MAGA outsiders and Republicans control both chambers of Congress. They control the White House and the Supreme Court. So, if they wanted to get rid of the Agency for International Development (USAID), for example, they could introduce a bill, debate it, pass it, and send it to President Trump to sign. And there would be little the Democrats could do to stop such change. But they are not doing that.
Instead, they are permitting unelected Elon Musk the freedom to run the government, to override Congress and enact his own policies by rooting around in government agencies and cancelling those programs that he, personally, dislikes. The replacement of our constitutional system of government with the whims of an unelected private citizen is a coup! The U.S. president has no authority to cut programs created and funded by Congress, and a private citizen has even less standing to try anything so radical.
But Republicans are allowing Musk to run amok. This could be because they know that Trump has embraced the idea that the American government is a “Deep State,” while at the same time knowing the extreme cuts the MAGA Republicans say they want are actually quite unpopular with Americans in general, and even with most Republican voters. By letting Musk make the cuts the MAGA base wants, they can both provide those cuts and distance themselves from them.
Musk’s team in the so-called Department of Government Efficiency has taken control of the U.S. Treasury payment systems that handle about $6 trillion in annual transactions, thus gaining access to Americans’ personal information as well as information about Musk’s competitors. Musk’s team apparently consists of six engineers, aged 19 to 24, who are taking control of the computers at government agencies.
But permitting a private citizen to override the will of our representatives in Congress destroys the U.S. Constitution. It also makes Congress itself superfluous. And it takes the minority rule Republicans have come to embrace to the logical end of putting government power in the hands of one man. Shame on us.
Pat Malone
Columbia Falls