We aren't even three weeks in to the administration of President Elon Musk, and already he has instituted an ideological purge the likes of which America has not seen since the time of Senator Joe McCarthy. Except this time they're not rooting out communists (or suspected communists, or communist sympathizers) but instead just "people they don't like." Or maybe "people who have pissed off Elon" -- that's probably closer to the reality of it.

Musk -- and to a lesser extent President (de jure) Donald Trump -- don't really care what laws they break or what parts of the Constitution they have to ignore, they're on a crusade to terrorize all federal workers (and anyone else who gets in their way) in this ideological purge.

People in government jobs are indeed terrified. Mass firings have already happened, and will continue. People are getting singled out for the ideological "crime" of (in one case personally known to us) merely adding to their email signatures in the past the pronouns they prefer -- even if they're the same pronouns they've used since birth.

Government services are being halted in all sorts of areas. Information is being censored on government websites and in scientific and medical reports. American foreign aid -- things like feeding starving people and providing life-saving medical care -- has all but stopped. This will leave an enormous vacuum in developing countries that China will be happy to step into. American interests are being harmed, but Musk doesn't care.

This all seems rather familiar, Michelle Goldberg pointed out in the New York Times this week, in perhaps the best commentary to date on what President Musk is doing:

Appearing on an anti-feminist podcast in 2021, JD Vance compared his ambitions for a conservative takeover of America to U.S. policy in postwar Iraq. "We need like a de-Baathification program, but a de-wokeification program in the United States," he said, referring to the campaign to root out members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party. If and when Donald Trump returned to the White House, Vance argued, he should "fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people."

Vance's words were prophetic, because the first days of the second Trump term have a distinct Coalition Provisional Authority vibe. For those lucky enough not to remember, the Coalition Provisional Authority was the administration that George W. Bush and his team put in place after charging heedlessly into Iraq, convinced that it would be easy to remake a government about which they knew next to nothing. It was full of right-wing apparatchiks, some barely out of college, who were given enormous responsibilities. Six people initially hired for low-level administrative jobs after sending their résumés to the conservative Heritage Foundation were assigned to manage Iraq's $13 billion budget. A social worker who'd served as director at a Christian charity was put in charge of rebuilding the health care system.

Meanwhile, 50,000 to 100,000 Iraqi government workers, many of whom had joined the Baath Party only to get their jobs in the first place, were fired. Schools went without teachers. As Syrus Solo Jin wrote in Time, budget blunders by overwhelmed novices meant that the police weren't paid on time. The de-Baathification that Vance wanted to emulate is widely seen as a disaster that contributed to the deadly chaos and instability that followed America's invasion.

We're already far into "chaos and instability" back here at home, with teenagers and early-20s tech buddies of President Musk taking control of vast government computer systems and agencies. One of these aides was just forced to resign because some seriously racist comments by him were uncovered -- but Vice President JD Vance is now arguing that he should be forgiven and re-hired, since racism isn't a disqualifier in the Musk administration (just "wokeism").

It's hard to even keep track of the scope of the destruction, and we're not even at the end of the third week yet. Here's the best roundup that we've yet seen of all the chaos and illegality that has so far taken place:

As part of his opening salvo, Donald Trump has now signed approximately 100 executive orders and other decrees that will impact almost every area of American government, society and life. The most ominous and dangerous include voiding the 14th Amendment to end birthright citizenship, declaring a national emergency as part of his mass deportation campaign, freeing the MAGA foot soldiers who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, reversing more than 60 years of civil rights laws and protections with the goal of ending America's multiracial democracy, targeting the LGBTQ community with laws that attempt to erase them from public (and private) life, further restricting women's reproductive rights and freedoms, elevating White Christian nationalism as the country's official state religion, remaking the Department of Justice and FBI into his personal enforcers by firing or otherwise forcing out senior leaders and the thousands of agents who were involved in the Jan. 6 investigations and who more broadly attempting to hold Trump and his followers accountable for their many alleged and proven crimes, firing inspectors generals, pausing foreign aid, withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization and Paris Climate Accords, enacting a thought crime regime of "patriotic education" where schools deemed to be teaching "un-American" ideas will be denied funding and other assistance, trying to force many thousands of career civil servants out of their jobs so that he can replace them with loyalists, and ordering the federal government to stop paying its grants and loans. The latter move will potentially impact trillions of dollars and stop such programs as Medicare, federal student loans, healthcare, food and housing assistance for the poor, Head Start and other supports for vulnerable Americans.

Here's another good rundown, just of the laws that the Musk administration has so far broken:

Ultimately, it will be up to the courts to determine which of President Donald Trump's actions are illegal. But a case can be made -- indeed, many cases have already been made in federal courts -- that the new administration over the course of the last fortnight has violated each of the following laws. See if you can say them in one breath. In reverse chronological order of first enactment:

The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act of 2024. The Administrative Leave Act of 2016. The Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2014. The Affordable Care Act of 2010. The Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986. The Inspector General Act of 1978. The Privacy Act of 1974. The Impoundment Control Act of 1974. The Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The Federal Advisory Committee Act of 1972. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. The Administrative Procedure Act of 1946. The Public Health Service Act 1944. The Antideficiency Act of 1870.

That's a century and a half of statutes shredded in just over two weeks. And those don't include the ways in which Trump already appears to be in violation of the Constitution: The First Amendment's protections of free speech and association; the Fifth Amendment's guarantee of equal protection and due process; the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment; the 14th Amendment's promise of birthright citizenship; Article I's spending, presentment, appropriations and bicameralism clauses; Article II's take-care clause; and the separation of powers generally.

Since President Musk is doing all the heavy lifting, Donald Trump is left to stage "performance art pretending to be foreign policy." He is pretending he is in charge of everything, pretending to score victory after victory, all while the rest of the world either scratches its head in confusion, recoils in horror, or laughs long and loud that America would allow such an ignorant clown to lead them once again.

First, Trump pretended to levy tariffs on all products coming in from Mexico and Canada. Then, in a stunning turnaround, he decided not to. Both Mexico and Canada reacted in the same way -- by offering "concessions" that they either had already agreed to (while Joe Biden was still president) or were already in the process of doing anyway. Trump caved (or "got played," take your pick), plain and simple. But he got to pretend to be a tough guy for a couple of days, which is the only thing he really cares about.

Then Trump sent Marco Rubio down to Panama to pretend to threaten them over the Panama Canal. Rubio later announced that Panama had "agreed to no longer charge fees for U.S. government vessels to transit the Panama Canal. This saves the government millions of dollars a year." Except, you know, he was just pretending. Panama's leader shot back: "I am very taken aback by yesterday's news release from the [U.S.] State Department. They are making important statements from the entity that controls U.S. foreign affairs based on a falsehood, and that's intolerable."

You would think it would be, wouldn't you? But pretending to be tough is much more important than reality. Trump then decided things hadn't gotten outrageously divorced from reality enough, and he announced that America would be taking ownership of the Gaza Strip, expelling all the Palestinians who live there, bulldozing it flat, building a "Riviera in the Middle East," and handsomely profiting off the whole deal. Oh, and if the (close to two million) Palestinians didn't want to leave, then the U.S. military would eject them by force. Can't forget that part of it, can we?

This was so insane the only person who went along with it was Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu. Later, the White House tried to walk back Trump's idiocy by stating that U.S. troops would not be used in Gaza and American taxpayers wouldn't be footing the bill for reconstructing it, but Trump apparently didn't get this memo and proceeded to double down on the idea on social media.

The disconnect between Trump's fantasy view of the world and reality is growing by leaps and bounds. Except now, the entire government and the state-run media channels (Fox News, we are looking at you) will back him up to the hilt. "What beautiful new clothes the Emperor is wearing!" they all enthusiastically gush, in what can only be called North Korean-levels of sycophancy (and Dear Leader idolization).

This is not going to end well, obviously. As just one example, let's take a look at one thing Trump pretended to do which ended not so much "badly" as "insanely." Trump was annoyed at the fires in California, because he has deluded himself into believing that there is a "giant valve" somewhere in California which controls the flow of water (from the whole Pacific Northwest, which is even more insane) that the state government refused to turn on (or "turn it towards Southern California") and thus all that water drains out to the Pacific Ocean where it is useless, when it could instead be used to fight fires. Got all that?

None of this is true, mind you. But Trump insisted that it was, and tried to take command of the situation. He ordered that the valves be turned on (any valves, anywhere) so he could see some beautiful images of water flowing. He bragged that now Southern California was getting lots of water.

That was Trump's insane view. But it wasn't even remotely connected to reality. Senator Alex Padilla pointed this out on social media:

Trump just ordered two dams open to levels that would have flooded Central Valley communities and farms -- all to justify his lies about the LA fires.

These rivers don't even flow to Los Angeles.

The incompetence isn't just staggering, it's dangerous.

Senator Adam Schiff posted his reaction:

This water is not being directed to LA where the fires are contained. And now, it won't be available when farmers need it in the summer.

And because this was so uncoordinated and unwarranted, it put people and communities at risk All for a photo op.

What a waste of precious water.

Eventually, the farmers who were affected by all of this convinced their Republican representatives to talk the White House down. The water release was cut back from "maximum" to only one-third, and then was halted altogether. But they still support Trump, of course, because even when your own livelihood is on the line, pretending is so much more fun than facing reality:

At least publicly, the farmers and their Republican allies are brushing off the president's abrupt move last week to dump more than 2 billion gallons of their irrigation water from reservoirs in the name of aiding Los Angeles wildfires -- even though the fires were already contained and the water couldn't have made it to Los Angeles anyway.

Zack Stuller, a farmer with citrus and almond orchards he irrigates from the reservoirs and president of the Tulare County Farm Bureau in the state's arid Central Valley, said the situation "definitely was a little nerve-wracking for a while."

But, he said, "I'm a farmer. I have a conservative mindset. I encourage the trigger-pulling attitude, like, 'Hey, let's just get stuff done.'"

So far, the only good news in all this frenzy of malfeasance has come from the multiple federal judges which have stepped in to halt some of the most egregious actions President Musk and all his underlings have been attempting. Just today one more judge stepped up and halted the firing of thousands of employees of the U.S. Agency for International Development, which was the first such government entity targeted by President Musk. He reportedly wanted to fire over 10,000 employees and leave only 300, but today it was announced that a whopping 600 will get to stay. All over the world, health clinics and food deliveries to starving people have been halted, and all overseas employees told to return home within weeks.

This was somewhat of a mystery, really. Republicans have long hated the idea of foreign aid (even though it is only one percent of the federal budget), but who would have thought this was first on the chopping block? One explanation has emerged, however: the inspector general's office of U.S.A.I.D. had previously announced an investigation into one of Musk's businesses. Now it all begins to make more sense.

Everyone was so worried, before the new regime took power, about who was on Donald Trump's enemies list (since he had been promising "vengeance" against them). Turns out the more important thing to worry about was who was on President Elon Musk's enemies list.

Which, of course, nobody voted for.

 

Democrats seem to be slowly waking up to the crisis erupting all around them, but so far their response hasn't been all that impressive. The only truly impressive Democrats right now are those that are now suing the administration in courts across the country, and getting judges to at least halt all the "bull in a china shop" damage that President Musk and his underling Donald Trump have been doing.

So for now, we're not going to award a Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week. Maybe next week someone will emerge as a strong voice against all the chaos and destruction, but so far all we've got are a few Honorable Mention awards to hand out this week.

The first goes to Ken Martin, who won the election to lead the Democratic National Committee. Good luck, Ken! You've got a tough job in front of you, that's for sure.

Next, both California senators deserve credit for pushing back on Trump's insane "let's just turn on some valve somewhere so I can get a photo of water flowing" idiocy (see above).

Ro Khanna deserves credit for reacting to the breaking news that Elon Musk is now going to rehire the kid who posted racist stuff in the past, because "to err is human, to forgive divine" (yes, Musk really said that).

The employee, who resigned when his shameful past was exposed, had previously:

boasted that he was "racist before it was cool," criticized interracial marriage, voiced support for eugenics, and railed against people from India working in Silicon Valley, writing, "Normalize Indian hate."

But after JD Vance -- who is married to an Indian-American -- said the kid should be rehired, Elon Musk agreed. So Khanna posted a question to Vance:

"Are you going to tell him to apologize for saying 'Normalize Indian hate' before this rehire?" asked Rep. Ro Khanna (D-California), who, like Usha Vance, is a prominent Indian American. "Just asking for the sake of both of our kids."

And finally, from the "coming up with cutesy acronyms" file, we have a good one this week:

A veteran House Democrat is introducing new legislation to respond to billionaire Trump ally Elon Musk's overhaul of the federal government: Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) on Wednesday rolled out the Eliminate Looting of Our Nation by Mitigating Unethical State Kleptocracy (ELON MUSK) Act, which would ban "special" government employees like Musk from having federal contracts.

Heh. Good one. Honorable Mentions all around!

 

Again, we can't really single out any truly disappointing Democrat this week. So for the first time possibly ever (?), we're going to have to go completely award-less this week, it seems.

Senator John Fetterman came close to winning the Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week this week, by being the only Democrat to cross the aisle and vote to confirm Pam Bondi as attorney general. But he mitigated this later on by announcing -- much to the disappointment of Republicans -- that he would in fact be voting against Tulsi Gabbard and R.F.K. Jr. So we decided he only earned a (Dis-)Honorable Mention this week, and we'll have to put the MDDOTW award back on the shelf until next week.

 

Volume 782 (2/7/25)

There's a theme running through this week's talking points, and indeed throughout all of this week's column. See if you can guess what his name is... (heh).

 

   Nobody Elected Elon!

This seems like a great slogan for Democrats to rally behind. Elon Musk is not a popular guy and he is getting even less popular by the day. So hit him hard -- it's working.

"You know what? Nobody elected Elon Musk to anything. His name appeared on no ballot last November. And yet, this multibillionaire has been given a free hand to take a wrecking ball to the federal government. He is trying to destroy U.S.A.I.D. because they had the temerity to investigate his Starlink company -- this is all personal to him, folks. His twentysomething minions are busy accessing everyone's tax returns, everyone's Social Security number, everyone's health information, and lots of other classified information stored in government databases. When you get your tax return check this year, remember that Elon Musk can access exactly how much it was. This despite him not being elected to any office whatsoever. I don't know about you, but I don't want some billionaire to have my private information. Nobody elected Elon!"

 

   President Musk

Just to get under Trump's skin....

"Nobody elected Elon, but Donald Trump has obviously abdicated all his power to President Musk. It's not Trump who is firing all those people -- it's President Musk. It's not Trump who is trampling through secure databases, it is President Musk's minions. I don't know what we should now call Trump -- PINO? President-In-Name-Only? We've already got a vice president, so maybe 'Assistant President Trump'? Because it is pretty obvious who is pulling the strings here and who is the puppet. So we should just admit the new reality and address him as 'President Musk' from now on, since (de facto) that is what he has become."

 

   Vote to disband yourselves

We wrote about this at more length earlier this week.

"The Republican Congress is apparently ceding all power to Trump. He is running roughshod over their constitutional power of the purse, but rather than pushing back they are cheering him on. It matters not what federal laws are broken -- or even parts of the Constitution itself -- they're all fine with it. Sooner or later they're going to realize that if Trump ignores their laws and budgets, that they might as well just vote to hand over all their legislative powers to Trump and be done with it. They can hold one vote, disband Congress, and all go home and relax. Because there's simply no point in them being there if Trump is just going to ignore everything they do, while they cheer him on."

 

   America first?

Remember? The slogan Trump's whole political brand is built around?

"Donald Trump promised 'America first' and that he would avoid foreign wars and bring peace to the world. Really -- that's what he ran on, remember? But ever since he got back in office, he's been itching to send the U.S. military somewhere on the planet to seize something or another, just because Trump wants it. Now he wants to use them to commit the war crime of ethnic cleansing by expelling all the Palestinians from Gaza. You'll have to forgive me, because I certainly don't remember that being something Trump ran on in his campaign. How many wars is Trump going to get America into, folks? I mean, if you had to pick the one place in the world where we'd be in the middle of an endless war, it'd have to be Palestine. That's not what Trump sold to the voters -- not by a long shot."

 

   "NO! Put it DOWN!"

Once again, let's see if we can get under Trump's notoriously thin skin, shall we?

"Any parent can recognize Donald Trump's approach to the rest of the world, because all parents have had to instruct their toddlers about the basic concept: 'That is not yours.' You cannot just grab things that don't belong to you and call them your own. How would you feel if others grabbed your toys and said they weren't yours but theirs? You cannot just grab stuff you like. If it is not yours, then you have to put it down. And yet our toddler-in-chief thinks he can just grab Canada, or Greenland, or the Panama Canal, or the Gaza Strip just because he wants them. To him I echo the words of every parent everywhere: "NO, Donny! Put that DOWN! That DOES NOT BELONG TO YOU!'"

 

   Bringing government efficiency to the judiciary

It's ironic, isn't it?

"President Musk and PINO Donald Trump are attempting to achieve 'government efficiency' all over the federal government. One place where they are having some notable successes is in the judiciary. Normally, federal court cases take quite a long time before decisions are made, but the blitzkrieg of illegal actions has forced federal judges to move very quickly. They are issuing orders to stop the worst of the new regime's constitutional excesses in multiple courtrooms. They've halted the ending of birthright citizenship, the spending freeze Musk wanted to impose on all federal spending, the destruction of U.S.A.I.D., and the list grows longer each week. So congratulations, President Elon, you are indeed bringing some real efficiency and quick action from the federal judiciary!"

 

   Eggs keep going up

This should be a constant refrain from Democrats, really.

"Did you see that Waffle House is now charging a 50-cent surcharge on every egg you order? You know, for all the smoke and mirrors coming out of Washington, I still haven't heard a single thing that is going to bring down prices on anything. So to all those voters who voted for Donald Trump to bring down the price of eggs -- what has he done for you lately? Hmmm? Think about that, next time you order at Waffle House."

-- Chris Weigant

 

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

Cross-posted at: Democratic Underground