Elon Musk, the tech billionaire and unelected adviser to President Donald Trump, is asserting control over much of the federal bureaucracy and sensitive government computer systems despite lacking clear authority. The highest-ranking career official at the Treasury Department was pushed out after refusing to hand Musk’s team the keys to the government’s entire payment system and the $6 trillion in payments the system processes annually, including Social Security checks, tax refunds and Medicare benefits. Musk and his team have also seized control at the Office of Personnel Management and the General Services Administration, key institutions that function as the central nervous system of the U.S. government. “In any other situation, this would be called state capture, and people around the world would be condemning it,” says Democratic strategist Waleed Shahid, who writes in a new blog post that Elon Musk is staging a coup. We also speak with Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, who warns that Musk could be laying the groundwork for major tax cuts Republicans have promised that will disproportionately benefit corporations and wealthy people like him. “Elon Musk is going to pay for his tax cut with your Social Security,” says Owens.

There is a coup occurring now

  • shoulderoforion@fedia.io
    1896·
    2 days ago

    It’s not a coup if it’s not against the Leadership of a sovereign nation

    What it is, is a Constitutional Crisis led by the Executive Branch (Trump, and his minion Musk with Trumps permission and direction) disregarding Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution is known as the “taxing and spending clause.” Clause 2 is known as the “borrowing clause.”, against the Legislative Branch (Congress), which will ultimately be decided by the Judicial Branch (The Supreme Court)

    The very bad news is all 3 Branches of US Government are squarely in control of Republicans, since the last election in November, who are blindly supporting Trump

    • RunawayFixer@lemmy.world
      11·
      1 day ago

      It’s a self-coup, so people are correct in calling it a coup. It’s still in progress, so it’s not clear how much power the white house will end up usurping, but with what they’ve done so far, it’s imo already enough to call it a coup.

      From Wikipedia: A self-coup or coup from the top, is a form of coup d’état in which a political leader, having come to power through legal means, stays in power through illegal means through the actions of themselves and/or their supporters. The leader may dissolve or render powerless the national legislature and unlawfully assume extraordinary powers. Other measures may include annulling the nation’s constitution, suspending civil courts, and having the head of government assume dictatorial powers.

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-coup

      The wiki article also contains a long list of other historical self coups. Germany in 1933 is the most famous example.

    • matlag@sh.itjust.works
      61·
      2 days ago

      It still could be a coup inside the coup, where Musk takes control of so much of the administration that he can set the stage for a final coup to take down Trump and impose himself.

      • NJSpradlin@lemmy.world
        311·
        2 days ago

        More than likely he’d just end up a puppet president. Musk wouldn’t need to sit in the seat if Trump did his bidding.

    • Rhaedas@fedia.io
      34·
      2 days ago

      It’s also a breach of the oath taken to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. But an oath is only as good as the intent of the maker.

        • Rhaedas@fedia.io
          2·
          1 day ago

          That’s actually something I have no problem with, other than the hypocrisy of making a big deal about having the bible be there but not using it. Other Presidents have used other things, or nothing when taking the oath. And so far it seems they all have done a better job than Trump. Can we get another asterisk or other mark to put beside his name in the history books? Boy, he’s got more than anyone.

      • Vinstaal0@lemmy.world
        11·
        1 day ago

        You can help strengthen an oat if you introduce a third party that punishes people who do not follow the oat. You see that with doctors, accountants and other protected jobs all across the globe.

        • futatorius@lemm.ee
          1·
          3 hours ago

          There are no legal or professional consequences for doctors not following the Hippocratic Oath. There are medical certification boards, but they’re basically guilds who will very seldom discipline their own members. Doctors and lawyers who were involved with US government torture programs weren’t struck off the register or disbarred, for example.

    • Grimy@lemmy.world
      343·
      2 days ago

      It’s not a coup if it’s not against the Leadership of a sovereign nation

      I don’t think that’s a prerequisite. We talk of military coups all the time and most of them are thoroughly domestic affaires.

      That doesn’t detract from the rest of what you said however.

      • shoulderoforion@fedia.io
        1712·
        2 days ago

        you’re confusing the words sovereign and domestic in a way I don’t understand. again, a coup is the illegal taking and transferring of power from the leader of a sovereign nation to someone or a group of someone’s not duly empowered to assume that role. that’s not what’s transpiring currently. but we sure as shit are in the middle of a constitutional crisis between the executive branch and the legislative branch.

        • TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.comEnglish
          255·
          2 days ago

          This is not a courtroom, and your prescriptive weasel words are tiresome.

          This is a coup that started January 6, 2021, and is continuing now.

      • Kichae@lemmy.caEnglish
        614·
        2 days ago

        Trump cannot commit a coup, because he is already the head of state. Military coups occur when military generals step in to illegally claim the abilities of the head of state (or government) from someone else who had them legally.

        • someguy3@lemmy.world
          7·
          2 days ago

          There are many types of coup, it’s not limited to military coup. If Trump stays, it’s called a self coup.

        • leadore@lemmy.world
          9·
          2 days ago

          Per the Constitution, the US government is comprised of 3 co-equal branches. The Executive Branch is only one branch, not the government itself, so technically its taking over of the entire government could be looked at as a coup. So far the other two branches are either cooperating (legislative) or sitting idly by (judicial), so we don’t know yet whether this is a coup by the executive or just the entire government saying fuck the Constitution, we’re done with that.

          You could also say, since this is supposed to be a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, that it is a coup against the people–but the problem there is that, assuming the election wasn’t interfered with, “the people” elected this government.

    • modifier@lemmy.ca
      7·
      2 days ago

      I agree with you but am also mentally leaving room to swap who is whose minion, because that is not entirely clear to me at this point.