THE ENERGY IS BUILDING

Let's build it higher

Diana Robinson

I feel the energy starting to build.

More and more Americans, Republicans as well as Democrats, can see the outlines of a coup - and I don’t think they like it. What’s at stake at this point is nothing less than the U.S. Constitution and the system of government its framers laid out for us.

Never perfect, never fully actualized, the Constitution has nonetheless held this country together since it was ratified in 1788. This document of unmistakable genius, mainly the handiwork of 36-year-old James Madison, articulates the legal principles on which, despite some very rough chapters in our history, Americans have agreed to agree.

Yet now a bunch of billionaire techno bros have decided they have a better idea. They feel that modern nation states, Constitutions, things like that are just quaint relics of the past and we’d best be rid of them. It would be preposterous if it weren’t so scary, but scary it is… because they’re working this, and they’re working quickly. Elon spent $277M to purchase the right to an Oval Office press conference all his own, plus access to government computers so he can play with the $7 Trillion payment system at the U.S. Treasury like it’s his new toy.

He bought it, after all. Why shouldn’t he?

Journalist Gil Duran on the Majority Report gave some interesting insight into these techno authoritarians. The more you read about this, the more it twists your head. Of this be very clear: they are not kidding.

Current happenings are more than the bullying tactics of immature boys. They are dangerous plans executed by uber wealthy, powerful sociopaths who fail utterly to appreciate the deeper point of a free society. One thing they’re right about is that one or two people calling all the shots is a more “efficient” way of running things - for the very reason that it leaves everyone but them out of the decision-making! And it’s perfect when the puppet they put on top is a billionaire too…someone who gets his kicks from playing on their team.

Yes democracy is messy in comparison, requiring participation and deliberation by individual citizens. It’s a slow slog, and at times like this a clearly corrupted one. Yet it provides an opportunity for citizens to fix the problem ourselves, as opposed to someone else stepping in to fix it for us. We can still create - or uncreate - the society of our choosing, as opposed to the society Elon Musk or Donald Trump or the authors of Project 2025 decide we should be. In America, We the People are supposed to be the boss. We can be who we want to be and do what we want to do, and we don’t get to tell other people who they should be or what they should do. If we want to be woke, we’re free to be woke. If we want to hang a pride flag, we’re free to hang a pride flag. If we want a TRUMP sign in our front yard, we’re free to do that too. Our freedom to do any of those things - as long as we don’t hurt anyone else - is the essence of what it means to be free. Freedom means everyone has a chance to play and everyone has a chance to thrive. It means this country belongs to all of us, and We the People are the power.

People have struggled, sacrificed and died for that ideal - so important it was to them. It’s time for all of us to decide now how important it is to us.

Musk’s Demon Operating under the Guise of Efficiency, or DOGE, is inflicting serious trauma on everyone from farmers who produced 41 per cent of our humanitarian food assistance, to federal workers who have been the steady caretakers of governmental agencies, and to people no longer receiving medical treatment for malaria, tuberculosis or HIV. People are doing what they can to resist this assault on the rule of law, speaking eloquent truths in the face of lies. From Congresspeople at official hearings, to famous journalists describing DOGE’s “reign of terror”, to ordinary citizens simply sharing information, cries of freedom are making themselves heard. The energy is building but we need a lot more of it. The forces arrayed against the tenets of our Constitution are very, very serious. We must be too.

It is his arrogance as well as his ignorance that makes Musk so dangerous. He knows nothing about government, nothing about our federal agencies, nothing about the programs he’s simply eradicating with the push of a “delete” button, and nothing about professional auditing. He has decided to override that pesky inconvenience called the U.S. Congress, using his vast power as the owner of X to invalidate the Constitutional principle that the judiciary can block a President’s orders. President Trump has empowered him to do all of those things. He is causing damage it will take years to repair, and every day we don’t stand up to this is a day we’re complicit in the shredding of the U.S. Constitution.

For now, our Republican led Congress will not stand up to Musk; if you have a Republican Congressperson or Republican Senator, please call 202 224 3121 and let them hear from you. I’ve been told several times that in private, our Republican legislators think Musk is as off-the-wall as the rest of us do. But for mysterious as well as not-so-mysterious reasons, they will not break free of Trump’s grip enough to serve the interests of their country before the interests of their party. It’s extraordinary the way Congress is surrendering its authority as a co-equal branch of government, not just to our President but to the unelected Elon Musk.

Republican Senators, I’m told, often say there’s no reason to risk their careers, given that the courts will surely handle the problem. But we should all remember this: should Trump get a court order he doesn’t like and simply decide to ignore it (which both Vance and Musk have already urged him to do), the only recourse for the court at that point is to send in federal marshals. Such a prospect would certainly frighten an ordinary citizen. But federal marshals work for our Justice Department (or, I should say, Trump’s Justice Department). How likely is it that Pam Bondi would allow them to show up at the door of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.?

We’re in a pickle now.

All of this is happening right in front of our eyes. Project 2025 architect Russ Vought, who is now the Director of the OMB (Office of Management and Budget), wrote in a 2022 essay that the United States was already in a “post-Constitutional moment.” He said that to push back against liberals, it was necessary to be “radical in discarding or rethinking the legal paradigms that have confined our ability to return to the original Constitution.” Got that? Liberals are the reason we have to abandon the Constitution now.

In Vought’s confirmation hearing, Independent Senator Angus King of Maine gave an impassioned plea to his fellow Senators not to allow someone who literally said we’re better off without the Constitution to hold such an important position. It was a wonderful speech, but his words went unheeded.

I suppose Vought would consider quaint the words of Republican President Dwight Eisenhower, that “the American mind at its best is both liberal and conservative.” In the Project 2025 vision of America, there isn’t room for both Right and Left. One of us must be squashed. In the words of Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, “the second American Revolution … will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”

Got that, lefties? Just take your medicine and calm down now…

For the love of God, do not take that medicine. If there’s a point at which We the People better rise up powerfully if we intend to save our democracy, that point is right now.

While many are delighted to see the richest man in the world take a sledgehammer to the US government, cheering him on as he does, those cheerleaders are nothing but useful idiots to him. And many who voted for Trump are starting to see that now. What’s happening here is not what MAGA voted for. While Trump’s supporters might have wanted, and still might want, a hammer taken to bloated government infrastructure, what’s happening now is not a course-correction. It’s reckless destruction. People wanted a reduction in the price of eggs, and eggs are higher now than they’ve ever been.

Americans are a good people. I believe it with all my heart. I do not think that in the final analysis, an unelected billionaire already awarded tens of billons of dollars in government contracts will be seen as a man who should rightfully hold the fate of so many in his hands. Trump is our President; that’s democracy. Musk is our shadow dictator, and that is not.

He can do, and is already doing, great harm. And all of us must participate in stopping the insanity. Each of us has a part to play, from a social media post to local activism to a conversation in which we refuse to acquiesce. When hate speaks loudly, love cannot afford to whisper.

A new Americanism is emerging from this. There’s no way to quantitatively measure what’s happening, but despite it all the energy is building. It isn’t yet a moment of collective activation, but a huge “HELL NO” is beginning to be heard.