Who Will Stop Elon Musk’s Coup?

From the article:

Elon Musk, often described as Donald Trump’s shadow president, has quickly morphed into something much more dangerous: Trump’s co-autocrat. Hitherto, Trump’s biggest threat to American democracy came when he incited the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The event was typically Trump in that it was lurid, violent, theatrical, and televised. January 6, like Trump’s first term, demonstrated that he had the ability to menace democratic norms and spur on mayhem—but not to really control the ultimate operation of government.

For his second term, Trump has tried to make amends for that failure by recruiting true believers who share his passion for subduing the government, including running roughshod over the system of checks and balance. Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who specializes in taking over large companies and remaking them in his image, has been Trump’s most important ally in this agenda, acting as considerably more than an aide. In truth, Musk is emerging as a government within the government, using the time-honored revolutionary tactic of developing dual power in order to seize control.

This is a remarkable power grab on Musk’s part, because he’s a private citizen who is still overseeing his vast fortune even as he claims authority to unilaterally slash government funding. Further, Musk is doing this on behalf of DOGE, which The New York Times accurately describes as “the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.” In fact, DOGE is not a real department authorized by Congress but merely the fiat creation of an executive order signed by Trump. DOGE is an advisory group that is usurping power the Constitution grants to Congress alone. Last week, Trump issued a memo to freeze federal funding for government programs such as Medicaid and SNAP, only to retreat in the face of both popular protest and an adverse court decision. Under the Constitution, Congress alone has the power of the purse, while the president is obligated to “faithfully execute the laws.” Trump’s attempt to arrogate the power to not spend money already allocated by Congress thus constitutes “impoundment”—a practice forbidden by long-standing practices and court decisions.

I mean, it *should* be Congress. But they were perennially feckless *before* all of this went down, so…

No one. Because we’re a country of compliant pussies. 

I only see one way, and that is when Trump realizes he is just Musk’s puppet, and the two start to mistrust each other. Will that ever happen? Will Trump’s ego get larger than his need to have billionaires like Musk on his side? Only if the two fall out with another, Musk will be stopped.

Here’s some more information; it’s a lot to read but it’s incredibly helpful.

FOR EVERYONE LOOKING TO TURN YOUR ANGER INTO ACTION, here’s some advice from a high-level staffer for a Senator.
There are two things that we should be doing all the time right now, and they’re by far the most important things.

You should NOT be bothering with online petitions or emailing.

1) The best thing you can do to be heard and get your congressperson to pay attention is to have face-to-face time — if they have town halls, go to them.

Go to their local offices.

If you’re in DC, try to find a way to go to an event of theirs. Go to the “mobile offices” that their staff hold periodically (all these times are located on each congressperson’s website).

When you go, ask questions. A lot of them. And push for answers. The louder and more vocal and present you can be at those the better.

2) But those in-person events don’t happen every day. So, the absolute most important thing that people should be doing every day is calling.
YOU SHOULD MAKE 6 CALLS A DAY:
2 each (DC office and your local office)
to your 2 Senators &
your 1 Representative.

The staffer was very clear that any sort of online contact basically gets immediately ignored, and letters pretty much get thrown in the trash (unless you have a particularly strong emotional story — but even then it’s not worth the time it took you to craft that letter).

Calls are what all the congresspeople pay attention to.

Every single day, the Senior Staff and the Senator get a report of the 3 most-called-about topics for that day at each of their offices (in DC and local offices), and exactly how many people said what about each of those topics.

They’re also sorted by zip code and area code.

She said that Republican callers generally outnumber Democrat callers 4-1, and when it’s a particular issue that single-issue-voters pay attention to (like gun control, or planned parenthood funding, etc…), it’s often closer to 11-1, and that’s recently pushed Republican congressmen on the fence to vote with the Republicans. In the last 8 years,

Republicans have called, and Democrats haven’t.

So, when you call:
A) When calling the DC office, ask for the Staff member in charge of whatever you’re calling about (“Hi, I’d like to speak with the staffer in charge of Healthcare, please”)
— local offices won’t always have specific ones, but they might. If you get transferred to that person, awesome. If you don’t, that’s ok
— ask for that person’s name, and then just keep talking to whoever answered the phone.

Don’t leave a message (unless the office doesn’t pick up at all — then you can — but it’s better to talk to the staffer who first answered than leave a message for the specific staffer in charge of your topic).

😎 Give them your zip code. They won’t always ask for it, but make sure you give it to them, so they can mark it down. Extra points if you live in a zip code that traditionally votes for them, since they’ll want to make sure they get/keep your vote.

C) If you can make it personal, make it personal. “I voted for you in the last election and I’m worried/happy/whatever” or “I’m a teacher, and I am appalled by Betsy DeVos,” or “as a single mother” or “as a white, middle class woman,” or whatever.

D) Pick 1-2 specific things per day to focus on. Don’t rattle off everything you’re concerned about — they’re figuring out what 1-2 topics to mark you down for on their lists. So, focus on 1-2 per day. Ideally something that will be voted on/taken up in the next few days, but it doesn’t really matter — even if there’s not a vote coming up in the next week, call anyway. It’s important that they just keep getting calls.

E) Be clear on what you want — “I’m disappointed that the Senator…” or “I want to thank the Senator for their vote on… “ or “I want the Senator to know that voting in _____ way is the wrong decision for our state because… “ Don’t leave any ambiguity.

F) They may get to know your voice/get sick of you — it doesn’t matter. The people answering the phones generally turn over every 6 weeks anyway, so even if they’re really sick of you, they’ll be gone in 6 weeks.

From experience since the election: If you hate being on the phone & feel awkward (which is a lot of people) don’t worry about it — there are a bunch of scripts (Indivisible has some, there are lots of others floating around these days). After a few days of calling, it starts to feel a lot more natural.

Put the 6 numbers in your phone (all under P – Politician.) An example is Politician McCaskill MO, Politician McCaskill DC, Politician Blunt MO, etc., which makes it really easy to click down the list each day.

Luigi escapes from federal prison with help from an unknown number of guards

It is now or never. We cannot rely on politicians or judges to stop it. The only way to resist is to take to the streets and fight. If we fail to do that, we will welcome a new era of digital serfdom. This is the final call to action. You’ve all been warned.

Once the military is behind him he’ll be unstoppable

They are taken hostage… its easy to have dirt on them once you get access to the data.

We need Luigi movement. Because it’s pretty clear government is useless

We will.. 2gether. There is no coup if we couperate az a team. Let’s do this

We all can if we just stop believing in money!

Jokes aside, how did the people in Star Trek get to their point in time? What are we doing different, and seemingly wrong?

Fuck these posts. Can a mod take this down and ban OP? Thanks