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+--- Thread: The USA by a slim margin votes for Fascism, Rascism, Mysogeny, Hate. (/thread-16405.html)
RE: The USA by a slim margin votes for Fascism, Rascism, Mysogeny, Hate. - Peter Lemkin - 21-03-2025
Elon Musk Is Getting the War Plan Against China
This Isn’t Just a Conflict of Interest—It’s a National Security Emergency
Mike Brock
Mar 21
[img=550x293.8873626373626]https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1100,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8363dcaa-4d51-415b-ac72-8d9552354c86_5616x3000.jpeg[/img]
The New York Times reports that Elon Musk is about to receive access to one of America's most sensitive military secrets: the Pentagon's war plan for a potential conflict with China. Let that sink in for a moment.
The same Elon Musk who is currently CEO of Tesla, which operates a flagship factory in Shanghai that produces more than half of the company's global deliveries. The same Elon Musk whose company has a $2.8 billion loan agreement with Chinese lenders. The same Elon Musk who has publicly stated that Taiwan should be a “special administrative zone” of China. The same Elon Musk who wrote a flattering column for China's censorship agency and has consistently praised Chinese leadership on social media.
This isn't just a routine conflict of interest—it's a national security nightmare unfolding in plain sight.
According to the New York Times, Musk will be briefed Friday on the top-secret operational plan that includes “what Chinese targets to hit, over what time period” in the event of war. This information is so sensitive that it's typically only shared with those directly in the military chain of command. Even presidents usually receive only the broad contours, not the specific operational details.
I first learned about operational security as a young man with a family member in intelligence. The lesson was simple but profound: those with access to sensitive information had a sacred obligation to protect it, especially from those with conflicting interests. That lesson wasn't just bureaucratic policy—it was a moral commitment to protect lives that could be endangered by mishandled information. Watching that principle casually discarded for a billionaire with extensive Chinese business ties feels like watching the collapse of something fundamental to our national identity.
Defenders of this unprecedented access might argue that Musk's role in the Department of Government Efficiency necessitates his understanding of defense capabilities to make informed budget decisions. But this justification collapses under scrutiny. Budget oversight has never required access to operational war plans—Congress has managed defense appropriations for centuries without such detailed briefings. Moreover, if budget efficiency were truly the goal, why not provide similar briefings to the Office of Management and Budget or congressional committees with actual constitutional authority over spending?
What this justification reveals is alarming: DOGE isn't just about eliminating waste; it's about fundamentally reshaping America's defense posture with minimal oversight. We are witnessing the privatization of national security decision-making, where unelected billionaires with business conflicts receive information traditionally reserved for the military chain of command.
The historical precedents for such arrangements are uniformly disastrous. During the 1930s, German industrialists with international business ties were given increasing influence over military planning, ultimately subordinating national security to corporate interests. More recently, the revolving door between defense contractors and the Pentagon has raised serious ethical concerns—but never before has a sitting CEO of multiple companies simultaneously directed government “efficiency” efforts while receiving classified operational briefings.
This meeting represents an unprecedented blurring of lines between private business interests and national security. Musk simultaneously heads SpaceX, a major defense contractor receiving billions in Pentagon funds, while directing government efficiency efforts that could determine which competitors receive future contracts. In the Times piece, defense expert Todd Harrison noted, “Giving the CEO of one defense company unique access seems like this could be grounds for a contract protest and is a real conflict of interest.”
Most concerning is China's explicit identification of Musk's Starlink satellite network as an extension of the U.S. military—a view that puts his profound business interests in China in direct conflict with his privileged access to U.S. war planning. This is precisely the kind of conflict that led the Air Force to previously deny Musk an even higher security clearance, citing potential security risks.
The mechanisms through which this conflict could compromise national security are not theoretical. Knowledge of U.S. targeting priorities creates leverage that can be exploited in multiple ways. Chinese authorities, well aware of Tesla's vulnerability in their market, could apply subtle pressure through regulatory actions against his Shanghai factory. Even without explicit coercion, Musk's awareness of which Chinese facilities would be primary targets in a conflict could unconsciously influence his business decisions—perhaps steering Tesla investments away from areas identified as strategic targets, inadvertently telegraphing U.S. military priorities. The Chinese government, which maintains sophisticated intelligence operations, would analyze any such patterns for insights into U.S. planning.
What we are witnessing is, in fact, an oligarchical coup—a term I've repeatedly used here at Notes From The Circus, and one that becomes increasingly difficult to dismiss as hyperbole with each passing week. The transfer of core governmental functions to private interests with minimal oversight represents precisely the kind of capture that transforms democracies into oligarchies. When billionaires simultaneously direct government operations, receive classified briefings, and maintain private business empires—all with minimal accountability—we have moved beyond normal governance into something fundamentally different: rule by the wealthy few rather than democratically elected representatives.
The urgency of this situation cannot be overstated. This briefing is scheduled for tomorrow. By the time many of you read these words, one of America's most closely guarded military secrets will have been shared with a businessman whose company depends on the goodwill of the very country those plans are designed to counter. Once this line is crossed, it cannot be uncrossed. The precedent it sets—that private citizens with business conflicts can access war plans—will be cited to justify even more egregious breaches in the future. With each successive norm violation, our capacity to be shocked diminishes, and the machinery of constitutional governance rusts further.
This unprecedented arrangement threatens not just domestic governance but international stability. America's allies, already questioning U.S. reliability under Trump, will further distance themselves when they see sensitive security matters handled with such cavalier disregard for conflicts of interest. The Five Eyes intelligence alliance (US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand), built on decades of mutual trust, faces particular strain as partner nations grow increasingly reluctant to share sensitive information that might find its way to private citizens with complex international business interests. Japan and South Korea, frontline states in any potential conflict with China, must now factor in the possibility that U.S. war planning is being influenced by private business considerations. Meanwhile, adversaries will be emboldened, seeing in this arrangement confirmation that U.S. national security has been subordinated to private financial concerns.
Congress, in light of its constitutional prerogatives, should immediately demand a full accounting of who authorized this briefing and under what authority. It should establish clear statutory limits on what information can be shared with DOGE personnel, require security clearance reviews for all private citizens given access to classified information, and mandate recusal from any matter involving countries where officials have substantial business interests. While it's highly unlikely that the complicit Mike Johnson and the current GOP majority in Congress will undertake any of these actions, I make these suggestions for the sake of posterity and to make the ethical, legal, and constitutional point.
Public engagement remains our most viable path forward when institutions fail. History shows that citizen action has successfully preserved democratic guardrails even during periods of institutional capture. The Pentagon Papers revelations, which exposed government deception about Vietnam, demonstrated how courageous individuals can create accountability when formal channels fail. More recently, the post-9/11 surveillance revelations prompted significant reforms only after public pressure made inaction politically untenable. In both cases, the combination of whistleblowers, independent journalists, and sustained public attention created counterweights to unchecked executive power.
Similar citizen vigilance is required today, and it must be immediate and sustained. Support for independent journalism investigating these conflicts, advocacy for stronger ethics laws, attention to congressional oversight hearings (or lack thereof), and consistent pressure on representatives across party lines can create political costs for normalizing such conflicts. Professional associations like the American Foreign Service Association, the Military Officers Association of America, and the Intelligence and National Security Alliance should leverage their credibility to formally condemn this breach of security protocol. Retired intelligence officials, military officers, and national security experts—many of whom have spent careers protecting classified information—must speak out collectively, making clear that this is not a partisan issue but a national security emergency. Most importantly, voters must demand answers from candidates about where they stand on private influence over national security decisions.
Two plus two equals four. There are twenty-four hours in a day. And a businessman with billions in financial exposure to China should not have access to classified war plans against that same country. This is madness. Anyone who defends this is deranged. This isn't a partisan observation—it's a fundamental principle of national security that appears to have been casually discarded.
At stake here is more than just operational security—it's the principle that national defense decisions should be made by democratically accountable officials sworn to uphold the Constitution, not by private citizens with competing financial interests. When we allow the line between public service and private gain to blur this dramatically, we undermine the foundation of democratic governance itself: that power flows from the people through their elected representatives, not from wealth and proximity to those representatives.
The question isn't whether this represents a conflict of interest—it plainly does. The question is whether we still possess the collective will to defend democratic principles when they're most threatened. The vigilance required to preserve constitutional governance doesn't rest with officials alone—it falls to each of us to recognize, name, and resist the normalization of conflicts that strike at the heart of democratic accountability. If we cannot draw the line at giving war plans to businessmen with financial ties to potential adversaries, it's difficult to imagine where we would draw it at all.
Our democracy's survival requires not just awareness but action—not just concern but commitment. The Constitution's promise of government by the people, for the people depends not on parchment guarantees but on citizens willing to stand for its principles when they are most threatened. This moment demands nothing less than our full engagement in the defense of democratic governance against its capture by private interests. That is both our inheritance and our obligation to those who will follow.
“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands... may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” — James Madison, Federalist No. 47
RE: The USA by a slim margin votes for Fascism, Rascism, Mysogeny, Hate. - Peter Lemkin - 21-03-2025
How Does This End?
When Institutions Fail, What Comes Next?
Mike Brock
Mar 20
The acceleration of institutional breakdown in America has reached a point where we must confront a sobering reality: the constitutional system, as designed, may no longer possess the internal mechanisms to save itself. When judges face impeachment threats for ruling against the administration, when court orders are openly defied, and when Fox News hosts declare that a president “doesn't have the luxury of following the law,” we've moved beyond policy disagreements to questioning whether law applies to power at all.
The traditional American narrative assumes our institutions are self-correcting—that checks and balances naturally restore equilibrium when power overreaches. But this theory assumes all actors accept the legitimacy of those checks and balances. What happens when they don't? What happens when power simply refuses to be balanced?
We are witnessing the answer in real time: institutional capture, norm erosion, and the systematic dismantling of accountability mechanisms. The Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, and significant portions of federal agencies are being transformed into instruments of personal power rather than constitutional governance. Meanwhile, DOGE stands as a parallel government structure, implementing radical changes without congressional oversight or judicial review.
A particularly dangerous dynamic is now in motion: the “point of no return” for key figures in the administration. As Elon Musk, Trump family members, and others become increasingly implicated in potentially illegal activities, their incentive to preserve democratic processes diminishes proportionally. The more their personal legal and financial survival depends on maintaining power, the more willing they become to take extraordinary measures to keep it.
So how does this end? Three interlinked forces represent the most likely path toward preserving constitutional governance, though none functions within “regular order” as traditionally understood.
The first is institutional resistance. While many institutions have been compromised, pockets of resistance persist. Career civil servants, military leaders committed to constitutional oaths, and judges willing to rule against power despite personal risk represent the first line of defense. This resistance does not function through formal channels—those are increasingly captured—but through what might be called “constitutional guerrilla warfare”: selective non-compliance, strategic leaks, and informal networks maintaining democratic practices despite official pressure.
The military's continued neutrality remains the most critical institutional barrier to full-scale authoritarianism. Unlike other agencies, the military's culture of constitutional fidelity runs deep, and its leadership has maintained distance from partisan pressure. But this cannot be taken for granted—targeted appointments and pressure campaigns could erode this independence over time.
The second force is civil society mobilization. When institutional resistance weakens, civil society must strengthen. Mass mobilization, whether through protests, strikes, or coordinated action, creates costs for authoritarian overreach that cannot be ignored. This goes beyond traditional partisan activism to broad, cross-ideological defense of basic democratic principles.
What makes the current moment different from normal political contestation is that the fight is no longer primarily about policy outcomes—it's about whether constitutional governance continues to exist at all. This creates the potential for unusual coalitions of traditional conservatives committed to institutions, progressives worried about rights erosion, and business interests concerned about stability.
Mobilization alone cannot restore constitutional order, but it can make authoritarianism costlier and provide critical support to institutional resisters facing immense pressure.
The third force is international pressure. The United States does not exist in isolation. Its democratic health affects global stability, security alliances, and economic relations. As democratic erosion accelerates, international actors have increasing incentives to apply pressure for democratic restoration.
This pressure takes multiple forms: diplomatic isolation, economic consequences, intelligence community cooperation with democracy defenders, and strategic support for pro-democracy forces within the United States. While foreign intervention in U.S. affairs raises legitimate concerns, so does a nuclear-armed superpower falling into authoritarian chaos.
Canada's response to Trump's hostile posture and tariffs represents an early example of this dynamic. Rather than capitulating to economic pressure, Canada under Mark Carney has shown remarkable resolve in maintaining democratic principles while imposing targeted countermeasures.
If these three forces fail to check authoritarian consolidation, darker possibilities emerge. We might see true institutional collapse, where key democratic institutions cease functioning as independent entities, becoming mere extensions of executive power. Elections might continue but would be manipulated to ensure predetermined outcomes. Courts would make politically determined rulings. Media would be effectively controlled through legal harassment, ownership changes, and direct intimidation.
Or we might face a constitutional crisis—a direct confrontation between branches of government leading to a legitimacy vacuum, with competing power centers each claiming constitutional authority. This could involve disputed election results, military intervention in civilian matters, or state governments refusing to recognize federal authority.
Most disturbing is the possibility of widespread violence—where political violence moves from isolated incidents to coordinated campaigns, potentially triggering counter-violence and civil conflict. This could emerge from state-sanctioned crackdowns on opposition, militant resistance to authoritarian measures, or breakdown of monopoly on legitimate force.
None of these scenarios is inevitable, but all become more likely as constitutional boundaries continue to erode. The path from democratic backsliding to irreversible breakdown is rarely linear—it involves threshold effects where multiple small violations suddenly produce catastrophic failure.
The uncomfortable reality is that restoring constitutional governance may require methods outside traditional processes. When those processes themselves have been compromised, relying exclusively on them becomes self-defeating.
This doesn't mean abandoning constitutional principles—quite the opposite. It means recognizing that extraordinary measures may be necessary to restore those principles when normal channels have been blocked. Just as Lincoln took extraordinary actions to preserve the Union, preserving American democracy may require actions that stretch conventional understanding of institutional roles.
Two plus two equals four. There are twenty-four hours in a day. And the constitutional system, as currently functioning, may not possess the internal mechanisms to save itself. This isn't defeatism—it's a necessary recognition that preservation of constitutional democracy may require strategies beyond those envisioned by the framers for a system not yet captured by authoritarian forces.
The end of this story hasn't been written. But understanding the gravity of our situation is the precondition for writing an ending in which American democracy survives, however transformed by the crisis it now faces.
"Every nation gets the government it deserves." — Joseph de Maistre
RE: The USA by a slim margin votes for Fascism, Rascism, Mysogeny, Hate. - Peter Lemkin - 21-03-2025
RE: The USA by a slim margin votes for Fascism, Rascism, Mysogeny, Hate. - Peter Lemkin - 22-03-2025
The Presidential Toddler Theory of Government
Trump’s Denials of Responsibility Reveal the Infantile Logic of Authoritarian Power
Mike Brock
Mar 22
There comes a moment in every collapsing democracy when absurdity and menace fuse into something uniquely destabilizing—a phenomenon I'm tempted to call “malignant farce.” We've reached that moment. The President of the United States, after invoking a 1798 wartime law to mass-deport migrants to a third country, now claims he didn't do it. “Other people handled it,” he told reporters today, despite his signature appearing on the document.
This is not merely a lie—though it is certainly that—but something more fundamentally corrosive: the introduction of the Toddler Theory of Presidential Power. Like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar insisting “I didn't do it,” Trump has advanced the novel constitutional principle that presidential actions somehow occur without presidential agency. Documents bearing his signature, orders issued under his authority, and policies implemented by his administration apparently materialize through some mysterious process for which he bears no responsibility.
The obvious absurdity of this claim would be comedic if it weren't deployed to evade accountability for using the Alien Enemies Act—a law intended for declared wars against nations, not immigration enforcement—to justify mass deportations that a federal judge has already ruled likely unconstitutional. We have now entered territory where the head of the executive branch simultaneously claims the power to ignore judicial rulings while denying responsibility for the very actions judges are ruling against.
This isn't just a president lying—a common enough occurrence in any administration. This is a president who wishes to exercise power without accountability, who signs documents then disclaims knowledge of their contents, who demands obedience to his authority while disavowing his own actions. It is the logic of the autocrat who wishes to be unbound by any constraint while maintaining plausible deniability for the consequences.
The pathetic spectacle of a president who claims vast powers while shirking basic responsibility reveals the infantile core of authoritarianism. For all its pretensions to strength and decisiveness, the authoritarian personality cannot bear the weight of consequence, cannot accept that power entails responsibility, cannot face the fundamental reality that actions have effects for which one might be accountable.
Two plus two equals four. There are twenty-four hours in a day. And a president's signature on an executive order means he ordered it. These are not complicated truths, yet their denial suggests something profoundly broken in our political system. When the most powerful person in the country can point to his own signature and say “I didn't do that,” we've moved beyond normal political dishonesty into the realm of reality dissolution.
The Founders designed a system based on the assumption that those in power would at least acknowledge their own actions, even if they abused their authority. They never envisioned a president who would simultaneously claim unlimited power while disavowing the exercise of that very power—a constitutional Schrödinger's cat, both authoritarian and abdicated, depending on which serves his interests in the moment.
This is the essence of despotism—not the iron fist, but the infantile will that demands absolute authority without corresponding responsibility. It is, as Hannah Arendt recognized, the banality of evil clothed in the childish refusal to acknowledge reality itself.
If there is any comfort to be taken from this spectacle, it is the realization that such profound dishonesty reveals not strength but weakness. A president secure in his authority and confident in his actions would not need to deny his own signature. He would not hide behind the claim that “other people handled it.” He would own his decisions, defend them on their merits, and accept the constitutional constraints that make a president a democratic leader rather than a petulant monarch.
But comfort is cold indeed when the lie is in service of violating human rights, defying court orders, and systematically dismantling constitutional governance. The Presidential Toddler Theory may be absurd, but its consequences are deadly serious. And recognizing the absurdity, while necessary, is no substitute for confronting the danger.
RE: The USA by a slim margin votes for Fascism, Rascism, Mysogeny, Hate. - Peter Lemkin - 24-03-2025
RE: The USA by a slim margin votes for Fascism, Rascism, Mysogeny, Hate. - Peter Lemkin - 25-03-2025
RE: The USA by a slim margin votes for Fascism, Rascism, Mysogeny, Hate. - Peter Lemkin - 25-03-2025
RE: The USA by a slim margin votes for Fascism, Rascism, Mysogeny, Hate. - Peter Lemkin - 25-03-2025
SEND IN THE CLOWNS!!!
March 24, 2025
Heather Cox Richardson
Mar 25
Today the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, dropped the story that senior members of the Trump administration planned the March 15 U.S. attack on the Houthis in Yemen over Signal, a widely available encrypted app that is most decidedly not part of the United States national security system. The decision to steer around government systems was possibly an attempt to hide conversations, since the app was set to erase some messages after a week and others after four weeks. By law, government communications must be archived.
According to Goldberg, the use of Signal may also have violated the Espionage Act, which establishes how officials must handle information about the national defense. The app is not approved for national security use, and officials are supposed either to discuss military activity in a sensitive compartmented information facility, or SCIF, or to use approved government equipment.
The use of Signal to plan a military attack on Yemen was itself an astonishingly dangerous breach, but what comes next is simply mind-boggling: the reason Goldberg could report on the conversation is that the person setting it up included Goldberg—a reporter without security clearance—in it.
Goldberg reports that on March 11 he received a connection request from someone named Michael Waltz, although he did not believe the actual Michael Waltz, who is Trump’s national security advisor, would be writing to him. He thought it was likely someone trying to entrap him, although he thought perhaps it could be the real Waltz with some information. Two days later, he was included in the “Houthi PC small group,” along with a message that the chat would be for “a principles [sic] group for coordination on Houthis.”
As Goldberg reports, a “principals committee generally refers to a group of the senior-most national-security officials, including the secretaries of defense, state, and the treasury, as well as the director of the CIA. It should go without saying—but I’ll say it anyway—that I have never been invited to a White House principals-committee meeting, and that, in my many years of reporting on national-security matters, I had never heard of one being convened over a commercial messaging app.”
The other names on the app were those of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Vice President J.D. Vance, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Brian McCormack from the National Security Council, Central Intelligence Director John Ratcliffe, Trump’s Middle East and Ukraine negotiator Steve Witkoff, White House chief of staff Suzy Wiles, perhaps White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, and Trump’s nominee for head of the National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent.
Goldberg assumed the chat was fake, some sort of disinformation campaign, although he was concerned when Ratcliffe provided the full name of a CIA operative in this unsecure channel. But on March 14, as Vance, for example, took a strong stand against Europe—“I just hate bailing Europe out again”—and as Hegseth emphasized that their messaging must be that “Biden failed,” Goldberg started to think the chat might be real. Those in the chat talked of finding a way to make Europe pay the costs for the U.S. attack, and of “minimiz[ing] risk to Saudi oil facilities.”
And then, on March 15, the messages told of the forthcoming attack. “I will not quote from this update, or from certain other subsequent texts,” Goldberg writes. “The information contained in them, if they had been read by an adversary of the United States, could conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel, particularly in the broader Middle East, Central Command’s area of responsibility. What I will say, in order to illustrate the shocking recklessness of this Signal conversation, is that the Hegseth post contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing.”
On the chat, reactions to the military strikes were emojis of a fist, an American flag, fire, praying hands, a flexed bicep, and “Good Job Pete and your team!!,” “Kudos to all…. Really great. God Bless,” and “Great work and effects!”
In the messages, with a reporter on the line, Hegseth promised his colleagues he would “do all we can to enforce 100% OPSEC,” or operations security. In a message to the team outlining the forthcoming attack, Hegseth wrote: “We are currently clean on OPSEC.”
Two hours after Goldberg wrote to the officials on the chat and alerted them to his presence on it by asking questions about it, National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes responded: “The thread is a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials.”
When asked about the breach, Trump responded: “I don't know anything about it. I'm not a big fan of The Atlantic. To me, it's a magazine that's going out of business. I think it’s not much of a magazine. But I know nothing about it. You're saying that they had what?” There is nothing that the administration could say to make the situation better, but this made it worse. As national security specialist Tom Nichols noted: “If the President is telling the truth and no one’s briefed him about this yet, that’s another story in itself. In any other administration, [the chief of staff] would have been in the Oval [Office] within nanoseconds of learning about something like this.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is evidently going to try to bully his way out of this disaster. When asked about it, he began to yell at a reporter that Goldberg is a “deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist who’s made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time again.” Hegseth looked directly at the camera and said: “Nobody was texting war plans.” But Goldberg has receipts. The chat had “the specific time of a future attack. Specific targets, including human targets…weapons systems…precise detail…a long section on sequencing…. He can say that it wasn’t a war plan, but it was a minute-by-minute accounting of what was about to happen.”
Zachary B. Wolf of CNN noted that “Trump intentionally hired amateurs for top jobs. This is their most dramatic blunder.” Senator Jon Ossoff (D-GA) told Brian Tyler Cohen: “My first reaction... was 'what absolute clowns.' Total amateur hour, reckless, dangerous…. [T]his is what happens when you have basically Fox News personalities cosplaying as government officials.” Foreign policy scholar Timothy Snyder posted: “These guys inherited one of the most functional state apparatus in the history of the world and they are inhabiting it like a crack house.”
Many observers have noted that all of these national security officials knew that using Signal in this way was against the law, and their comfort with jumping onto the commercial app to plan a military strike suggests they are using Signal more generally. “How many Signal chats with sensitive information about military operations are ongoing within the Pentagon right now?” Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA) posted. “Where else are war plans being shared with such abject disregard for our national security? We need answers. Right now.”
National security journalists and officials are aghast. Former commanding general of United States Army Europe and the Seventh Army Mark Hertling called the story “staggering.” Former CIA officer Matt Castelli posted: “This is more than ‘loose lips sink ships’, this is a criminally negligent breach of classified information and war planning involving VP, SecDef, D[irector of the] CIA, National Security Advisor—all putting troops at risk. America is not safe.” Former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, who spent seven years as an intelligence officer in the Navy Reserve, posted: “From an operational security perspective, this is the highest level of f**kup imaginable. These people cannot keep America safe.”
Rhode Island senator Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said: "If true, this story represents one of the most egregious failures of operational security and common sense I have ever seen. The carelessness shown by President Trump's cabinet is stunning and dangerous. I will be seeking answers from the Administration immediately." Armed Services Committee member Don Bacon (R-NE), a former Air Force brigadier general, told Axios that “sending this info over non-secure networks” was “unconscionable.” “Russia and China are surely monitoring his unclassified phone.”
That the most senior members of Trump’s administration were sharing national security secrets on unsecure channels is especially galling since the people on the call have used alleged breaches of national security to hammer Democrats. Sarah Longwell and J.V. Last of The Bulwark compiled a series of video clips of Marco Rubio, Stephen Miller, Tulsi Gabbard, John Ratcliffe, and especially Pete Hegseth talking about the seriousness of handling secret information and the need for accountability for those who mishandle it. When they were accusing then–secretary of state Hillary Clinton of such a breach, they called for firings, accountability, and perhaps criminal charges. Indeed, Trump rose to power in 2016 with the charge that Clinton should be sent to prison for using a private email server. “Lock her up!” became the chant at his rallies.
Today, for her part, Clinton posted a link to the story along with an eyes emoji and wrote: “You have got to be kidding me.”
—
Notes:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/03/trump-administration-accidentally-texted-me-its-war-plans/682151/
https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/24/politics/hegseth-waltz-vance-signal-chat-mistake-what-matters/index.html
https://emojis.wiki/eyes/
Bluesky:
markhertling.bsky.social/post/3ll5ntkgkos2y
schiff.senate.gov/post/3ll5l3v4e7c2x
briantylercohen.bsky.social/post/3ll6agcqcrc2h
natsechobbyist.bsky.social/post/3ll5o4v34b22s
petebuttigieg.bsky.social/post/3ll5ky5hqlc2f
paleofuture.bsky.social/post/3ll5wbhkiqs2c
craigbrittain.com/post/3ll6443bis22h
alwaysvote.bsky.social/post/3ll67oluqkc2v
timothysnyder.bsky.social/post/3ll5hgxla6c2d
kylegriffin1.bsky.social/post/3ll5j52sofk2j
X:
CastelliMatt/status/1904318972964556956
radiofreetom/status/1904244986998124622
HillaryClinton/status/1904263639605084512
YouTube:
watch?v=5pPd6dHSNFM
RE: The USA by a slim margin votes for Fascism, Rascism, Mysogeny, Hate. - Peter Lemkin - 25-03-2025
RE: The USA by a slim margin votes for Fascism, Rascism, Mysogeny, Hate. - Peter Lemkin - 26-03-2025
Shakedown Politics, Sabotage, Self-Enrichment: How to Talk About Trump and Musk's Authoritarian Activities
Finding the right language and concepts is key to effective messaging and resistance
Ruth Ben-Ghiat
Mar 25
![[Image: https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.ama...x4800.jpeg]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F953fc6bb-0555-4ac9-930b-5af9268dab94_3600x4800.jpeg){kind=small}
Autocrats specialize in bringing the unthinkable into being, and in disappearing people, words, and things that threaten them. Two months into the Trump-Musk administration, as extreme and outrageous events become a daily occurrence, the silence of many is deafening. The U.S. government is censoring the language used in official documents and threatening people into states of self-censorship; others tell me they are “speechless” at the rapid and wrenching changes in United States domestic and foreign policy.
So I decided to write an essay to give us the tools to speak about what is happening to America and its relations with foreign powers, so we can formulate messaging and resistance strategies adapted to our specific realities. I offer four frames and concepts that describe the qualities and operations of this government: Engineered Incompetence, National Sabotage for the Benefit of Foreign Autocrats, Plunder and Shakedown Operations, and Leader(s) Self-Enrichment. A separate essay will examine this government as a White Patriarchy Power Protection (Racket).
How the U.S. is Innovating the Authoritarian Playbook
I have been warning about President Donald Trump and the GOP since 2016, so I expected the attacks on the legal system, language, civil rights, transgender individuals, immigrants, education, federal employees, and more. Some of this borrows from foreign authoritarian experiences, and some builds on a long American history of racist attacks and policies, as Sherrilyn Ifill’s latest essay shows.
Yet Trump and Musk are not merely creating another autocracy along the lines of Hungary or Turkey, with inspiration from South African apartheid and the Jim Crow South. They are innovating the authoritarian playbook with their power-sharing agreement and their chainsaw and wrecking-ball tactics.
The speed and scope of these authoritarian interventions surpasses the early actions of leaders such as Erdogan and Putin: they resemble the aftermath of the coups I have studied, or a process of regime change, as Anne Applebaum has also suggested.
Even if we understand the long-term dystopian political designs of Musk, Peter Thiel, Curtis Yarvin and other technofascists, we still need language to talk about what’s happening now. We must find the right words to communicate, including to habitual non-voters, the stakes of this new kind of coup and the consequences of unleashing digital shock troops on our federal bureaucracy – the data capture and physical lockouts and purging of staff, including at the nonprofit U.S. Institute of Peace.
No One Elected Musk: Messaging America’s Leaders Number One Problem
How do we talk about the entrenchment of an unelected individual at the head of U.S. government? I always found the Putin personality cult product, Leaders Number One cologne, ridiculous, including for its odd use of the plural. But now the joke is on us because we have an actual Leaders Number One problem.
Instead of one person at the top of the “power vertical,” as it is referred to in Russia, we have two dangerous and damaged individuals making decisions. We have two people speaking at Cabinet meetings and in the Oval Office, and two people meeting with foreign leaders as representatives of the U.S. government.
The normalization of this exceptional situation means that traditional resistance strategies directed at subtracting elite and grassroots support for the singular strongman have to be rethought.
Here is the Leaders Number One duo performing for the press in the Oval Office in February:
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Our Leaders Number One problem. Elon Musk takes questions from reporters in the Oval Office as President Trump observes, Feb. 11, 2025.
Here are four frames for thinking about current U.S. “governance.” They are designed to spark discussion and resistance messaging and postures adapted to the realities of our place and time.
Engineered Incompetence
The news that Sec. of Defense Pete Hegseth and other luminaries of the Trump-Musk administration were using Signal —an encrypted message system, but not an official government channel—to talk about war plans for Yemen bears out this essay I wrote five days before the inauguration. It introduces the idea of engineered incompetence, a state of affairs found in many authoritarian states and now being revealed as a defining trait of the Trump-Musk administration.
The essay was about Hegseth, but the concept applies to DNI head Tulsi Gabbard and many other Trump appointees. As I wrote in the New York Times on Jan. 30:
Quote:Authoritarian states abound with examples of engineered incompetence, when leaders appoint individuals to Cabinet positions who lack the skill-set and high-level connections needed to succeed. This makes those individuals more dependent on the leader and creates more space for the leader’s powerful cronies to influence the institution to their own benefit (one could imagine that Elon Musk, who is an interested party due to his many defense contracts, might prefer Hegseth as Secretary of Defense over a tough and seasoned professional).
Pete Hegseth and the Autocratic Strategy of Engineered Incompetence
Ruth Ben-Ghiat
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Jan 15
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A Plunder and Shakedown Operation
Authoritarianism is about taking away the rights of the many to give the powerful few unrestricted and unregulated liberties to exploit and plunder the environment, the workplace, and the vulnerable (as traffickers, abusers, and more). Many actions already taken by Trump and Musk, and the personal histories and attitudes of many of their appointees and enablers, seem to further this philosophy and these goals.
Plunder also describes the activities of many foreign autocrats, who seize private assets, drain resources from state agencies, and exfiltrate the money offshore (a Putin specialty). Autocrats exploit labor, natural resources, and bodies with impunity, because they have amassed enough power to do so.
Shakedown politics is the other frame for considering this administration’s “approach” to domestic and foreign policy. The Oval Office spectacle arranged by Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and the general tenor of their “diplomacy” —submit to Putin’s demands or we take half of your rare earth minerals— is one example; the demands made of Columbia University —comply or say goodbye to your $400 million of federal funding—are another.
In the corruption chapter of Strongmen, I mention the “overlap” between the methods of organized crime and authoritarianism. It is significant that Bill Emmott, a former editor of The Economist who is not given to hyperbole, has written several Substack essays on Trump’s “gangster boss” behavior towards Ukraine, warning that Taiwan could be the next “victim” of “Trump shakedowns.”
Why are we normalizing this by using the frame of traditional foreign policy to talk about Trump’s actions?
A National Sabotage Effort, for the Benefit of Foreign Autocrats
Trump and Musk are trying to eradicate or re-engineer entire government entities and agencies crucial to the national future, such as the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services. This ambition to uproot and destroy government at scale usually happens in situations of regime change or collapse.
This is not the “small government” envisioned by neoliberals, libertarians, and old-school conservatives; this is the desire to annihilate all those parts of government that serve the people (at home, or abroad, as with USAID) and remake the institutions they do retain, like the intelligence sector and the judiciary, as entities that serve the leader(s) and his allies.
This sabotage of the country in vital areas such as public health, education, scientific research, and climate crisis mitigation, injects chaos and uncertainty into what was, just a few months ago, one of the world’s strongest economies. The eventual degradation of the population through policies that promote disease, impoverishment, and disaster can be termed a biopolitical intervention.
It’s obvious who benefits from all of this: Russia, China, and other autocratic powers that have long wanted to take America down and can move in to dominate where America’s footprint is erased. Trump and Musk are the vehicles of that process.
The Trump Administration Aims to Weaken America
Ruth Ben-Ghiat
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Feb 5
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A Leader(s) Enrichment Vehicle
Corruption should be front and center in messaging about this “administration,” not least because Trump and Musk are refreshing the old autocratic scam of claiming to pursue “anti-corruption” reforms but actually enacting measures that facilitate corruption and stand to enrich them and their cronies. Hungary is an example of the consequences. The “spectacular enrichment” of the family and inner circle of GOP muse Viktor Orban, Prime Minister of Hungary, has now become the subject of a documentary.
Trump is in this tradition. As for other authoritarians, the idea of conflicts of interest is foreign to him. He spent almost one-third of his time during the years 2017-2019 visiting Trump-branded properties. During his first term, he likely received more than $13 million from China and other foreign nations, while Ivanka and Jared Kushner made as much as $640 million.
That may be nothing if the leader enrichment machine that has geared up since Jan 20 works smoothly. Unelected co-leader Musk is poised to make more billions from U.S. government contracts, while Trump has his crypto business and whatever foreign partnerships and products may be in the works. Olga Lautman’s Tyranny Tracker newsletter has a daily press digest focused on corruption activities.
America may be innovating the authoritarian playbook, but we can find the language to communicate frankly with others about the nature and activities of this government. That way we can develop effective messaging and mount a resistance campaign adapted to our specific situation.