First, an explanation. A few months ago—even before the election—I hit a wall. And I knew I’d hit it. But I kept going, because where is there to stop? How could I stop? So, as is often the case, while I was urging everybody else to take time, to tap out if necessary, to breathe, I was doing none of those things. A few weeks ago, I got out of the city in the hopes of resetting, but the work came with me (wherever you go there you are, right?), and although I started making space for other things, I still wouldn’t stop.
So, last week I got sick. I kept working on what I could—writing was beyond me, making videos was tough, but I could do research, catch up on emails, and try to keep track of what was going on. And then I couldn’t even do any of that. For three days, in fact, I could do absolutely nothing. And that’s as it should be. If I wasn’t going to take a break, my body would force me to, whether I wanted to or not.
It was a terrible time to get sidelined, but here’s the thing—in the next few years, it always will be.
It occurred to me while I was staring into space over the last few days, that everything is work—even the getting better is in service of doing the work. And while I get the urgency of the moment, that doesn’t feel particularly sustainable or even desirable. And it often takes me away from the things that sustain me through the work. That’s something I need to figure out—it’s also why I appreciate your indulging me in my occasional forays into non-political topics.
Like all of you, I find the rapidity, depth, and breadth of the damage currently being wrought overwhelming at times. One way to deal with that is simply to acknowledge that that is the truth of this moment. There is a lot we can do that is external to ourselves to inspire other people to support those who are in a position to slow down the carnage, which is why I am a long way from giving up hope; but in terms of what we can do for ourselves—to stay in the game without having it cost us too much—we need to be able to bear witness without letting too much of what’s going on get its claws into us; we need to stay informed and keep our eyes wide open; and we need to pace ourselves (and, yes, I am talking to myself).
Thanks, as always, for being so patient.
Elon Musk’s Power Play in the Oval Office
Last night, Elon Musk--unelected, unconfirmed, unvetted, unsworn-in--held a press conference in the Oval Office while alleged president of the United States. Donald Trump looked on. Musk spoke for more than half an hour and, among other things, attempted to defend the unprecedented access his illegal and unconstitutional agency, DOGE (department of Government Efficiency) has to at least 15 government agencies.
When asked about criticisms that Musk is engineering a hostile takeover of the government and the lack of transparency with which his agency is conducting its illegal business, Musk said
“Well, first of all, you couldn't ask for a stronger mandate from the public.”
First of all, I think the main reason Musk did most of the talking is that Donald doesn't actually know most of what’s going on. Secondly, he was wearing a MAGA hat during the press conference, which violates the Hatch Act. But that, of course, is the least of our problems.
MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell called the picture of Donald sitting passively behind the Resolute Desk while Musk towered over him and held court, the most powerless image of a US president ever--and Lawrence would know. In that moment, Elon Musk, without needing to spell it out, showed the world that Donald does not control him. Donald holds sway over some of the other adults in the shot, like the little Nazi Steven Miller, for example, but he is not in control of Elon Musk—and he’s certainly not in control of the executive branch.
Lawrence pointed out that Musk spoke 3,666 words to Donald's 2,487 but since Donald said the same words over and over again, I think his word count was much lower.
Much of the press conference centered on unfounded claims of billions in government waste and fraud, but neither Musk nor Donald provided any actual proof. Why did they not provide proof? Because they don't have any. Also, they don't seem to need any. Musk's claim that he and Donald are simply following the mandate from the public in the aftermath of the election is a lie. I'm fairly certain that even the most despicable of Donald's supporters did not vote for this. Why? Because having an unelected oligarch take over control of the federal government was not a campaign issue.
They voted for Donald, not Elon Musk for the obvious reason that Musk wasn’t on any ballots.
Musk’s Dominance—and Donald’s Passivity
I want to take a second to look at the optics of this scene that Lawrence O’Donnell described because they matter. When I was a kid, my grandfather had a tactic, whether he was at his office or at his house. If somebody wanted something from him—and he wanted to demonstrate his power—he’d stay seated at his desk or on the loveseat, and the person doing the asking would have to stand in front of him. It seems counterintuitive, but invariably it put the person standing in the weaker more vulnerable position. Donald has done a version of the same thing in the past, sitting while Senators and Representatives world leaders stand in front of him That is not what happened in the Oval Office yesterday. In that instance, while he sat, Musk stood to his side and, while essentially ignoring him, usurped his role of speaking to the press with the authority of the office. This time, it was Musk’s power play positioning himself, in this scenario, as the dominant figure.
Donald himself appeared passive and disconnected, which gave the perception that it is Musk who wields influence--because he does.
Musk on Conflicts of Interest: “Just Trust Me”
Musk also dismissed concerns about serious conflicts of interest considering his extensive businesses have extensive dealings with the government and his companies receive billions of dollars in federal contracts. In the meantime, through DOGE, he's trying to eradicate any agencies that might have the ability to exercise control over him, which magically makes said conflicts disappear.
Musk also claimed that transparency builds trust, but he is not required to file public financial disclosures, which shields his personal financial ties to federal contracts from scrutiny. Musk was asked about his potential conflicts of interest, and you may find his answer interesting.
‘Well, we actually are trying to be as transparent as possible. In fact, our actions, we post our actions to the Doge handle on X and to the Doge website. So all of our actions are maximally transparent. In fact, I don't think there's been, I don't know of a case where an organization has been more transparent than the Doge organization.”
It isn't transparency when you post shit to a handle on a platform you own or on a website for an agency that is illegal, unconstitutional and unconfirmed. There is no transparency here. It is literally like Donald putting cash Patel in charge of the FBI and expecting that Donald will ever be held accountable for anything. Well, what am I saying? Merrick Garland sucked too. Just to clarify, I know Merrick Garland was not the head of the FBI, my apologies, but Pam Bondi isn't going to do anything to hold Donald accountable either. My point is that the fascists in the Trump regime had a running head start thanks to the incredible fecklessness of the completely useless and much unlamented, Merrick Garland.
When asked if he would provide any transparency for the American people, Musk said we should just trust him:
“Well, all of our actions are fully public, so if you see anything you say like, wait a second, Hey Elon, that seems like maybe there's a conflict there. I sort like people are going to be shy about saying that. They'll say it immediately, but transparency is what builds trust, not simply somebody asserting trust, so not somebody saying they're trustworthy, but transparency so you can see everything that's going on and then you can see, am I doing something that benefits one of my companies or not? It's totally obvious.”
Hey, hey Elon, Elon, listen, I'm seeing a lot of conflicts of interest here. I'm seeing that you are using an extra legal, extra constitutional unauthorized agency to enrich yourself and your cronies, just like Donald. Where do I send my report? I have no doubt in my mind, you are going to get right on that just in case you need a reminder.
The Oligarch’s Takeover
And then Musk explained that the whole concept of “you get what you vote for.” Remember, this guy is allegedly a genius. He's not.
“The people voted for major government reform. There should be no doubt about that. That was on the campaign. The president spoke about that at every rally, the people voted for major government reform, and that's what people are going to get. They're going to get what they voted for. And a lot of times people, they don't get what they voted for, but in this presidency, they are going to get what they voted for and that's what democracy is all about.”
All if that is a lie. Nobody voted for this because, again, this was not part of the Trump campaign. Nobody on the campaign trail said, “Hey, the government will be reformed by an unaccountable, unhinged, unrestrained, maniacal, oligarch.” At least I don't remember that being the case.
But let's just take a step back. Donald was in office for four years. Biden was in office for four years. How much could have changed in that time? Donald changed things, Biden changed them back. This is not that—now we're seeing massively sweeping changes to the federal government that were on nobody's radar whatsoever. What I remember from the 2024 election is that a not insignificant minority of people voted for fascism, yes, but many more ill-informed, ignorant people, who are totally cool with racism, misogyny, anti-Islamic and anti-immigrant hatred, voted for Donald because under Biden, inflation was too high, gas prices were too high, and the price of eggs was too high. Which is a funny story for another time. Everything that's happening right now is completely outside the bounds of anything most voters might have anticipated.
Musk then explained his take on social security. By the way, his opinions about Social Security are not something any of us should have to care about. But here we are:
“There's crazy things, just cursory examination of social security and we've got people in there that are 150 years old Now, do you know anyone is 150? I don't. Okay, they should be on the Guinness Book of World Records. They're messing out. So that's the case where I think they're probably dead. It's my guess. Or they should be very famous, one of the two.”
If any of that sounds familiar, that’s because it’s just like the voter fraud bullshit Republicans always try to pull. The number of votes fraudulently cast in this country is vanishingly small, (something like one in a billion votes), but they use voter fraud as an excuse to curtail the ability of people they don’t like to vote.
I suppose there’s a possibility that a tiny percentage of people mistakenly get a social security check, maybe. But to use that slim possibility as the basis for dismantling one of the most important initiatives in modern American history is a bit beyond the pale.
One of the reasons Musk's fits in so well with the Trump regime is because he has absolutely no sense of self-awareness, and he clearly missed the irony when he went off about unelected bureaucrats, considering he's kind of the poster child for those.
“If there's not a good feedback loop from the people to the government, and if you have rule of the bureaucrat, if the bureaucracy is in charge, and then what meaning does democracy actually have? If the people cannot vote and have their will be decided by their elected representatives in the form of the President and the Senate and the house, then we don't live in a democracy if we live in a bureaucracy. So it's incredibly important that we close that feedback loop. We fix that feedback loop and that the public's elected representatives, the president, the House, and the Senate decide what happens as opposed to a large unelected bureaucracy.”
Bureaucracy is not a form of government. Democracy and bureaucracy are not in tension. Fascist states have bureaucracies, too, as we are finding out. Unfortunately, therefore, we have to continue to listen to this malicious Nazi because he has all of the power and let us not kid ourselves otherwise.
Speaking of irony, Musk’s companies SpaceX and Tesla have received at least 18 billion in federal contracts over the last decade. SpaceX alone has secured $17 billion since 2015.
Musk's deflection when it comes to conflict of interest is appalling. But again, and I know I keep repeating myself, what does he care? He's going to get away with as much as he can, and then he'll push the envelope further to see if he can get away with more, which is actually something else that he and Donald have in common. All the while he insists that he won't personally benefit from federal contracts. Musk sarcastically claimed that he expects constant scrutiny saying, “I fully expect to be scrutinized and get a daily proctology exam.”
Multiple news reports from February 11th revealed that Marco Elez, a 25-year-old staffer at DOGE was mistakenly given read/write permissions to the treasury's payment system, which disperses trillions of dollars annually. Treasury officials later corrected his access to read only.
But why does this post pubescent child have any access at all, you might ask. Very good question. I wish I could answer it for you. Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon accused Musk and Doge of trying to manipulate the treasury system to enforce a political agenda rather than conducting a legitimate audit. Multiple lawsuits aimed to block DOGE’s access to federal financial systems, citing concerns over illegal spending freezes on programs authorized by Congress. Good. And maybe this is obvious, but it's worth pointing out that this is not just about enforcing a political agenda--that would be bad enough, especially since the political agenda is a fascist one. It's also about an oligarchical takeover of the federal government with the sole purpose of enriching the very, very few at the expense of everybody else, and that includes all of us.
The House Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency held its first hearing today focusing on Musk's role in reshaping the federal bureaucracy in the Trump regime. And I want to talk a little bit about who's fighting back here because we really need people fighting back Representative Melody Stansberry, a Democrat from New Mexico directly challenged Musk to appear before Congress instead of engaging in political theater via social media. She emphasized the need for real transparency in his Department of Government Efficiency. Despite initial bipartisan agreement on reducing waste, the discussion in the subcommittee quickly turned into a debate over Musk’s authority and accountability, with Democrats questioning his influence and potential conflicts of interest. Although we really need to stop saying things like potential. These are very real and documented conflicts of interest. The subcommittee chair, the execrable Marjorie Green (R-GA), a staunch MAGA ally, warned against partisan attacks.
She, of course, knows whereof, she speaks and framed the hearing an effort to protect taxpayers’ money from government inefficiency. Some Republicans, however, are trying to save the USAID program because they know, 1, how important the program is and 2, how bad it is going to be for some of their constituents if USAID is dismantled, which I'm sorry to say will almost certainly happen. Republican lawmakers from farm states are introducing legislation to move the $1.8 billion Food for Peace program from USAID to the Department of Agriculture in order to ensure its continuation.
The Resistance Begins
Although it goes without saying it's worth repeating: No one voted for Elon Musk and people are starting to speak out. Protests are popping up all across the country against the Musk’s government takeover. About 30 protesters gathered outside a Tesla showroom in Manhattan to oppose Musk's role as head of DOGE, accusing him of orchestrating an administrative coup, an accurate accusation. Protests began last week on February 6th in response to social media discussions asserting that no one voted for.
Calls for more protests against Musk's influence are ongoing and organizers vowed to continue to demonstrate against Musk and his policies. All of these protests need to get bigger and more frequent, and eventually they need to become one massive, massive protest that happens all over the country. We're going to get there.
In the meantime, we need to pay attention to everything that's going on.
As you saw in the above clips, Elon Musk's son was with him in the Oval Office. I don't want to comment on that except to that that the only person acting age appropriately in that room was that child.
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