Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Using democracy to kill democracy

The only thing American about supporters of Donald Trump’s rolling coup is their birth certificates. Elon Musk, Peter Thiel (and others) excluded, of course. *

Resistance isn’t futile, The Ink reminds readers this morning. Trump 2.0’s revival last week of NIxon’s Saturday Night Massacre, and its rejection of the rule of law nowadays is “just what happens on a Thursday.”

The Ink begins:

JD Vance claimed last week that mere judges had no place restraining the president’s “legitimate power.” Bad enough. But over the weekend, his boss went further. A lot further.

New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie called it “the single most un-American and anti-constitutional statement ever uttered by an American president.” And it’s hard to think of one that outdoes it.

the single most un-american and anti-constitutional statement ever uttered by an american president

— jamelle (@jamellebouie.net) 2025-02-15T18:39:18.711Z

But the refusal of acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Danielle R. Sassoon, last week to carry out AG Pam Bondi’s demand to dismiss corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams demonstrated that the rule of law is not dead yet. Other DOJ prosecutors from the public integrity who survived Bondi’s escape room last week may yet receive their pink slips or resign unless they can find ways to defend the ramparts from the Project 2025 barbarians.

Six more U.S. attorneys would quit in turn, each refusing to carry out the order. Assistant U.S. Attorney Hagan Scotten, who resigned after Sassoon and attorneys Kevin O. Driscoll and John Keller, filed a downright heroic letter to Bove that will surely find its way into the history books (assuming such things are still legal) as a testament to the lawlessness of this age, and — hopefully — to the beginnings of real opposition to that lawlessness.

[…]

Sassoon, Scotten, and the other U.S. attorneys in the Adams case have given everyone in America an example of how to respond. They’ve decided that the Trump administration’s actions — undeniably the acts of an aspiring king looking to rule by decree rather than a government representing the will of the people — are so intolerable they cannot be endorsed. Will Congress take that to heart? It’s hard to say. But ultimately, it falls to the rest of us.

But there is more afoot than some U.S.-based tech plutocrats in thrall to Curtis Yarvin’s monarchist fantasies. Darker ideologies underlie them. At the Munich security conference, J.D. Vance promoted tolerance for far-right hate groups like Alternative for Germany (AfD) under the rubric of free speech. Vance later met with AfD president, Alice Weidel, reportedly to discuss “the war in Ukraine, German domestic politics and the so-called brandmauer, or ‘firewall against the right’, that prevents ultra-nationalist parties like AfD from joining ruling coalitions in Germany.” The group’s leaders, the Anti-Defamation League claims, are associated with “Nazi slogans, Holocaust trivialization and more.”

Bouie posted this regarding one of Musk’s DOGE team:

seems like it is a big deal that the unifying ideology of the doge team is neo nazism

— jamelle (@jamellebouie.net) 2025-02-16T12:50:00.616Z

The American Prospect adds:

Several outlets, most notably Wired, have published the identities of some of Musk’s henchmen. Many are men in their early twenties who work for Musk or Peter Thiel; one, Gavin Kriger, has an apparent social media history filled with neo-Nazi posts. Such information is of extreme public relevance: What these people are doing is not just illegal, it is an attempted coup in progress. Federal agencies are set up and funded by Congress, not the president, and Musk has not been elected to anything. Americans would easily understand the implications of an unelected billionaire sending goons in to take control of government ministries if it were happening in, say, Venezuela.

Just as in autogolpes, just as in Germany’s in 1933, they are using our democratic insitutions to undermine those very institutions.

* Not all immigrant-founders of Silicon Valley firms are freakishly pro-autocracy. But I can’t find a short list of Silicon Valley plutocrats who fit the bill.

* * * * *

Have you fought the coup today?

Keep leopards from eating your faces

He Who Would Be King on Saturday gave dubious legal advice to those who would do him harm. That’s not what he intended. He meant to declare that no law can touch him, to issue a royal corollary to his Fifth Avenue declaration. But the chaos inside his brain case instead issued a statement with a dual meaning that escaped a man once nicked by an assassin before he becoming legally bulletproof.

The statement is not original. Donald Trump picked it up online like a dime on the sidewalk. One of his believers likely found it first and dropped it there weeks ago. The quote is from a movie on Napoleon, not likely by the emperor himself. But it’s serviceable enough for a naked emperor to pick up, try on, and walk around in.

Today is Presidents Day, so presumably the would-be-king will not be celebrating. But those opposed to a return of the monarchy will be anti-celebrating “Not My President’s Day” today across the country:

These demonstrations are being organized by the 50501 Movement, which stands for “50 protests. 50 states. 1 movement.” The protests are a response to what organizers describe as “the anti-democratic and illegal actions of the Trump administration.” This marks the second nationwide protest by the group, following an event held on Feb. 5.

“We the people will not live under a king,” said organizer Kai Newkirk. “We will not allow Trump and Musk’s administrative coup.”

We the People will not live under a King.We will not allow Trump and Musk’s administrative coup.Join us at the AZ state capitol on Presidents Day as part of a national day of peaceful protest in solidarity with the @50501movement.bsky.social and all who believe in liberty and justice for ALL.

— Kai Newkirk (@kainewkirk.bsky.social) 2025-02-12T23:34:31.138Z

A list of protest events is on the Not My President’s Day FB page, both those organized by the #50501 Movement and those inpired by it.

Multiple events taking place across North Carolina today are organized by Common Cause. They mean to keep public focus on the interminable efforts by 2024 NC GOP state Supreme Court candidate, Judge Jefferson Griffin (R), to overturn his election loss in the very GOP-controlled state Supreme Court that he means to join by any means necessary. Democratic elections being un-necessary.

Pay close attention. If Griffin, his lawyers [Troy Shelton, Craig Schauer & Mike Dowling of the Dowling Firm, and Phil Thomas of Chalmers, Adams, Backer & Kaufman], the RNC, and the NC GOP win here, Republicans will bring the same Cleta Mitchell-inspired vote-cancelling arguments to elections and courts near you. And may anyway. Losing once does not mean they stop trying. (Thomas promotes himself as the tip of the GOP spear.)

People who live a lie, teach lies, and defend lies, find it very easy to lie.

* * * * *

Have you fought the coup today?

This isn’t the most important thing in the scheme of things but it’s telling. Trump is taking over the Kennedy Center to create a new MAGA cultural center, no doubt based upon his fabulous playlist of Pavorotti and The Village People. And now he apparently wants to literally turn the White House in mar-a-Lago so he can hold court exactly as he does at his hideous gilded palaces. He truly thinks he’s a king:

He has told associates that he wants to rip up the grass in the Rose Garden, one of the White House’s most iconic and meticulously maintained spots, and replace it with a hard surface to resemble a patio like the one he has at Mar-a-Lago.

Designers have drafted options for how to remake the surface of the Rose Garden, which sits just outside the Oval Office and the Cabinet Room. Mr. Trump has discussed whether it should be limestone or an easily interchangeable hard surface, with the possibility of installing hardwood floors for dancing, according to four people briefed on the discussions, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. […]

Mr. Trump has other plans for the West Wing. He wants to hang a grand chandelier from the ceiling of the Oval Office, the people briefed on the matter said…

There are also gold vases and statuettes and at least one gold figurine embedded in an elevated wall molding. The figurine was screwed into the wall by Carlos De Oliveira, the property manager at Mar-a-Lago, who traveled to Washington to perform the task, the people said.

Mr. Trump has also privately revived an idea he first pitched to Mr. Obama’s advisers when the former president was in office: to build a ballroom at the White House, “like I have at Mar-a-Lago,” which Mr. Trump says would cost $100 million.

Sure, why not? There’s plenty of money available now that we’re no longer spending it on cancer research or starving children.

Garret Graff continues his series on how a foreign correspondent would cover what’s happening in America. It’s right on and it’s devastating.

NEWS ANALYSIS: Musk, Trump Establish New Era of Kleptocracy in America

By William Boot 

After seizing the capital in a fast-moving late January coup and with universal control of government ministries now seemingly assured by a quiescent parliament, South African oligarch Elon Musk spent his third week in power dismantling the legal constraints that would stop him — already the world’s wealthiest man — from turning the US government into his personal piggy bank.

Day after passing day, it was clear that even if the United States and its $27 trillion envy-of-the-world economy was not exactly tipping post-coup into a full authoritarian state, then it had at least firmly slipped into banana republic territory.

Across one governmental office after another, Musk, elements of his technical junta, and loyalist ministers handpicked by the figurehead president Donald Trump made clear that they would fire or remove any official who attempted to enforce the rule of law — a two-century-long strong tradition here in this advanced western nation that has allowed it to become an economic powerhouse and cornerstone of global stability. In one of the most far-reaching moves to ensure unified control, Trump ordered that representatives of Musk’s irregular technical force — unofficial mercenaries pulled from Musk’s private business empire, known as DOGE, who are now operating in the capital with seemingly official backing — be installed across the government as political commissars, adopting an organizational structure that mimics the height of Stalin’s Soviet Russia.

Click over for the full story. It’s chilling.

Graff says that he’s spoken to foreign journalists who say they see it exactly the same way. It’s not something I would ever have expected to see in the United States.

This piece in a local Kansas site tells it like it is. Look who’s getting screwed:

… 398 million acres of cropland has been added to the mix around the world since the start of this century, notably in tropical regions such as Brazil and India. There is increasing competition for U.S. farmers in export markets. The United States alone cannot absorb all that we produce here.

Many farmers voted for Trump because he promised less regulation and greater prosperity for America’s farmers. The hard truth is that, like most of the folks who voted for Trump, farmers failed to do their homework about the reality of the new administration. All of this has occurred in the context of higher input costs and tight margins for virtually all crops.

We are now living and working in an environment where the only constant is chaos. Chaos produces uncertainty, and that leads to loss of trust. The buyers of U.S. farm products are not going to deal with nations that cannot be trusted. There are plenty of options in today’s world for those buyers to bypass the United States. Why on God’s green earth would they put up with the insanity that we have in Washington now?

[…]

Take your pick of programs. The Climate Smart programs designed to help farmers monetize carbon reduction practices on their farms are going away. The future of the 45Z tax credit is, well, who knows? What about export assistance programs urgently needed to help U.S. farmers counter the effects of the Trump tariffs and the rise of our global competitors, such as Brazil and India? And how about the price subsidies that featured prominently in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s farm support programs? What happens when the NOAA is defunded?

How about the effect of “soft power” from the programs that USAID has provided in many impoverished parts of the world? By some accounts, USAID buys about $2 billion dollars of US farm products annually. USAID is being dismantled by the dodgy group. To his credit, Sen. Jerry Moran has spoken loudly about this travesty. Others must do the same, or our political and economic competitors will fill the gap.

I suspect most of these people actually voted for Trump to own the libs and deport the brown people. Be that as it may, they are going to get their faces eaten. Even if Trump gets them some subsidies (if he even gives a damn about them anymore at all) in the long run their markets will never be the same.

BREAKING: Trump is losing support: Less than one month into the chaotic return of Trump, and these Trump-voting farmers have already had enough. If the election were held today, they would not vote for him.

Make sure everyone sees this!pic.twitter.com/Tavfb100sr

— Really American 🇺🇸 (@ReallyAmerican1) February 13, 2025

This looks like an historic moment. And not in a good way:

“Next Putin will try to get the US president standing on Red Square on May 9 this year, not as a respected leader, but as a prop in his own performance, we don’t need that,” Zelensky said. https://t.co/0Fb40mFtCf

— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) February 15, 2025

Zelenskyy’s Munich speech and press statements today seem to mark a new turn for him. In the past he has used moral suasion and guilt trips as a cudgel with DC and Brussels, but I’m not aware of him explicitly calling out the US as a definitively unreliable partner for both Kyiv and Europe before.

He seems willing to burn bridges with the US, which suggests those bridges might already have been pulled up in his private talks with Trump & other US officials this week.

In any case, he is clearly putting all his eggs in the Europe basket and suggesting that Europe would be wise to do the same.

It’s all coming apart:

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, was on Saturday night seeking to convene an emergency meeting of European leaders, including the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, as concerns grew over Donald Trump’s attempts to seize control of the Ukraine peace process.

Speaking at the Munich security conference, Poland’s foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, said he was “very glad that President Macron has called our leaders to Paris” to discuss “in a very serious fashion” the challenges posed by Trump.

“President Trump has a method of operating which the Russians call razvedka boyem – reconnaissance through battle: you push and you see what happens, and then you change your position … and we need to respond,” the Polish minister said.

The meeting, likely to be held on Monday, is expected to discuss US efforts to exclude European leaders from the peace talks, the position Europe should adopt on Ukraine’s future membership of Nato and how Ukraine can be offered security guarantees, either through Nato or some European force.

Downing Street confirmed on Saturday it had heard about the proposed meeting and officials made clear that Starmer would attend and take messages from the meeting to Washington this week, when he will meet President Trump. UK sources said they believed those invited to Paris by Macron would be the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, and the leaders of Germany, Italy, the UK and Poland.

Starmer said: “This is a once in a generation moment for our national security where we engage with the reality of the world today and the threat we face from Russia. It’s clear Europe must take a greater role in Nato as we work with the United States to secure Ukraine’s future and face down the threat we face from Russia. The UK will work to ensure we keep the US and Europe together. We cannot allow any divisions in the alliance to distract from the external enemies we face.”

Macron’s speed in trying to unite European leaders behind a joint response shows the extent of anxiety in Europe about US efforts both to control the process and exclude European governments from any detailed negotiations between the US and Russia.

Zelensky's speech at the Munich Security Conference ended with prolonged applause! pic.twitter.com/LX02M8TkRL

— MAKS 24 🇺🇦👀 (@Maks_NAFO_FELLA) February 15, 2025

The Post War world order and our alliances (even including Canada!), are gone. Europe is going to arm up. We are now allied with Russia. This could easily go sideways The way things are going there’s an excellent chance it will.

Here’s Zelensky’s full speech if you haven’t heard it:

Mike Pence just reposted an old article he wrote about the limitations on the powers of a president. For some reason. Here is a part of it. pic.twitter.com/zp1k6hZTT0

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) February 15, 2025

Huh. I wonder what he’s talking about?

The Presidency and the Constitution – Imprimis (October 2010) https://t.co/qz7ySAUnor

— Mike Pence (@Mike_Pence) February 15, 2025

Gee Mike, you stood by his side for four years. Did you not see this in him?

He’s trying to tell us something:

Donald Trump has been back in office for less than one month, and he, Elon Musk, and his senior administration officials have already plunged the nation into an ongoing constitutional crisis and openly performed various brazen acts of lawlessness and gleeful corruption, while threatening to “look at” judges who object to his onslaught against the U.S. Constitution and legal limits on his power.

On Saturday afternoon, during Presidents Day weekend, the twice-impeached president and convicted felon was, to his credit, honest about it: He believes he’s allowed to break any law he wants. 

“He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” Trump posted online — not just once, but twice. The president felt strongly enough about the sentiment (which several observers pointed out appeared to be based on an apparently fake quote from Napoleon) that he blasted it out on his own Truth Social site as well as his account on Musk’s platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 15, 2025

I guess this explains why they put his mugshot up in the White House:

Napoleon? Nooo:

The hosts of Fox & Friends Weekend drew parallels between Jesus Christ’s suffering on the cross and President Donald Trump’s decision to hang his mugshot outside the Oval Office on Saturday.

“It’s not the first time you’ve seen something that was supposed to humiliate him, he’s turned into a triumph,” co-host Rachel Campos Duffy said.

“I’m not making the comparison to Jesus,” she said before promptly making the comparison: “The cross was meant as a humiliation, and the cross was turned into a sign of triumph.”

“In the same way Donald Trump has said, ‘I’m not going to let you humiliate me, I’m gonna look in the camera and show my anger, and now I’m gonna hang it in the Oval Office where you tried to keep me out,‘” Campos Duffy added, driving home the analogy home.

Do Democrats even have “game”?

A few “Democrats concede they are losing an asymmetrical battle with the president and his MAGA allies,” Politico reports. But there is no agreement on how to mount an effective, attention-getting rapid-response:

“Republicans are running circles around Democrats for how to connect to the culture today,” said John Della Volpe, director of Harvard University’s youth poll and an expert on Gen Z. “People are still asking me in these post-election meetings, ‘Who is Theo Von?’ Even if they had the best message, you can’t connect if you’re not part of modern American culture, if you’re not injecting yourself into these spaces where people already are.”

It’s not just the leadership’s overdependence on traditional media, although that’s part of it. A majority of “swing voters” identified by Navigator Research got their political news “primarily from social media and alternative sources, like podcasts,” while Kamala Harris voters relied on broadcast TV.

The GOP is winning the fight for attention.

There are some exceptions among Democrats who are piercing through, including Ocasio-Cortez, who regularly goes viral with her Instagram live videos and posts on X. Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), the first Gen Z member of Congress, frequently spars with Republicans online, as do Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii).

[…]

“They should be creating bait of their own. Be more aggressive, be more outlandish,” said Tim Miller, a former GOP strategist who now hosts a podcast on The Bulwark, a site founded by anti-Trump Republicans. “I think they should be doing 700X of what they’re doing, in terms of output, volume, platforms, speed.”

Some Democrats have gotten the message and are doing more podcasts, Politico observes, but as I’ve said, it’s clear many are bringing 20th-century knives to a 21st-century gunfight. Getting booked and appearing on podcasts is not the same as having the right skill-sets for the medium.

A 20-something friend asked yesterday about Democrats’ new DNC chair.

“Functional,” I said (or something close).

He thought that non-ringing endorsement pithy. He would have preferred Wisconsin Dems’ state party chair, Ben Wikler. Why? Because the younger Wikler has more presence, more social media savvy, and brings more energy and passion to his appearances than the merely “functional” leader the DNC elected. Or many prominent elected Dems now trying their hands at appealing to the “kids,” and whoe efforts are “too slow and too tepid and not meeting the moment.”

Update: Rick Wikson’s on the same page.

Yes. They are.Maybe a rapid response team under the age of 75 would be a start.www.politico.com/news/2025/02…

— Rick Wilson (@therickwilson.bsky.social) 2025-02-16T13:46:14.108Z

Use it now. Before you lose it.

“Repetition is really important. And so is repetition” is a message to take to heart. You will be seeing more of it here in coming months. Like this example from Friday:

A commentator the other day said that there are only two guardrails left against Musk-Trump’s predations, meaning Congress and the courts. He was wrong. There is a third: Americans in the streets.

Former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance offers some analysis on the status of the many of court cases filed to slow Musk-Trump’s rolling coup. It’s just that right now what we have are a series of temporary restraining orders (TROs) Musk-Trump will resist, ignore, and surely appeal, as is Trump’s wont.

“There are limits to how much the courts can or will do, even at the TRO stage,” Vance cautions before confirming what I wrote on Friday:

That’s not to say I don’t have confidence in the courts, because I do, and I think some progress will be made there, although as we know far too well, it may be very slow. But the courts aren’t the calvary. We are. We have to be in this fight for ourselves. We can’t get complacent. These early victories are important, but they are not ballgame. Just because it doesn’t feel like we’re in the middle of a constitutional crisis—Trump isn’t dramatically crossing out broad swaths of the Constitution with his sharpie marker in a made-for-television moment—doesn’t mean we aren’t there.

“Ultimately, we’re the check on power run amuck,” she writes and offers some direction a lot of us need right now:

If you need some ideas for getting started, the good folks at Choose Democracy have some advice. They suggest getting started with a local group and figuring out where there are weak links in MAGA support you can pressure. They suggest devoting yourself to a longterm project you can support. Other groups are organizing a variety of public protests and blackouts. Different ways of speaking up will work for different people. Pick yours. Make sure your voice counts. Start exercising your democracy muscles!

Vance suggests something obvious that made me rethink what I’m doing .She wrote Alabama Senator Katie Britt (R, of the infamous SOTU response) to ask that she not vote for RFK Jr. Britt did anyway, of course, but sent back a form letter.

I’ve been contacting my North Carolina senators Thom Tillis and Tedd Budd regularly. Tillis by e-fax and Budd by web form (he doesn’t have a fax no.). But on Budd’s web form there are check boxes.

I’ve been checking No, because I know I’ll get a stupid form letter like Vance did. But you know what? I’m checking Yes from now on. Make his staff deal with sending that form letter. Add to their workload. It’s a little thing, but it’s measurable.

Make calls instead, if that works for you and your schedule (and if you can get through). This from Feb. 7:

Senators’ phone systems have been overloaded, lawmakers said, with some voters unable to get through to leave a message. The outpouring of complaints and confusion has put pressure on lawmakers to find out more about Musk’s project, heightening tensions between the billionaire tech mogul and the government.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said the Senate’s phones were receiving 1,600 calls each minute, compared with the usual 40 calls per minute. Many of the calls she’s been receiving are from people concerned about U.S. DOGE Service employees having broad access to government systems and sensitive information. The callers are asking whether their information is compromised and about why there isn’t more transparency about what is happening, she said.

In March 2017, Republicans pulled a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act under their own American Health Care Act. The phones lit up then too. Grassroots groups got their act together before congressional Democrats could, The Washington Post reported. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) told the Post:

“I thought this repeal bill would sail through,” he said. “It was the president’s number one priority. And what was incredible about this process was the phone calls — we had 1,959 phone calls in opposition to the American Health Care Act. We had 30 for it.”

[…]

Democrats watched as a roiling, well-organized “resistance” bombarded Republicans with calls and filled their town hall meetings with skeptics. The Indivisible coalition, founded after the 2016 election by former congressional aides who knew how to lobby their old bosses, was the newest and flashiest. But it was joined by MoveOn, which reported 40,000 calls to congressional offices from its members; by Planned Parenthood, directly under the AHCA’s gun; by the Democratic National Committee, fresh off a divisive leadership race; and by the AARP, which branded the bill as an “age tax” before Democrats had come up with a counterattack.

Few MOCs have physical fax machines today. So the days when you could slam an office with paper are largely over, but here’s how I got sold on “fax jamming“:

On March 21, 2010, the House was preparing to vote on the Affordable Care Act passed by the Senate. The vote would be close. A 2008 Obama campaign veteran I know was planning to blast his large email list and encourage people to phone Heath Shuler’s office in support of passage. But it was Sunday. No one would answer and his voicemail in Washington was already full. It would be pointless to ask people to waste their time on a call without even a chance to leave a message.

[…]

We drafted a sample letter in support of the ACA and emailed it to my friend’s list. We suggested if people replied giving their assent, plus adding their name, address, phone number, and perhaps a customized message of their own, we would gladly fax it to the congressman on their behalf.

Minutes later, Paul shouted, “Oh my God, I just got 15 emails!” And they kept coming, some with notes, others without, for hours. Paul bundled them into sets of five, one letter per page, and created a PDF I sent electronically through my fax machine to Shuler’s Washington, D.C. office. If that line was busy, we sent to his district office. A veteran union organizer friend calls this tactic fax jamming.

We sent 600 individual faxes.

We broke the congressman’s fax machine, a staffer told me, and added something lame about Democrats killing trees. Shuler voted against the ACA anyway, but people who would not have gotten through had their voices heard. The staff never forgot having to physically deal with 600 pieces of paper.

Ah, the good old days. But free e-faxes work too, and 24/7/365. Keep them one page, short and to the point. (Here’s a site I use that urges you to “Fax your congressperson, senator, or governor” for free.)

You have power. Vance knows it too.

We have to find ways to do this because if all MAGA hears are self-congratulatory voices proclaiming their success, it’s a lot easier for them to kowtow to Trump’s every demand. It becomes more difficult—because these folks are politicians who are dedicated to staying in power whatever the cost—if they’re getting pounded by thousands of voices of sanity about their obligations as elected representatives. Let’s make them understand that we are here, we are engaged, and we are not going away. It would have only taken a few senators getting cold feet about Kennedy to make a difference. It’s worth pulling out all the stops and contacting your senators with the vote on Kash Patel looming ahead this week.

Get to work.