In the past week or so, the courts have begun to try to set some boundaries on the Musk–Miller–Trump administration’s early blitz of recklessness.

. . .

This judicial review provides at least a small reprieve, hope that some of the administration’s most destructive impulses will be stopped. Or at least pared back. But even with the courts stepping up, and even with the reality of the administration’s ineptitude sinking in, this early Musk–Miller–Trump blitz remains very—maybe irreparably—damaging. Of course, there are a lot of moles to whack: the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are being dismantled at an alarming rate, and the court system is not known for being nimble. The administration is betting, perhaps rightly, that at least some of its thoughtless, lawless efforts will slip through the cracks.

But even if the courts caught them all—and even if every court facing each lawless escapade said, “Nope, that’s not a thing”—still the entire process would be doing serious damage to our institutions. Think of it as someone spoofing your identity and going on a shopping spree with your credit cards. Even if the goon gets caught, you still have to go store by store to argue that the fraudulent purchase wasn’t legitimate and hope the debt is forgiven. And all the while, perhaps long after all the debts are dealt with, the torrent of uncertainty kills your credit score.

MBFC
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  • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
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    13 hours ago

    Is anyone impressed at just how fast they destroyed the government? Almost as if Elon had been given illegal access to the various parts of the government before Trump purchased the seat of the president.

    Hmmm I wonder how that could have happened.

    • OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca
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      7 hours ago

      Hitler dismantled democracy in 53 days and there are a lot of parallels.

      https://www.alternet.org/hitler-democracy/

      We’re coming up to 3 weeks with Trump, and they’ve taken a wrecking ball to a lot of government norms, including gutting any department that they think might threaten them. If history is an indicator (and it absolutely is) you can expect him to start targeting attacks against political opponents soon.

      • BillTongg@lemmy.world
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        3 hours ago

        I’ve been wondering how long it will be until his opponents start to be arrested. That has been a successful strategy for Putin, along with rigging who can be on the ballot if there are any future elections (and from comments I heard before the election, when Trump was addressing some kind of white nationalist evangelical gathering, I get the impression that elections are far from certain now) so it would be no surprise to see a similar approach in the US.

        You’ll have to forgive me because I’m a European with a limited understanding of US law, but what can stand in the way of wholesale dismantling of the democratic process? Am I correct in thinking you don’t have a politically independent judiciary and that the Supreme Court was stacked with Trump supporters during his first term, so he can essentially do whatever he wants?

        • xyzzy@lemm.ee
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          1 hour ago

          The lower courts are somewhat independent, with the exception of many Trump appointees, but they have no independent enforcement mechanism for their rulings.

    • Saleh@feddit.org
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      6 hours ago

      Why would you be impressed? The US is a horribly outdated mess of institutions from which many are still built on the logic of the 18th century slaving owning white men being “the people” of the constitution.

      Elections are still on Tuesdays because the plantation owners and their posses are supposed to be in church on Sunday and travel to the polling station on Monday. Most proper Democracies hold elections on Sundays, so people dont have to take time off work and depend on their superior to not bully them for exercising their Democratic rights.

      FFS slavery is still legal in the US, as long as the slave has been convicted on some bullshit mandatory minimum sentences for Cops having planted a baggy of drugs on them.

      The US is falling apart. It is inherently unstable and Trump is now accelerating the process, but it has been ongoing for much longer. Also Trump being elected not once but twice shows that he is on of the symptoms of the US falling apart, not the root cause of it.

      • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
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        3 hours ago

        Its a wink wink moment. Felon and his felony team must have had illegal access to the government institutions before dumbass was elected.

        If that is found to be true Elon will have to go to jail one day ala Watergate. They violated the law by hacking at government servers illegally.

    • scripthook@lemmy.world
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      13 hours ago

      I was downplaying Project 2025 thinking “Musk is just going to write recommendations to President Trump but they still have to go thru Congress for cuts, what can he do?” I am still in awe he just swooped in, took over systems and is brute force closing down agencies quicker than the legal or congressional system can react. At this rate at the end of the first 90 days this Goverment will be radically different for the worse

      • chilicheeselies@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        Not just the govt, but private industries as well. Its all interconnected in such a complicated web that they cant possibly predict the full repercussions. I dont think they care either