Is Elon Musk Staging a Coup? Billionaire Seizes Control at Treasury Dept.
Is Elon Musk Staging a Coup? Billionaire Seizes Control at Treasury Dept.
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 re...
There is a coup occurring now
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Is it a coup if Trump and Republicans have given him permission and letting him do what he wants?
Yup, there is no legal due process and his team is forcibly taking control of federal organizations. This is an incredibly historical moment we are witnessing. Feast your eyes. While it often gets compared to Rome, United States for all its might will only have been a blip in the historical time frame. Supremacy not even lasting a century. It will barely be a footnote a thousand years from now. Or... Elon and Trumps gambit pays off and successfully annexes Mexico and Canada while turning the US into a true empire that prospers for another century, but not sure if I see that happening. You can only fail upwards so far.
Might have been true during the Roman era or even during the 1930s but in the age of mass communication, a generally informed or disinformed population (depending on how you want to see it), multi national corporations who really don't care about nations and all mixed in with nuclear weapons ... things will be much different. Whether or not that difference will be better or worse is anyone's guess. But it will be something completely different.
But Trump is calling him a "special government employee". So I guess he's also getting paid to fuck over America. Yeah, he's not elected, but Trump is overstepping his boundaries of power to do all this, but Republicans aren't doing anything to stop him. So Trump is just going to keep pushing those boundaries and if Congress doesn't do anything, he'll just claim more and more power.
Trump is a stooge, giving him agency at this point is generous.
Yes. Since he wasn't elected and the actions he is taking require actual laws to pass to occur legally
I don't think that's a coup though?
Like a coup is a specific thing. What's happening might be fucked up, and unlawful, but not necessarily a coup.
But in another way he is kinda taking over the government and he isn't the government
Not really. He has the president's support. That's not taking over the government.
Is it a dictatorship?
I didn't think the president's role was designed to have absolute power over all branches of government - but maybe I don't really understand the us govt system.
I think "dictatorship" describes a style of government which may not really apply.
The POTUS is obviously intended to have absolute control hence the existence of executive orders. However, like most of the US constitution it relies on the assumption that the people wouldn't knowingly elect an autocrat.
That is to say executive orders are intended to be used sparingly, with great caution, not for things like declaring a new official measurement for Obamas penis.
So while the US govt probably wouldn't be considered a dictatorship generally, Trumps behaviour is certainly autocratic.
Does it have to be violent to be a coup?
If propaganda, conspiracy, and manipulation are also valid tools of a coup, this probably qualifies.
There have been many bloodless coups.