I called and expressed my concern that even if we support Trump’s aims, we have to make sure that Congress maintains its role as an equal branch of government and that we need to respect things like the power of the purse. I told them I am concerned by the acquiescence of Republicans in both the house and the Senate.
And the guy told me they are hearing that a lot.
Palmer is a Republican from AL. I called him after he sheepishly mentioned Congress has a role. I called him because I don’t think piling on my own Democratic rep is going to do much.
Interestingly, at no time was I asked if I was a constituent. If you try to contact through the web, you will be filtered out if not a constituent.
I would really urge everyone to flood Republican members of Congress’ offices with phone calls. I do think it will matter, because they just might come to the conclusion that being primaried doesn’t matter if you can’t win in the general.
These people are so cowed they don’t even care about electability beyond not being primaried by Musk. They would shove women and children out of the way to get out of a lightly smoldering building. They have all the moral fiber of Jell-O. You might as well be shouting down a well, but for all that, keep on calling them just to make their staff so miserable that they quit in frustration and leave them having to hire Elon Musk’s odious interns to answer their phones and schedule their meetings.
Doubtless to be followed up with “A public plea for all Sasquatch to come forward and be photographed”.
Seventy-five million threads here all asking “what can be done?” and you’re denigrating a post that explains in detail exactly what can be done, given the limited options?
Wonkette is a fun site to read at all times. Their writers know how to pile on the outrage and mockery to heights just this side of Hunter Thompson. Now they’re doing a public service by reprinting this call to action. Can’t see how anything could be more appropriate to a thread like this.
Yes, call the cowards and remind them that they are on the wrong side in the next election. Tell them that Musk will have been kicked out by Trump by then and he’ll be caring more about saving his ignored companies than backing primary opponents. Tell them to read Profiles in Courage and grow a spine. What do any of us have to lose by spreading good advice?
Publicly, all the Washington Republicans love Elon. They play a different tune when they write back to their constituents. Deb Fisher R-Nebraska:
I believe that it is valuable for the federal government’s operations and processes to be reviewed to identify potential efficiencies and cost savings,” Fischer wrote. “However, I also understand that the Treasury Department’s payment system contains extremely sensitive and confidential data. It is critical for the Treasury Department to maintain its strict procedures to ensure that this data is protected and not improperly disclosed while this review is underway. Please be assured that I will continue to closely monitor this situation in the days and weeks ahead.
John Curtis of Utah:
important that DOGE operates with appropriate oversight to maintain transparency, prevent conflicts of interest, and ensure its work remains focused on serving the American people.
That’s from the Bulwark. Josh Marshall offers some context:
Now, many of these claims are, to put it mildly, totally belied by what’s actually happening in Washington. USAID has been totally shuttered by Musk’s operatives. Just this week, DOGE operatives went to the Department of Education and shut down almost the entirety of the department’s in-house research arm, Institute of Educational Sciences, cancelling contracts totaling about $900 million. In other words, what they are saying in DC, or, in a way, not saying — just smiling and saluting, really — is like a different world from the one they’re describing back home. This gives us a very good view into what they’re hearing from their constituents and what they’re seeing as emerging vulnerabilities.
If you contact your Congresscritter and receive a written response, consider forwarding it to Josh Marshall:
If you’re contacting your senator or member of Congress about this issue, I would be so in your debt if you would send me the response you get from their office. I’d love to get a report on what you heard on the phone, and if you could forward me whatever written correspondence you receive back, that would be great. (No need to block out your name and address. I will be sure to do that.)
I’ve heard numerous congress people and (usually former) staffers say in interviews that they do keep careful track of what the calls coming in are about, because for them it’s like real-time polling.
Elon Musk isn’t going to give up on his ambition to power even if he does get kicked off the field because he has tasted the sweet nectar of broader populism and he’ll continue to use his wealth and influence to get what he (and Peter Thiel and other SiVal techbros) want even if it means burning everything to the ground. The Republican Congress has already neutered itself and at this point trying to reassert control is just going to result in paralyzing factionalism. Even after Trump snd his MAGA movement are swept into the ash heap of history, the damage to civil governance and the impartial authority of the courts will be so complete that the legislature will just be a puppet show for the oligarchs akin to what we see now in Russia and emerging in Hungary.
By all means call your elected officials and demand that they demonstrate some iota of civic responsibility they were elected to exercise, but don’t expect that they’re actually going to succeed at reasserting control and enjoining in effective governance because cooperative bipartisanship is a complete anathema to Republican ‘values’. One might as well ask the leopard to change its spots.
That’s what the oligarches thought back in 1897, under Trump’s beloved William McKinley. Historically dense as always, that date was later than the era of the robber barons that he referenced. The trusts wanted no ridiculous stock market shananigans that could lose them everything.
Yet in two decades, the trusts had been broken up, a Food and Drug Administration created to pull back on horrors served to the public, and four important constitutional amendments passed as a progressive movement rode worker anger.
Trump will find that the government does in fact do things that the public wants and needs. Leaving that government in ruins - and the effects will show up before the midterm elections - will undermine him. We can’t build a Mediterranean Riviera on the ruins, but the low-level anger against the oligarchs can turn into a movement if some charismatic politicians find a few clear goals. Remember the left has a cadre of billionaires itself for funding.
This outcome may be optimistic, but it is a more likely reaction to the destruction of a working American government than simply rolling over into an authoritarian nightmare.
The difference is that in the 1910s (and the New Deal under FDR) we had massive resources from an almost unexploited frontier, a population at the beginning of its demographic rise to support great industry (and a willingness to let people freely immigrate for labor instead of relying on chattel slavery, indentured servitude, and bringing over Asian workers to build the railroads only to then deny them basic rights and trying to deport as many as possible once the work was complete), and generations of runway before we had concerns about limitations of natural resources and expansion. What we have now is increasingly constrained energy and material resources, deeply entrenched xenophobia despite our dependence upon immigrant labor, and an environmental situation that can only be described as worsening at an exponential rate toward making large swaths of occupied land non-viable for habitation or agriculture. Breaking the federal government in the multitude of ways that are not easily reversed is disrupting the ability to promote adaptation and provide scientific and technical insight against major threats, or even ensure basic literacy, public health, and access to vital resources.
I’ll be inclined to more optimism when I see even a minority of Republicans in Congress put up more than just a show of ‘concern’ about Trump’s (and Musk’) egregiously illegal and unconstitutional actions, and actually start discussing some kind of bipartisan strategy to reign back his abuse of power and perhaps even remove him (and J.D. Vance, who is frankly even more venal and perfidious) as a way of starting to make up for allowing their party to have become the harbinger of nihilism and bigotry.
America today is the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, the envy of all the other western economies. (And probably China since their phenomenal growth has been slowing, their population dropping, and their economy hit at a number of points.)
Our problem societally is wealth inequality and the oligarchal unwillingness to swerve toward well-paying trade jobs - especially to mitigate the effects of global warming. One goal of the progressives was making factory jobs less of a daily hell for pennies.
What is historically interesting about about the pre-WWI era is that both parties saw advantages in cherry-picking progressive ideas. Both parties were conservative in today’s language: the Republicans were business-oriented and bitterly against unions; the Democrats controlled by the Jim Crow Southerners who were also bitterly against unions. Unions had to wait two more decades until FDR, and even then it took him until his second term. Yet the anger in large segments of worker society - many of which hated the newly arrived immigrants, who were forced into small areas of cities with a population density greater than Calcutta - was sufficient that leadership touting change - Teddy R. and Wilson - could rise to the top of their parties.
Trump is not going anywhere, unless his health fells him. Vance does and will have no power. Even if something happens to Trump, he is unfit to lead a cult. Congress will not bow to him because they will see little downside in doing so.
That will open opportunities in the midterms, possibly, and 2028, certainly. The time to start screaming, however, is now. Democrats liked to mumble about how deep a bench they had beside Harris. Democrat leaders act like idiots all too often but maybe they’re not too stupid to take advantage of this gift. What will help them is a national wave of anger coming from the bottom up. Right-wing anger can shift if they are deprived of expected gains; it has before. Left-wing anger provided a number of wins on abortion in red states. If somebody finds a common focus for that anger, the votes will follow.