Author: Tom Sullivan

Implement a political version of Malwarebytes

Musk is the living embodiment of AI: a broken, tech-bro tool that inserts itself into everyone’s life unsolicited and makes everything worse. — Alex Winter

Donald Trump is acting like he’s a king the way he fooled the the New York Times (1976) into thinking he was a successful developer. The way he pretended to be a successful businessman on TV. It was a con job then. It’s a con job now.

Before we go any further, let’s review Ezra Klein’s “Don’t Believe Him” commentary from the other day on Donald Trump’s efforts to snow people into allowing him to act like a king despite the real limitations of presidential power. Like every move in Trump’s life, it’s a “fake it till you make it” put on. I had not seen the video version until last night and found it a useful tonic. Consider watching it a “take a deep breath” act of self care.

Take thirteen minutes, or bookmark this for later. This is from @ezraklein, taken from The Ezra Klein Show podcast. It explains precisely what this administration is doing and why it is essential to keep focus and not play into it.#DemsUnited #DemVoice1 pic.twitter.com/1AY2l0uIm1

— Izzy Ⓜ️Ⓜ️ 🇺🇸🦅 (@1zzyzyx1) February 4, 2025

Now then, despite Alex Winter’s pithy observations about tech-bro emotional brokenness and Paul Rosenberg’s “The intelligence is artificial. The stupidity is real,” the damage Elon Musk is doing in D.C. is also real. “Any pretense of public service has been abandoned,” writes Matt Ford at The New Republic. Musk is malware. Our goal now must be to implement a political version of Malwarebytes.

We took concerned calls over the weekend at our local headquarters asking where were congressional Democrats at the end of last week when Musk raided USAID, etc.? Short answer: at home in their districts. DNC members were in a scheduled multi-day meeting electing new leaders. That was the point of Musk’s timing. The “opposition,” as he calls them were unavailable.

Since returning to D.C. , however, Democrats have begun to rally. And to hold rallies:

We are at the US Treasury Department standing with our allies DEMANDING that tech oligarchs stay the hell away from essential programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid!

— Social Security Works (@socialsecurityworks.org) 2025-02-04T22:08:26.200Z

Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii announced a hold on all Trump nominees until Musk’s attacks on USAID, a vital tool for projecting U.S. soft power, are reversed.

Schatz organized an effort to stall Senate approval of Project 2025 kingpin Russell Vought:

At least three dozen Democratic senators will take part in a 30-hour talkathon to show they are fighting to stop Vought, a key author of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s far-right policy blueprint for Trump’s second term. Project 2025 calls for drastic cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. It also calls for a freeze on all federal grants, something Trump tried to impose last week but had to rescind because it sure looked illegal and left countless federal programs in disarray.

Update: We’re halfway through the night. I’m taking the 1am shift. Tune in. pic.twitter.com/LnXuIgSFBj

— Senator Brian Schatz (@SenBrianSchatz) February 6, 2025

Some friends were skeptical of the 50 states rallies held on Wednesday (they came out of nowhere and sparked concerns about false-flags), but they seem to have arisen organically like the George Floyd protests. And they took off around the nation.

50 states. 1 day. Thousands rally at state capitals & federal offices opposing Project 2025 & recent exec orders. Issues: USAID cuts, immigration, reproductive rights. Live updates from Peace Monument DC ↗️ www.usatoday.com/story/news/n… #50501Movement

— JenRemsik (@jenremsik.bsky.social) 2025-02-05T17:41:03.174Z

St. Paul, Minn., resist. It was so great to see love for humanity alongside disgust for foolish and dangerous leadership. #50501

— Glenn Hansen (@hansenhousecomm.bsky.social) 2025-02-05T23:04:36.902Z

TODAY: At least 100 people are rallying at the Ohio Statehouse to protest against President Donald Trump & Project 2025. This is part of the nationwide ‘50501 Movement,’ whose organizers say they oppose fascism & Trump’s executive orders and policies.@ohiocapitaljournal.com

— Morgan Trau (@morgantrau.bsky.social) 2025-02-05T21:25:21.154Z

Protestors have gathered outside of the Indianapolis Statehouse as part of the “50 States” anti-Trump protest. #hoosiersky #news #indy #indianapolis

— Noe Padilla (@noepadilla.bsky.social) 2025-02-05T17:28:10.501Z

Some early scenes from the 50 States 50 Marches rally in Springfield, IL on Wednesday

— Alex Degman (@alexdegman.bsky.social) 2025-02-05T18:29:13.267Z

"Between 200 to 300 people rallied at the 50 States, 50 Protests, 1 Day rally on the steps of Kentucky's State Capitol in Frankfort Wednesday, Feb 5, 2025 to call for action to reign in President Donald Trump's executive actions since he (was) re-elected to office." – Matt Stone/Courier Journal

— My Friend Kaylen (@myfriendkaylen.bsky.social) 2025-02-05T21:28:01.414Z

Don’t get mad. Get busy.

(h/t AL)

In an age of renewed great-power competition

Democrats play for Team USA. Republicans won’t even play for their home team.

Elon Musk and his Elonjungen busted into USAID headquarters last week and illegally shuttered the foreign aid agency that for 60 years has been a key instument for projecting U.S. soft power in the world. He found and posted a list of small-dollar grants supporting mainly diversity-related projects he declared “waste and abuse,” lefty boondoggles proving that USAID had to die. The cited items amount to not even a fraction of a percent of the agency’s $40 billion budget.

On that basis, the unelected Musk declared the agency “a criminal organization” and shuttered its operations around the world.

How many quirky, objectionable line items might be found among the Pentagon’s $800 billion budget? (The public budget, that is, not the “black budget.”) A similar fraction? Similar enough and thus substantially more in dollar sums that means the Pentagon has to die?

Has anyone looked? Just asking. When was the last time the Pentagon passed an audit? Oh, never.

Politco suggests Democrats are walking into a trap by defending USAID from Musk’s predations. Foreign aid being one of taxpayers’ least favorite budget expenditures. But they needen’t defend the few projects Musk pulled out as public embarrassments. What they need to defend is the projection of U.S. soft power in an age of increasing great-power competition:

Republicans had long been proponents of exerting “soft power” — winning global hearts and minds by feeding the hungry, fostering emerging economies and getting vaccines to the most vulnerable populations. China, notably, stands ready to fill the void.

But Republicans as we knew them are extinct. They won’t care that strongmen around the world cheer the dismantling of USAID because they see it as a threat. What were once Republicans now play for Team Autocrat.

Democrats play for Team USA.

Depending on the breaks

A bit over six months ago, President Biden’s June 27 debate with Donald Trump went badly for him. Embarrassingly badly. He looked old, frail. He lost his train of thought. How long had his staff been covering for him? Everyone wanted to know. It was its own mini scandal and led to Biden dropping out of the race a few weeks later. The country elected Donald Trump instead in November.

Then Trump on Tuesday declared in a press conference that the United States would ethnically cleanse 1.8 million Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, take “a long-term ownership position” there, and develop the beachfront into a series of Trump-branded resorts. (Trump’s ownership stake was implied.)

“Everybody I’ve spoken to [inside his demented head] loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land” and developing it, Trump told a roomful of reporters. It would create thousands of new jobs and be “magnificent,” Trump continued. “The Riviera of the Middle East.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel praised Trump’s “willingness to think outside the box,” reports Peter Baker of the New York Times. 

Not one reporter jumped up and asked the obvious question. “Mr. President, are you out of your fucking mind?”

Al Jazeera has a flood of reaction from the people Trump means to relocate. “Ridiculous and absurd,” “a serious violation of international law,” “a dangerous escalation,” and a raft of carefully worded no-comments from allies and condemnation from adversaries. A UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory called Trump’s proposal “unlawful, immoral and completely irresponsible.”

A MAGA Republican would respond, “And your point is?”

Christian nationalists will start packing for the Rapture.

Don’t hold your breath waiting for Trump’s inner circle to give the 25th Amendment a test drive. They are as unbalanced as their boss. Trump put a reported alcoholic Christian nationalist in charge of the Pentagon, nominated a wild-eyed conspiracy theorist to run the FBI, a suspected Russian asset for national security director, and a worm-addled vaccine skeptic to run the Department of Health and Human Services.

Don’t expect anyone to hound Republicans to ask how long they’ve been covering for a madman.

And don’t expect Republican leaders in Congress to stroll down to the White House and insist Trump resign. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a physician, voted Tuesday to advance RFK Jr.’s nomination out of committee.

Oh, and Trump would send U.S. troops to backstop his beachfront development project. How many are willing to give their lives in a criminal effort to develop Trump’s next golf resort?

My mind this morning is swimming with scenes of comic fictional madmen. Esposito from Bananas insisting everyone change their underwear every half-hour; General Turgidson from Dr. Strangelove guaranteeing that winning a nuclear war wouldn’t kill more than ten to twenty million Americans, tops; General Garcia from The In-Laws talking to his hand puppet, Señor Pepe, and showing off his black velvet art collection; or Firesign Theater’s general claiming the fried eggs on his plate are flying saucers. At least in the last example, an aide has the presence to ask, “Ah, sir? Are you nuts?”

Not one reporter did yesterday.

Trump Gaza Resorts. They’ll be magnificent. Buy now. Get in on the subterranean floor.

That image invokes another Firesign bit. “This is a line of Indians leaving Rancho Malario. To make room for you! Here’s the beautiful Trail of Tears Golf Course…”

This is what happens when I’m offline for an hour.

Survival tips for Trump 2.0

“Hard not to feel like we’re all losing our minds when it’s just plain as day that what Musk is doing is obviously, flagrantly illegal,” writes Chris Hayes on Threads.

So, self care is going to be important especially for the near future. There’s a lot to take in. Others have already tuned out. But I have enough Irish on both sides that my attitude comes from the old joke, “Is this a private fight, or can anyone join?” Tuning out is not an option. That way lies helplessness, and I loathe feeling helpless. Action is the antidote.

Europeans accustomed to taking advice from the U.S. have some for their American friends facing an authoritarian regime. Watch for all those little changes that amount to big changes:

“I never liked the metaphor of the frog in a slowly boiling water, but it applies very well to our situation,” Srđan Cvijić at the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy said. “One decision at a time, our regime has stripped Serbia of its democratic system. It didn’t come overnight. First they captured the media, then the judiciary, then other independent institutions, then they started rigging the elections, and finally they are trying to strip us of the right to freedom of assembly.

“So my advice to Americans is never relax, always be on guard, democracy is not given, not even in the land of the free,” Cvijić said. “Things can go backwards, you have to fight daily for your rights, otherwise someone will take them away from you.

“The most important thing to defend is solidarity and human decency,” Cvijić added. “Do not allow the enemies of democracy to lower your own standards of political behaviour.”

Márta Pardavi, the co-chair of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, has related advice:

Pardavi said it was important to dodge the trap of mirroring the political tactics of those in power.

“Avoid siege mentality that, even inadvertently, fuels polarisation. Polarisation undermines trust in public institutions such as the media and the courts,” she said.

“The lower the level of public trust in these institutions, the easier it becomes to capture them. Strive to strengthen institutions by strengthening public trust in them. In turn, ensure these democratic institutions are deserving of this public trust by performing their duties fairly and effectively. Hold them to account.”

My advice for those who have ears to hear is the Europeans’.

The common message from Europe’s pro-democracy activists was to keep fighting.

Pavel Slunkin, a former diplomat from Belarus, said: “The worst thing that Americans could do now is to stay out of politics.”

I know and hate it: Democrats have been really, really slow out of the blocks. But there is movement. Talk is cheap. Action is better. Even if it’s just leaving a voice message with your representatives, filling out an online response form or sending an efax. To Republicans and Democrats. Regularly. Not one and done.

Brian Stelter sums up advice from AOC’s livestream last night:

While the right delights in hearing about the chaos, the left is trying to organize resistance. “If you are watching the news right now, and feeling overwhelmed by the constant headlines and developments… first of all, know that you are not alone,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on an Instagram Live last night. And second, “this is exactly what this administration is trying to get you to feel.” She said “the paralysis and shock that you feel right now is the point. They are trying to induce a state of passivity among the general public.”

Her video lays out the master plan behind Musk-Trump’s individual actions. If you have the time, her suggestions are deep into her video. Trumpists want to divide and conquer? Two can play that.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@aoc)

If you live in a community with a lot of immigrants: Know your rights. (Chicago prepared residents for immigration raids, and when ICE showed up, people told them no.)

If Muskco offers you (federal worker) a “buyout,” don’t accept. Make them make you. Do not comply in advance.

Work with community organizing groups. “We need to be little grains of sand” in the authortarians’ gears. Slow them down and you’ll reduce the damage they can do.

Show up for special elections that impact you (like Elise Stefanik’s open NY seat). Even if Democrats lose, make Republicans lose by more.

Democrats are finally emerging from their stupor after a delayed response. Part of that, AOC explains, is because Trump waited to launch the “shit show” until Congress went out of session and members went home to their districts.

She recommends using every single procedural action to slow down action on Trump nominees in the Senate. “Block every damn thing that we can” while all this Muskish firestarting continues.

Tell your Democratic senator not to vote for Trump’s nominees. Do not assume they will because there is a D behind their names.

Adam Kinzinger offers simple advice for returning MOCs. Actions, not talk.

this is good idea. the issues here is certain things drive news. they're kinetic. stuff like this does that. press releases and statements don't. the goal for an opposition in a case like this has to be to raise salience. this among many other things does that. https://t.co/qMsLyKQ6Eo

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) February 3, 2025

“Lock in and make the choice,” advises AOC. “This will be a long battle but we will win.”

He’s a wholly owned subsidiary of Musk Industries

“Calling Musk the ‘shadow president’ may be underselling the severity of the situation,” writes Amanda Marcotte this morning at Salon. 

Indeed.

Elon Musk and his youthfoul band of arsonists are gleefully burning every agency in Washington they can force their way into. It’s a hostile takeover of the United States happening in full view of the world. It’s also happening in full view of Democrats down the street just now waking up and smelling the accelerants.

Donald is in the Oval Office sharpie-signing whatever executive orders underlings drafted for him to sign and show off for the cameras like a child’s finger-painting. Donald loves signing things. (Except checks to porn stars.) Does he know what’s in them or is he too far into deepening dementia to care?

But while Donald is busily sharpie-signing, Elon Musk, another overaged adolescent, is running about unsupervised. It seems the White House doesn’t really know what he’s doing with the government Trump was elected to run into the ground.

The New York Times has published an unusually blunt account of Musk’s blitz through executive agencies, including his “efforts to shut down U.S.A.I.D., a key source of foreign assistance.” That move has “reverberated around the globe” (unlocked article):

Mr. Musk, the world’s richest man, is sweeping through the federal government as a singular force, creating major upheaval as he looks to put an ideological stamp on the bureaucracy and rid the system of those who he and the president deride as “the deep state.”

The rapid moves by Mr. Musk, who has a multitude of financial interests before the government, have represented an extraordinary flexing of power by a private individual.

The speed and scale have shocked civil servants, who have been frantically exchanging information on encrypted chats, trying to discern what is unfolding.

Senior White House staff members have at times also found themselves in the dark, according to two officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive discussions. One Trump official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said Mr. Musk was widely seen as operating with a level of autonomy that almost no one can control.

Trump was once the Frankenstein monster running amuck through D.C. But now that he’s loosed Musk on the city, the South African immigrant is stealing his thunder. A fidgety Trump is unable to deploy his signature power moves to reel him back. He’s reduced to explaining him away.

“He’s a big cost-cutter,” Mr. Trump told reporters on Sunday. “Sometimes we won’t agree with it and we’ll not go where he wants to go. But I think he’s doing a great job. He’s a smart guy.”

[…]

Mr. Trump himself sounded a notably cautionary note on Monday, telling reporters: “Elon can’t do and won’t do anything without our approval. And we’ll give him the approval where appropriate, where not appropriate, we won’t.”

What Trump cannot bring himself to concede (like 2020) is that his presidency is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Musk Industries. Musk has far more money, impossibly more than Trump, a man who measures his manhood by it. James Taylor sang that back when Trump was snowing Times reporters into believing his daddy’s buildings were his own. It’s not often Trump gets up-staged. In spite of holding the presidency, Trump has failed to dominate a man whose stack is so much bigger. And for the richest man in the world, the world is not enough.

President Felonious is not the only one with a mouth agape at the American carnage Musk is wreaking in the nation’s capitol:

There is no precedent for a government official to have Mr. Musk’s scale of conflicts of interest, which include domestic holdings and foreign connections such as business relationships in China. And there is no precedent for someone who is not a full-time employee to have such ability to reshape the federal work force.

The historian Douglas Brinkley described Mr. Musk as a “lone ranger” with limitless running room. He noted that the billionaire was operating “beyond scrutiny,” saying: “There is not one single entity holding Musk accountable. It’s a harbinger of the destruction of our basic institutions.”

Several former and current senior government officials — even those who like what he is doing — expressed a sense of helplessness about how to handle Mr. Musk’s level of unaccountability. At one point after another, Trump officials have generally relented rather than try to slow him down. Some hoped Congress would choose to reassert itself.

While officials and electeds wait for someone else to stop him, “Musk is crowdsourcing ideas of what he should unilaterally cut from the absolute worst people on the internet,” Marcotte writes:

The first target of Musk’s illegal campaign to cut programs that Congress has authorized money for is USAID, a program started by President John F. Kennedy that administers foreign aid and development assistance. The program has long been embraced by both parties, with Democrats supporting its charitable aims and Republicans more interested in how it buys goodwill that keeps the U.S. as the top international power. Shutting it down would also undermine Trump’s efforts to reduce immigration from places like Central America, by increasing the poverty and desperation that drives migration. But Musk doesn’t care about the law or the disastrous effects. He’s too busy trying to please his minions on X, especially the ones with nice things to say about Adolph Hitler. 

[…]

Musk’s baby-faced boy army is just an especially galling example of how the billionaire believes random know-nothing right-wingers should usurp the authority of elected representatives. Their youth is alarming not because they lack experience — which will thankfully make it harder for them to figure out how to execute Musk’s supervillain-style plans — but because of what it suggests about Musk’s strategy. Young people tend to be more naive and are probably starstruck by their celebrity boss. Such people are easier to lure into committing direct crimes, so they incur legal liability instead of Musk. It’s easy to see how young men, drunk on memeified far-right politics and the cloak-and-dagger excitement of hacking into government offices, might not see how they’re taking serious risks with their futures by playing illegal games. 

They won’t. The Musk-Trump administration has eliminated the FBI’s leadership and means to install fangirl Pam Bondi to head what Trump derides as the Department of Injustice. Bondi will redefine “selective enforcement.” Meaning illegal is what Trump says it is now that the Roberts court has effectively indemnified him.

For his part, Musk is living his supervillain dream. All that’s missing is him smugly laying out his evil plan before its denouement. But those Bond set-pieces only occur in the presence of heroes prepared to stop them. So far, heroes are in short supply.

Here we go

JV Last at the Bulwark provides a handy guide to what’s happening this morning in the financial markets. The question is will the drop stay below 7 percent? The Dow plunged over 600 points right out of the gate.

Donald Trump just launched the “dumbest trade war in history.” Thus saith the Wall Street Journal. While people are screaming for more affordable housing, Trump dramatically increased the price of lumber out of Canada just ahead of the spring building season.

That’s on top of the “five-alarm fire” Trump started in firing inspectors general and FBI agensts from coast to coast. Oh, and Mr. America First allowing Elon Musk to shut down USAID:

In Washington, USAID’s headquarters was closed for the day, with employees told in an email to remain at home.

Logos and photos of its aid work have been stripped from building walls. And its website and social media accounts have gone dark, replaced with a reduced version of its webpage on the State Department’s website.

There is security information in USAID files now in the hands of Musk’s junior firestarters between the ages of 19 and 24 (Wired):

On Sunday, CNN reported that DOGE personnel attempted to improperly access classified information and security systems at the US Agency for International Development and that top USAID security officials who thwarted the attempt were subsequently put on leave. The Associated Press reported that DOGE personnel had indeed accessed classified material.

“What we’re seeing is unprecedented in that you have these actors who are not really public officials gaining access to the most sensitive data in government,” says Don Moynihan, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan. “We really have very little eyes on what’s going on. Congress has no ability to really intervene and monitor what’s happening because these aren’t really accountable public officials. So this feels like a hostile takeover of the machinery of governments by the richest man in the world.”

Don’t be intimidated into inaction

Washington Post:

Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) wrote on X on Friday that any move to dissolve USAID would be illegal. In a joint letter Friday, Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-New Hampshire) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Reps. Gregory W. Meeks (D-New York) and Lois Frankel (D-Florida) wrote that the freeze jeopardized energy assistance for Ukraine and helped American adversaries like Russia and China.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced an exemption for “life-saving” programs like PEPFAR, but aid officials said other projects remain in limbo and are at risk of shuttering if the funding freeze continues, The Post reported Saturday.

That day, USAID’s website was taken down.

Listen. If there’s no pushback, they will keep going.

Here’s a recommendation worth pursuing. Let your members of Congress know what you think of Musk closing USAID and handing security information to, in one case at least, a kid just out of high school.

UPDATE: I just hit up both my senators both by social media and Tillis by e-fax. Go and do likewise.

When the snake oil bites….

Trump is counting on you to be one of his rubes. Fans of Trumpism, even its operators, are going to feel its impacts very, very soon. Oh, and all y’all as well.

Wow, that was fast. Irving Energy, company that provides propane/fuel oil customers in New England, says it will pass on the full 10% tariff cost to all their customers immediately(reposting with fixed figure – meant to say 10%, not 30%)

— Catherine Rampell (@crampell.bsky.social) 2025-02-03T01:48:15.805Z

The snake behind the oil is about to bite.

Yale Budget Lab estimates that tariffs will cost average US household $1,000-$1,200 in lost purchasing power budgetlab.yale.edu/sites/defaul…

— Catherine Rampell (@crampell.bsky.social) 2025-02-03T02:13:55.718Z

CNN:

Just about everyone thought it was a bluff. Top analysts from the biggest banks on Wall Street said it was highly unlikely. Stocks were trading like it wouldn’t happen. Some companies built contingency plans, but they weren’t exactly rushing to make changes.

But the tariffs are coming — in full force. President Donald Trump announced Saturday that a massive 25% tariff on all goods from Mexico and most imports from Canada will go into effect Tuesday. An additional 10% tariff on Chinese goods will be enacted the same day.

Trump in a message posted on Truth Social Sunday said, “We don’t need anything they have. We have unlimited Energy, should make our own Cars, and have more Lumber than we can ever use.” But America’s supply chains are reliant on its trading partners, and even for goods that could be grown or produced exclusively in the United States, the complex web of interconnected global trade cannot easily be unwound.

So the additional costs on foreign-made goods will be paid by American importers, who typically pass those costs onto retailers, who pass them onto inflation-weary consumers. That means prices will rise — although, for most items, not immediately. Businesses’ profits will be squeezed as they bear the cost burden of the tariffs or pay to adjust their carefully constructed and at times inflexible supply chains.

That’s why stocks on Monday were set to tumble. Dow futures were more than 600 points, or 1.3% lower. S&P 500 futures sank 1.5% and Nasdaq futures were 1.7% lower.

What a ride, huh?

Brace for it. Trumpism is going to wear thin in 3, 2, 1.

Bitcoin getting absolutely destroyed.

— George Pearkes (@peark.es) 2025-02-03T01:55:06.316Z

Now then, the first principle of opposing Trump 2.0 is, as Anat Shenker-Osorio might say, “Don’t Buy It.”

The smallness of Trump’s soul

Ezra Klein adds a corollary to Timothy Snyder’s “Do not obey in advance.” To wit, “Don’t believe him.”

In that famous Glengarry Glen Ross scene, Alec Baldwin berates his salesmen with the ABCs: Always Be Closing. That’s Donald Trump. He’s always marketing. Don’t be snowed by the bullshit, Klein suggests. It’s more marketing than reality. What he says he’s doing and what he can actually do are two different things. That is, unless you buy in (gift link):

Trump knows the power of marketing. If you make people believe something is true, you make it likelier that it becomes true. Trump clawed his way back to great wealth by playing a fearsome billionaire on TV; he remade himself as a winner by refusing to admit he had ever lost. The American presidency is a limited office. But Trump has never wanted to be president, at least not as defined in Article II of the U.S. Constitution. He has always wanted to be king. His plan this time is to first play king on TV. If we believe he is already king, we will be likelier to let him govern as a king.

Don’t believe him. Trump has real powers — but they are the powers of the presidency. The pardon power is vast and unrestricted, and so he could pardon the Jan. 6 rioters. Federal security protection is under the discretion of the executive branch, and so he could remove it from Anthony Fauci and Mike Pompeo and John Bolton and Mark Milley and even Brian Hook, a largely unknown former State Department official under threat from Iran who donated time to Trump’s transition team. It was an act of astonishing cruelty and callousness from a man who nearly died by an assassin’s bullet — as much as anything ever has been, this, to me, was an X-ray of the smallness of Trump’s soul — but it was an act that was within his power.

Like the wizard in Oz, Trump’s power lies in convincing you with a sound-and-light show that he is all-powerful. It’s an illusion. It obscures the reality that, as with his tariffs declaration, Trump “keeps stepping on rakes.”

But the president cannot rewrite the Constitution. Within days, the birthright citizenship order was frozen by a judge — a Reagan appointee — who told Trump’s lawyers, “I have difficulty understanding how a member of the bar would state unequivocally that this is a constitutional order. It just boggles my mind.” A judge froze the spending freeze before it was even scheduled to go into effect, and shortly thereafter, the Trump administration rescinded the order, in part to avoid the court case.

Trump and his accomplices will defy the courts and break the laws only so long as the public lets them. We’ll see how many are cowed into submission once the market opens today at 9:30 a.m.

Meantime, like the prophets of Baal, powerless franchisees like Mike Flynn perform their Trumpy medicine shows on their god’s behalf. They cry aloud and cut themselves until bloody (1 Kings 18) to no effect. It’s a show. Loud and wild-eyed, but only that.

Smells like Team Dispirit.

Elon is now your boss

Donald — Donny — let’s talk.

Elon Musk is far richer than you. You don’t like being reminded, and on some level it must gnaw at you. As insecure as you are, hanging out with men far richer than yourself must make you feel as lucky as a poor person who wins the lottery. But have you noticed that this guy who didn’t win a single state is taking advantage of you?

What’s happening behind your back is already described as the Musk junta.

“Americans don’t know the full extent of what Elon Musk is doing as he embeds alongside President Donald Trump at the top of the federal government,” says CNN. Do you?

You won the presidency, and now Musk is the shadow president. He’s taken control of the U.S. Treasury, your U.S. Treasury. He’s firing officials. You made your name as the “You’re fired!” guy. Elon is stealing your moves.

Lutheran Social Services is one of the largest employers in South Dakota, operating senior living facilities across the state. Republicans are shutting it down Perhaps more concerning is Mike Flynn, known foreign asset, having access to this data?

— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog.lol) 2025-02-02T14:10:03.623Z

Radley Balko comments, “What the hell is happening? How is Elon Musk unilaterally deciding what are and are not ‘illegal’ payments? Why the [hell?] is Mike Flynn getting access to this information? How many laws were broken in this exchange?”

Sure, breaking laws gives you a thrill in your nether regions. But Donny, the unitary executive theory is yours. And you’re letting Elon make decisions unilaterally?

Remember how pissed you got at Chris Christie and Steve Bannon in 2016 when you found out they were hiring staff for your transition? As reported, you said, “You’re stealing my money! You’re stealing my fucking money! What the fuck is this?” You demanded they shut it down.

Well, sir, Elon Musk is stealing your presidency. What are you going to do about it, big guy?

The vandals took the handles

For an ironic laugh as Musk-Trump lackeys burn the Constitution, steal government data (yours included), and take an axe to everything they can’t burn, check out the Musk burble above about restoring “power to the PEOPLE.” If you believe that, Donald Trump has some crypto coin to sell you.

Heather Coxe Richardson writes:

Throughout now-president Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign, it was clear that his support was coming from three very different factions whose only shared ideology was a determination to destroy the federal government. Now we are watching them do it.

The group that serves President Donald Trump is gutting the government both to get revenge against those who tried to hold him accountable before the law and to make sure he and his cronies will never again have to worry about legality.

Those three allied groups are Trump’s fanatical loyalists, “the MAGA crew that embraces Project 2025,” and finally techbros led by Elon Musk. The flying monkeys of Musk’s DOGE have set about firing large numbers of departmental officials and civil servants, the people who not only operate governmental machinery but know how to. Their actions are likely illegal, but then they don’t know what the law is, nor do they care.

“Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, fucked up Medicaid for everyone in the country.”

Now that they have they keys, they are promptly driving the United States into a ditch, making sure there’s no one left to stop them. The arsonists fired the fire department, then set about breaking into Fort Knox:

But then, yesterday, Elon Musk forced the resignation of David A. Lebryk, the highest-ranking career official at the Treasury Department. Lebryk had been at Treasury since 1989 and had risen to become the person in charge of the U.S. government payment system that disburses about $6 trillion a year through Social Security benefits, Medicare, Medicaid, contracts, grants, salaries for federal government workers, tax refunds, and so on, essentially managing the nation’s checkbook.

According to Jeff Stein, Isaac Arnsdorf, and Jacqueline Alemany of the Washington Post, Musk’s team wanted access to the payment system. Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) demanded answers from Trump’s new Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, warning that “these payment systems simply cannot fail, and any politically-motivated meddling in them risks severe damage to our country and the economy. I am deeply concerned that following the federal grant and loan freeze earlier this week, these officials associated with Musk may have intended to access these payment systems to illegally withhold payments to any number of programs. I can think of no good reason why political operators who have demonstrated a blatant disregard for the law would need access to these sensitive, mission-critical systems.”

Now, though, with Musk’s people at the computers that control the nation’s payment system, they can simply stop whatever payments they want to.

For those who’ve watched the “Silo” series, the low-caste, low-influence workers in Mechanical understand their only political leverage lies in their controlling the machinery that keeps 10,000 people alive underground. Shut off the power and everything stops. For Musk, shutting off the little-noticed money-dispersal machinery is the equivalent, and the unelected megalomaniac means to use it.

I hope Spocko won’t mind me borrowing one of his Mastodon posts on the matter (Marcy Wheeler commenting on her recent post documenting the Musk-Trump atrocities):

“Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, fucked up Medicaid for everyone in the country.” @emptywheel just now talking to @nicolesandler https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK-yyLJr4V0
Listen at nicolesandler.com about how Trump’s Immigrant Invader, #elonmusk damaged America in just 2 weeks

Does Elon have your attention yet?

Turning the White House into a chop shop

Anand Giridharadas’s The Ink this morning announces:

Musk’s hostile takeover

It’s hard to know just how destructive this will be in the long run, but for now, this is arguably the most troubling development in a day of extremely troubling developments. Elon Musk appears to be trying to do to the federal government what he did at Twitter/X: massively disrupt its functioning and drive out experienced employees not on board with his transformations and his personality cult. [Tusk]

Musk bought his way into the White House complex and now means to, as they say, “have his way” with the federal government.

If you haven’t heard, Musk locked Office of Personnel and Management (OPM) civil servants “out of computer systems that contain the personal data of millions of federal employees” (Reuters):

The two officials, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said some senior career employees at OPM have had their access revoked to some of the department’s data systems.

The systems include a vast database called Enterprise Human Resources Integration, which contains dates of birth, Social Security numbers, appraisals, home addresses, pay grades and length of service of government workers, the officials said.

“We have no visibility into what they are doing with the computer and data systems,” one of the officials said. “That is creating great concern. There is no oversight. It creates real cybersecurity and hacking implications.”

A nongovernmental employee and his team are taking over federal government systems.When things start breaking, you know why.

— Bradley P. Moss (@bradmossesq.bsky.social) 2025-01-31T20:23:44.322Z

As Digby noted, some of Musk’s aides are barely out of high school. Here’s where we are:

OPM has sent out memos that eschew the normal dry wording of government missives as it encourages civil servants to consider buyout offers to quit and take a vacation to a “dream destination.”

Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove has ordered a massive purge of FBI agents beginning with “at least eight senior FBI executives” and extending it seemingly to anyone and everyone associated with investigations into Trump’s “very special” Jan. 6 insurrectionists and with Jack Smith’s investigation into Trump’s election plot and stolen classified documents:

“I do not believe the current leadership of the Justice Department can trust these FBI employees to assist in implementing the President’s agenda faithfully,” Bove wrote.

Acting FBI Director Brian Driscoll wrote in an email that his orders include reviewing “thousands of employees across the country who have supported these investigative efforts.”

As news of possible firings spread Friday, bureau employees traded information and some sought legal advice.

One person who works at the FBI’s Washington Field Office relayed to a colleague that supervisors had told agents to prepare for the White House to publicly release the names of the agents who worked on the two Trump criminal cases on Monday, and that those agents would to be terminated that same day.

Rachel Maddow noted that the public release of the names of FBI employees who would no longer be agents as of Monday was a signal to MAGA minions and just-released Jan. 6 criminals to “have at ’em.” And since the Jan. 6 investigation was the largest in bureau history, virtually all agents touched it in some way. They too have targets on their backs (NBC News):

In a separate memo to the FBI workforce sent out Friday night, the bureau’s acting director, Brian J. Driscoll, Jr., informed employees that acting Deputy Attorney General, Emil Bove, had asked for a list of all FBI employees who worked on January 6 cases for “a review process to determine whether any additional personnel actions are necessary.”

“We understand that this request encompasses thousands of employees across the country who have supported these investigative efforts,” Driscoll wrote. “I am one of those employees.”

It was not immediately clear why the FBI and DOJ officials had been ousted. The FBI and DOJ declined to comment.

Trump is not only taking retribution against anyone who particpated in investigating his past crimes, but defenestrating federal law enforcement so that no investigations of his current and future criminal activities are even possible. The Roberts court has already preemptively shielded him from that.

Trump now gets to do the one thing many Americans know him for more than anything else: say “You’re fired!” “It’s our dream to have everybody almost working in the private sector,” Trump told reporters on Friday.

That’s been the Midas cult dream for decades. Any product or service provided by We the People on a not-for-profit basis is a crime against capitalism that has to be stopped. Middle men must take their percentage. Or else.

Here he is complaining about people in government working remotely not doing their jobs:

“You don’t know what they’re doing. And then at some point, we may ask them to certify that they didn’t have two jobs. Meaning, were they really getting a check from us, the government, and then were they also working a second job and a third job on government time?”

REPORTER: With your efforts to reduce the federal workforce, are there any concerns about protecting the public?

TRUMP: Everybody is replaceable. We want them to go to into the private sector. It's our dream to have everybody almost working in the private sector. pic.twitter.com/aLsLjSlL6w

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 31, 2025

So says a government employee actively lining his pockets with money from “individuals, companies and foreign governments that want to curry favor with the president.”

Trump and the techbro oligarchy are here, active, and bent on turning the White House into a chop shop.

Friends have asked what people this rich want with the government.

Answer: They want it all.

Cartoonist First Dog on the Moon asks if China’s hyped Deepseek AI might save us “from the smug tech broligarchy.”

Answer: “Only a mass global insurrection against the dictatorship of capital will do that – in fact DeepSeek make it cheaper and easier to put AI in everything, but at least we got to laugh at some of the worst people in the world briefly.”