose Trump give up. If you stop caring, they win by forfeit. Don’t let them win.