How the fuck is Elon Musk suddenly in charge of the US Government? How are the American people OK with this? How are American politicians even OK with this?
this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2025
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Remember when Republicans were whinging about "unelected bureaucrats" and the "shadow government"?
Yeah, now they're literally implementing that themselves.
I wonder if Elon walks around with personal security.
Remember when Republicans were whinging about “unelected bureaucrats” and the “shadow government”?
"Wait, it's all projection?"
🌍 👨🚀 🔫 👨🚀
"Always has been"
Every accusation is actually a confession
He does and quite a lot it seems, the New York Times report it's up to 20 bodyguards and a doctor. Tesla payed 2.4 million USD for protection of Musk in 2023. Apparently they went through documents that the Handelsblatt got from Lukasz Krupski, who used to work at Tesla
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/13/technology/elon-musk-security.html
American people are protesting. Politicians are either actively allowing this behavior or saying, "Oh-no, he can't do that! What he did is very bad!" Unfortunately, politicians are not beholden to the people they are supposedly representing.
Musk can literally never show himself in public anymore for fear of assassination.
Why do you think he's been running around with ~~a human shield~~ one of his kids at all times recently?
We're not okay with it, they've just removed our ability to do anything about it that isn't a literal act of terrorism
JFK put it quite nicely back in 1962: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
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This was all outlined in Project 2025 which was made publically available for everyone to read. Then people voted for Trump.
You say that like trump voters read anything
Therein lies the problem.
A bunch of the conservatives I know professed to believe him when he said he had no idea about project 2025. Whether they were just masking or actually duped, I have my guesses.
"buT iTS aN oFFiCiAL aCt sO itS LeGAl"
- a blatantly corrupt Supreme Court
That's... Not applicable here... Depending on what you mean.
That ruling was about personal responsibility and accountability. Not whether everything the government does at the president's request is legal.
i.e you can sue the government, just not the president himself.
You also usually need “standing” to sue. If you’re personally affected, you have standing. If you’re a state or local government and have your government or citizens affected, you have standing. Who has standing here?
The human suffering cost is completely amoral and the influence cost on the us should be considered treason, but that doesn’t mean there’s someone who can sue to fix it
Congress would have standing aince it's their laws being ignored - but good luck with that for 2 years.. I assume the people in USAID also have standing as their employment would be illegally terminated.
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How blatantly they are killing people and emptying coffers. This is a coup and a robbery.
I believe the word for that is kleptocracy.
Elon thinks he's pulling a Julius Caesar on us (crossing the Rubicon), but he's actually pulling a Crassus campaigning in Parthia. I pray he ends the exact same way. There is no more fitting end...
And for anyone who isn’t aware of how Crassus died go watch Viserys’ death in Game of Throne. It was inspired by Crassus’ death.
For those of you who dont care to research. He most likely died in battle against the Parthians, but according to legend they poured liquid gold into his mouth post mortem to make fun of his avarice. Also some shenanigans with his severed head occured.
What the other guys are referring to is some later depictions where he was executed with liquid gold being poured down his throat.
Seems somehow…. I don’t know, illegal? to have non-elected officials making decisions to shut down government agencies?
If only there were another part of our government designed to somehow… maybe, keep things like this from happening?
Not necessarily but almost certainly in this case. Congress created USAID. Only Congress can shut it down.
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Critics argue the move violates federal law, setting up a potential legal battle.
So?
.
.
.
.
(sigh)
Is there a reason congress is not taking legal action?
Congress is neutered without a democratic majority in the house and 67 seats in the senate. Congress is basically useless. Right now, the only check on the president is the judiciary. And, shall we say, measures at the fringes.
Congress has been ceding power to the President for decades, this is actually not too far off where they were headed anyway
Investigations would start in the house, and have to be signed off on by Mike Johnson. He was elected with over a 70% margin and his voters love what's happening. The other option would be John Thune, who has about a 20% margin in South Dakota, and his people love what's happening too.
Unless you can change those facts, America will become a fascist authoritarian nation.
Also even if his voters hate what’s happening there’s nothing they can do about it now. All the power was handed over and the damage is done, no amount of regret will change anything now that the GOP feels capable of doing literally whatever they want and have all these majorities.
The writing was on the wall but that country is largely illiterate so it didn’t much matter.
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Because the republicans have the majority in both the house and the senate.
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This will kill people. Not that more blood on Trump's hands will change his supporter's minds.
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The whole thing is starting to reek of the 1933 putsch attmept in the US, exceot they have "a man" on the inside this time to help.
Dumb question: why are they targeting USAID?
I assume:
- “wasted” money not spent to directly benefit us citizens
- there always seems to be racism at the core
- they think they can get away with it - who will speak for the suffering millions in developing countries
- Trump doesnt understand concepts like influence, soft power, long term thinking, morality
This is “free money” where they can claim their “$2T” in savings
Perfectly summarized. It’s a damn shame. People well die, and the US cedes influence and leaves a power vacuum China is happy to fill.
To make it worse, we spend almost nothing on it. They are saving pennies:
The U.S. is the world’s largest donor of humanitarian aid by far. It spends less than 1 percent of its budget on foreign assistance, a smaller share overall than some other countries.
PBS is next on the chopping block. Problem solved. /s
The funny thing is most foreign aid projects are implemented by American contracting companies. A very large percentage of the money stays in the US and employs Americans. Look up DAI, Chemonics, Abt Associates, Creative Associates, TetraTech, etc. Most of these companies will go bankrupt because of these actions. In the case of Chemonics, they run a project to distribute HIV and malaria medication to millions around the world. These people will lose their medication. They also run a program to detect famine in Africa, South America, and parts of Asia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_Early_Warning_Systems_Network
Elon Musk pushes the lie that truly homeless people don't exist. That essentially it's a choice and we should feel no empathy for them. Add to that his well-documented history of racism and weird eugenicist beliefs about IQ and superior genes that need to survive, you start to get the picture for why he thinks taking food and medicine away from the most deprived people on the planet is a priority for the US government.
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