Oligarchs Rule! Chaos Ensues!

This week President-elect Elon Musk killed a bilateral funding agreement negotiated over recent months between both parties in the House and the Senate. Wait. What? President-elect Musk? Didn’t Donald J. Trump win the popular vote and the Electoral College vote? Didn’t he win in a “landslide” and now has a “mandate” to do whatever he wants? Well, yes and no. Trump won the election but got less than 50% of the total vote and won by only about 1.5% of the popular vote. (The fourth smallest margin since 1960.) Not exactly the landslide that his propaganda machine is crowing about. But then, he has learned that if he repeats something long enough, people believe it. If they believe he won in a landslide then he can do whatever he wants. Simple.

As I write this, the House under Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (MAGA-LA) is trying to figure out how to keep the government open. Under current law, the federal government will run out of money at 12:01 AM Saturday. As a country, we have been here before. Somehow, in the end, the Congress finds some way to keep the government operating, although there have been increasing numbers of shutdowns this century. Whether it happens today, or this weekend, we will find out, but this one seems different. It appears we are watching the early formation of the kakistocracy that the Trump administration will oversee starting in 2025.

The reality is that Speaker Johnson cannot get any meaningful legislation passed without at least some votes from Democrats. His own party holds a very slim majority (it will be even slimmer in 2025) and the Freedom Caucus — a hard right wing faction of Johnson’s party — refuses to vote for Continuing Resolutions (CRs) under any circumstance. The Democrats now have no reason to negotiate — their position is that there already was an agreement, Johnson reneged on it, and now they do not trust anything that he says or does. Musk must be really getting off on all of it. It is fun for him and Trump.

I need not remind anyone that Elon Musk is not an elected official of any sort and has no standing in any legal capacity to do anything in the government. And yet, his roughly 70 posts on “X” caused Republicans to renege on the deal made with the Democrats. Trump himself, who acts like he is already the president even though he is not, later posted on “Truth Social” that Republicans should walk away from the deal. But they already had. Was Musk telling Trump what to do, was Trump just slow off the mark, who will be in charge of the White House come next January 20? Musk contributed roughly 270 million dollars to the Trump campaign starting last summer. He also used his powerful social media company “X” to push Trump with the voters and to disparage the Democrats. Clearly, Musk thinks he is the real power behind the MAGA take-over of the government. Lots of Republicans in the House did what he told them to do when he threatened to use his billions to “primary” them in 2026 if they didn’t kill the deal. Senator Rand Paul (MAGA-KY) even posited that Musk should be the next Speaker of the House (there is no requirement for the Speaker to be a member of the House of Representatives or any other elected position). Whether he was serious or not, several other MAGA law makers opined that it might not be a bad idea. Remember that Musk is from South Africa and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2002. He is now considered the richest man in the world but in 2010 his company was saved by a 465 million dollar loan from the U.S. government. He now has billions of dollars in contracts with the U.S. government. Yet, he wants to cut funds from programs that help everyday Americans and supports Trump’s immigration policies that would, if his campaign promises are true, include expelling naturalized citizens from certain countries. Oh yeah. I forgot to mention that one of Musk’s oligarch buddies is one Vladimir Putin. What could go wrong?

Under the Trump Administration we will have a new government “of the billionaires, by the billionaires, for all the billionaires.”

We are getting a preview of things to come under Trump. In a word — chaos. Anyone that thought a second Trump term would reflect a better understanding of how to actually govern should rethink that premise. It will be deliberately chaotic. Trump’s nominees for Secretary of Defense (SECDEF), Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Secretary of Human Health and Services (HHS) and Attorney General (AG) (as well as the Federal Bureau of Investigation) are not only totally unqualified for those positions, but they all carry baggage that makes them dangerous to hold those jobs. Their proposed appointments are not based on loyalty to Trump. It goes deeper than that. It is about fealty to Trump. Total obedience and unquestioned responses to his most bizarre or revenge filled ideas. And that’s the point. Each of those four departments “wronged” Trump in his first term. The military would not go along with his desire to implement the Insurrection Act and use U.S. troops against American citizens. The Intelligence Community did not bow to his wishes and is suspect because of their investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. HHS embarrassed him during the Covid-19 pandemic when they discounted his most crazy ideas (bleach in the veins anyone?) The AG appointed a Special Prosecutor to investigate Trump’s crimes (an attempted coup and stealing national top secret material) and the FBI “invaded” his Mar-a-Lago club (executed a valid search warrant). He wants to destroy those institutions and rebuild them to do his bidding.

His move towards authoritarianism is clear. The real battle over the survival of our Constitution will come in January over these (and other questionable) nominees to lead our government. We are seeing the early skirmishes now over funding the government. MAGA Republicans will not hold Trump accountable. We have already seen that as they caved to his demand to undermine a comprehensive immigration bill written by Republicans and now his actions to destroy a bipartisan negotiated agreement to fund the government. The battle lines in the Senate will come when it is time to vet Trump’s cabinet nominees. Will the Senate cave to Trump’s demands, and thus give up one of their most cherished functions under the Constitution to “advise and consent” to presidential nominees and just roll over? Or worse yet, adjourn so that Trump can make recess appointments without any Senate involvement.

Meanwhile the Silicon Valley “tech bros” are contributing millions to Trump’s inauguration. Since Trump refuses to sign any ethics agreements with the federal government there is no way to know exactly how much or for what purpose that money is used. It could be going into Trump’s pocket.

The oligarchs are in charge and will make sure that they and their billionaire buddies are well taken care of in every way possible. Tax breaks, no regulation, eliminate environmental rules, the sky is the limit. For the Trump voters, they will not see any of the economic benefits that have been promised.

Whatever happens in the short term, government shutdown or not, we are seeing a dress rehearsal for the way that the Trump/Musk Administration will govern.