Yes, A Foreign Unelected Tech Tyrant's Takeover
Yesterday, Rick Wilson wrote that “Every deranged leader has that inner circle of flattery specialists, hanger-on courtiers, and, inevitably, a “king whisperer”—someone at their elbow, feeding the mania and steering the ship into the rocks. In Trump’s case, the whisperer is Elon Musk, who is arguably as mad as his orange-hued sovereign. We’re now living under a co-presidency that merges Trump’s festering grudges and Musk’s dark mania. They’re not reformers. They’re wrecking balls— driven by fury, greed, and a thirst for chaos. Musk, the self-styled techno-visionary, has pivoted from rocket launches to systematically dismantling our government from the inside out. His grotesque DOGE scheme isn’t some high-minded attempt to streamline governance; it’s a bizarre plan to seize the levers of power, degrade our institutions, and pervert the machinery of state for the benefit of a rogue band of ketamine-jacked incels and Bitcoin bros. You couldn’t invent this in a fever dream, yet here we are.”
We’ve now reached the point where Musk apparently waltzed into a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) at USAID, and tried to rummage through classified documents he has no earthly right to see, and did it all with a smirk that says, “What are you gonna do about it?” You can hear the Founders rolling over in their graves— this is not how even the most radical reading of executive power is supposed to work. xx aocBut there’s no accountability. Trump’s executive order creating DOGE, ironically, spells out quite clearly that it only concerns unclassified systems. Musk is neither an employee of the government nor, for that matter, particularly interested in obeying the law. He has a narrowly tailored Top Secret clearance for rocket-related projects because our military needs those rockets, and he’s more than happy to hold that crucial capability hostage to get what he wants.
Worse still, he’s just getting started. Write it down: Musk will soon convice Trump he needs to root out the Deeps State by rummaging through CIA, NSA, and other agencies’ crown jewels. The data, the secrets, the raw intelligence— Musk wants it, and Trump’s administration (or whatever shambles of it remain) is too cowed, complicit, or clueless to stop him. With a quick grin and a cult of socially awkward interns in tow, Musk’s turning the federal government’s most secure data troves into his own toy chest. Imagine an army of 10,000 Snowdens on ketamine, chasing clout and fueling their megalomaniac boss’s every whim.
Susie Wiles, or anyone else clinging to some notion of White House order, might want to flee while they still can. She can’t stop the madness, and when Musk’s rampage finishes hollowing out Washington, she’ll be left holding the bag. By then, he’ll be halfway to torching Europe, new toy in hand, cackling all the while. This is not how you reform a bloated, broken, misguided bureaucracy. Reform involves painstaking deliberation, accountability, and actual expertise. Government is messy, sure— but it occasionally does things right, like delivering Social Security checks or making sure soldiers get paid on time. Musk is no reformer. He’s the mad king’s Hand, seizing real power with zero legitimacy.
Meanwhile, Trump’s meltdown is setting fire to American finances with a senseless tariff war. Between the two of them, they’re out to demolish America’s credibility, sabotage its economy, and unravel its global standing. They’re shutting down programs on aesthetic whim and personal pique, ignoring that an executive order doesn’t magically supersede the Constitution. The Democrats, so far, are mostly blinking in shock. The Republicans, once the party of checks and balances, have quietly hopped on board the carnival ride, letting Trump and Musk run the show.
We are under attack from a deranged billionaire and a senile narcissist. They’ve got the nuclear codes, the national treasure, and the might of the U.S. government in their sweaty palms. Unless we snap out of this trance, no one will save us but ourselves. The history books are littered with cautionary tales of mad kings and the ruin they wrought.
We’re living the sequel, folks, and it’s on us to change the ending.
And the congressional Democrats plan to change the ending? Chuck Schumer— who literally still uses a flip phone— suggests just waiting until Trump screws up. No, he really said that. Burgess Everett reported that “The Senate minority leader and his 47-member caucus finally got their first major Trump administration stumble, after last week’s rescinding of a budget memo that froze huge swaths of government spending. That unexpected pullback inspired Schumer to call an audible, turning his strategy of coordinated hits on Trump’s blanket pardons of Jan. 6 defendants into a focused condemnation of Trump’s budgetary moves. He called Trump’s move ‘the best thing that’s happened’ to Democrats this year, predicting it would be the first episode of many. On Sunday morning, he quickly called a press conference in New York and lit into Trump’s new tariffs on US allies. ‘I didn’t know he’d screw up so soon,’ Schumer said in the interview. ‘There’s a long way to go. This is going to be a pattern.’”
I spoke to several Members of Congress from swing districts who seem angry that Democratic activists are pushing them to oppose Trump and the GOP more strongly than they’re comfortable doing. Meanwhile, in DC, Hawaii Senator Brian Schatz said he’s going to fight the way Republicans fought when Democrats were in charge. He’s placing a blanket hold on all State Department nominees until Musk’s Trump-sanctioned attack on USAID ends. “I will oppose unanimous consent,” he told the Wall Street Journal. “I will vote no. I will do maximal delays until this is resolved.” The only problem with this strategy is that it isn’t being applied to all Trump nominees.
Last week 16 Senate Democrats, led by conservatives Jeanne Shaheen, Mark Warner, Mark Kelly and Chris Coons plus madman John Fetterman, voted to confirm Scott Bessent as Treasury Secretary. And yesterday, Elizabeth Warren sent Bessent a letter about how one of his first acts as Secretary— giving Musk and his monkey squad “full access” to the federal government’s critical payment systems, which includes the sensitive personal information of millions of Americans— may be illegal. “The public depends on the integrity of those systems, which control the flow of over $6 trillion in payments to American families, businesses, and other recipients every year. Given the highly sensitive nature of the information in these systems, control over them is typically limited to a small number of career officials. Reporting by the Washington Post indicates that Secretary Bessent also personally sidelined David Lebryk, a key official responsible for managing the extraordinary measures the Treasury is taking to avoid a default on U.S. debt. Musk and his team repeatedly pressured Lebryk to give them access to the payment systems, as part of the Trump administration’s plan to control spending in alarming and potentially unlawful ways. Rather than protecting the integrity and function of the payment system, Secretary Bessent reportedly bent to pressure from the White House, ultimately forcing him out. The move risks a global financial meltdown that would cost trillions of dollars and millions of jobs. The loss of Lebryk’s expertise comes at a time when the Treasury is already taking extraordinary measures to prevent a catastrophic debt default.”
Unlike the 16 Senate Dems who voted to confirm Bessent, I’m sensing a more robust opposition to the Trump-Musk excesses from some states. Last week, The Gothamist reported a spanner being thrown into Trump’s wheel by New York legislature. “New York lawmakers are discussing a bill that would give Gov. Kathy Hochul more time to set dates for special elections, which could leave Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik’s red North Country seat empty until the summer. She’s likely to resign this week and there’s no reason for Democrats to rush a special election to fill her red seat. Trump beat Biden there with 56.9% and beat Kamala with 60%. Stefanik was reelected in November with 62%, albeit against a joke candidate, grifter Paula Collins, who raised $150,000 against Stefanik’s $15,444,946… and spent just $54,000.
Jimmy Vielkind reported that “Assemblymember Latrice Walker, a Brooklyn Democrat who chairs the chamber’s elections committee, confirmed state lawmakers were considering a change but said no legislation has been finalized. ‘We’re always looking for cost-effective measures by which to exact democracy,’ she said. ‘And as a voting rights advocate, I’m always looking for fairness, justice and equity.’ Democrats who dominate the Assembly held a virtual discussion on the topic on Friday afternoon, the officials said. Several officials added that the change would save money and voters’ time by consolidating elections on a single day. State law currently requires the governor to proclaim a special election within 10 days after an office becomes vacant. Among other changes, the bill under consideration would increase that to 15 days, the officials said. Under current law, the special election must then occur between 70 to 80 days after the governor’s proclamation for a seat in Congress and between 40 and 50 days for a seat in the state Senate or Assembly, unless the lawmaker was in the final months of their term. Officials familiar with the talks said the proposal would increase that length of time but said the details of exactly how much were still being worked out. One option on the table would allow the governor to combine a special election with normally scheduled primary elections in late June, or with the general election in early November.”
