If you’re reading this, you probably know that Elon Musk is now engaged in a coup inside the US government in an attempt to void the US Constitution and erase any power Congress has to spend money. Or now you do.
This makes you one of a tiny sliver of Americans aware this coup is happening and that it is an “attack on the Constitution as profound as the attempt to overturn the 2020 election,” according to renowned political scientist Brendan Nyhan.
This story is trickling out like a curiosity and not a crisis, mainly because the press has thus far decided that this attack by the richest man ever to live on our right to rule ourselves isn’t worthy of the screaming headlines it obviously deserves and is getting at places like
.To be fair, The Washington Post broke the story Friday, which you can now find at the bottom of Bezos’ front page in 9-point type. In brief:
The highest-ranking career official at the Treasury Department left the agency after a clash with allies of billionaire Elon Musk over access to sensitive payment systems, according to three people with knowledge of the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private talks.
The paper seems rather chill about a story that its reporting reveals could affect “[t]ens, if not hundreds, of millions of people across the country” who rely on these systems, “which are responsible for distributing Social Security and Medicare benefits, salaries for federal personnel, payments to government contractors and grant recipients, and tax refunds, among tens of thousands of other functions.”
The New York Times explains in a story not on its front page that the goal seems to be to “reshape” government. That’s a lovely way to describe junking 230 years of Constitutional order. The paper even makes the coup fun by saying Musk is using “the playbook he used after buying Twitter in 2022.”
There are many reasons why this 14-alarm fire is being treated like a controlled burn. And they all have to do with corruption, which is the subject of this week’s Next Comes What above.
A considerable part of why the press won’t scream about this yet is the “toxic normalization” of Elon Musk. He is so powerful that we cannot yet extricate him from our lives, even if we don’t buy his cars or use his website. He was lionized as our Edison da Vinci by the guy who wrote the most popular books on both. Our government has and will do tens of billions of business with him. His upper hand in those relationships and ties to our adversaries, including the president he single-handedly elected, have ensured that anyone who seeks to check him will face brutal consequences.
Those brutal consequences would likely be even more vicious than—and would likely be paired with— the MAGA mob, which transformed Senator Joni Ernst from a vet who advocated for women in the military into a husk supporting a Defense Secretary who appears to be a drunken rapist who definitely opposed allowing women to serve in combat. Vivek got sent off to lose a primary in Ohio. Much worse will happen to you.
There’s also the massive corruption of our press by the billionaire class, who have seized on the hollowing of journalism, primarily enabled by technological advances and media consolidation. We can do nothing about that except go around it. The only people who can do that consistently and with the implied support of tens if not hundreds of millions of Americans are our opposition party.
This leads us to the final reason why this story hasn’t yet caught fire.
The Democrats.
You’re probably in one of two camps right now.
You’re either screaming, “Where are the Democrats!!??” Or you’re probably moaning, “But what can they do anyway!!!?”
And both are right, somewhat. (And to be fair, we should blame Republicans for all this. It’s all their fault, but dwelling on that is useless because, as Andrea says, “The corruption of the Republican Party is complete.”)
So what should and can we do?
“Voters decided in November to put all federal power in the hands of Republicans. That’s done. It already happened,” explained TPM’s Josh Marshall in his excellent explanation of what Democrats can do to stop Musk legally. “Many of the cries for Democrats to ‘do something’ amount to thinking that if Democrats get energized and forceful enough they can undo the consequences of that election, as though there’s some ‘off’ lever that if you reach really high you can grab ahold of and make all of this stop.”
He generally advocates for the two things we can and must do: win the public opinion battle and gum up the works. Those two are basically the same thing.
But I’d like to focus on the Senate, which is currently in recess for the weekend, because, you know, you don’t want to stress too much.
The question of what Democrats can and should do in the body where the rules (currently) depend on giving even a single member a ton of power is beyond me. And maybe you work a weekend or two if a coup comes up.
I absolutely know they could use the Senate better.
Our friend Senate Gabe at Bluesky agrees. He has a great thread on how Democrats’ options are not as limited as we might think.
Here’s a choice example of what one Democratic Senator can do with her power:
I don’t need my reps to vote against every Trump nominee—though I’d appreciate that—and if there’s a strategy to stop one or two of Tulsi, Kash, or Bobby Jr., great.
But I do demand one thing:
Act like the survival of this country matters more than your career.
That means don’t vote for authoritarian crap like the Laken Riley Act. And that means get out there and do everything you can to stop this coup.
The New York Times said it. The plan is to run (down) America like Musk did Twitter. Do you have any idea how criminal and sociopathic that suggestion is?
Do people know what Elon did to Twitter? He attacked it like it was his enemy. He leaked emails targeted to destroy the company’s reputation and feed Republican propaganda. He then turned a nearly profitable business into his plaything—a plaything useless for anyone but him and the freaks he wants to empower—eventually destroying about two-thirds of the company’s value. It’s now closer to a neo-Nazi Super PAC than a business.
But even if it were a successful business, it’s a business, a dictatorship with shareholders. We are not that. We are the first representative democracy on earth, and we have fallen behind the many, many innovations in self-rule to the point that we are now verging on fascism. But we will not surrender the advances we’ve made to extend freedom to all Americans just because rich people got annoyed that Elizabeth Warren mentioned a wealth tax.
We cannot expect the press to sound the alarm before this turns into the kind of nightmare that The New Republic’s Jason Linkins’ reporting described in 2022:
The next Republican administration could use the federal government to punish its opponents. Democrats might find their Social Security or veterans’ benefits delayed or denied. They might no longer be able to obtain passports. Emergency disaster aid might flow only to those deemed loyal to the administration. Corporations that refuse to pay tribute might be punished. Transform the civil service from an open hand to a closed fist, and things get very frightening very quickly.
None of that is inevitable, primarily because it would all be massively unpopular, and every member of Congress is still elected even if Trump sees himself as a dictator or a lame duck.
Elon is unpopular, and his coup would be even more unpopular. But only if people find out what’s happening. That falls on the Democrats, especially in the Senate. They must do their job today. Because assuming all that we rely on will be there tomorrow is no longer an assumption we can make.
Stand up. People will love it. Or, if you're not up to the task, please feel free to step away. (Thank you, Senator Peters.)
Share this post