Who's Resisting the Auto-Coup?

Elon Musk and a team of six young engineers nicknamed the “DOGE kids” are systematically working through US government departments gaining access to their computer systems and databases. They claim to be analysing them for fraud, but giving his team the social security numbers and bank details of every American resident and organisation that’s ever interacted with the US government doesn’t quite seem like the most effective way to go about that. What’s more concerning, though, is how the vast majority of the country appears to be carrying on like nothing is happening.

The Democratic establishment for the most part seem far more interested in saving their own skin than that of the country, and their resistance is, at best, performative. What is taking place is not some routine government transition where a new administration is looking to adjust policies to match their campaign platform through legislative and regulatory changes. This is an administration run by an improbable alliance of billionaires and religious fundamentalists whose common interest is the outright destruction of the democratic state, and they have a roadmap they published for all the world to see and are following at breakneck speed.

Musk, rifling through the government records of everyone who has ever been in contact with the US government, is not a cabinet secretary. He has not faced a Senate confirmation. He’s essentially a White House staffer doing whatever he wants while Trump rots what’s left of his brain watching an X newsfeed curated for him and has his ego stroked by Fox News between making wild proclamations on the world stage.

The Musk White House, in its fight against DEI — diversity, equity and inclusion — hires, has demanded that the CIA hand over a list of the last two years of new hires, specifically by unclassified email.

Elon Musk’s business interests in China are well documented. What’s less well known is that the law in China is clear that anyone that does business in China is obliged to work with their intelligence services. This is the basis of western countries treating Huawei and TikTok as national security threats. Whether or not they intend to be, companies working in China are legally bound to be extensions of the state intelligence apparatus.

The CIA and the White House have abundant secure channels by which to communicate, but regular email is eminently tappable by even the most third-rate intelligence services. Communicating their new hires list directly compromises the CIA to the benefit of any foreign intelligence service, and it’s almost inconceivable that China would not have seen that email go by.

Let us not forget, here, that Elon Musk endorsed Pierre Poilievre for Prime Minister of Canada just a few weeks ago, and that China has a strong interest in Canada’s natural resources.

USAid, one of the first cuts made by the new government, was created by John F Kennedy to assist in foreign development to limit the influence and impact of the Soviet Union. Its cancellation does not serve any American interests and its entire annual budget could be paid five times over from the growth in Musk’s personal net worth since the election alone. Cutting the program, though, is very much in line with Vladimir Putin’s rekindled Soviet objectives, especially as USAid was involved in providing 5000 of Musk’s StarLink terminals to Ukraine in 2022, and was recently auditing how they got used.

If we look at what the federal Democrats, who are the opposition in the United States, are doing about the shock-and-awe destruction of American institutions, national security, constitutionality, and democracy, we mostly find crickets. The Democrats have created a war room to fight back, but so far don’t seem to have a clear idea of how to use it. There seems to be a belief that they will reclaim Congress in two years as Americans realise they voted against their own interests. This presupposes that the Republicans respect the Constitution enough to follow it and that the elections in 2026 and 2028 will be free and fair.

The numerous lawsuits that have been filed against the new American administration have been state Democrats and unions and civil rights organisations. The federal Democrats seem to be stuck in a world where they have to follow conventions and norms, rather than pushing the limits of their constitutional, procedural, and legal authority to stop what is happening while those authorities still exist. It is all rather reminiscent of the line in the 1987 Mel Brooks comedy “Spaceballs” where antagonist Dark Helmet says “now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb.”

Musk, under Trump’s authority, is not nearly as strong as he portrays, and lacks the legal authority for what he is doing. If he is effectively unchallenged, he will become the dictator he wants to be. Focused, determined, widespread opposition will be required to prevent the coup from being completed.

In American Hollywood movies, the protagonist always prevails, often with an over-acted good-vs-evil final scene. In those movies, good always ultimately defeats evil. There are few unhappy endings — even Dark Helmet ends up trapped on the Planet of the Apes after the hero blows up his space ship. Injustices do not happen or are thoroughly avenged. I cannot help but feel that Americans are overwhelmingly split between actually believing that Musk is the protagonist and that in four years there will be an election that will serve the role of that cinematic final-boss fight after which everything will just go back to normal, with the bad guys defeated and destroyed and the credits rolling.

Unfortunately for the United States, the scriptwriters this time aren’t from Hollywood. This auto-coup will not be over until the people write their own ending.