Elon Musk, the tech billionaire and unelected adviser to President Donald Trump, is asserting control over much of the federal bureaucracy and sensitive government computer systems despite lacking clear authority. The highest-ranking career official at the Treasury Department was pushed out after refusing to hand Musk’s team the keys to the government’s entire payment system and the $6 trillion in payments the system processes annually, including Social Security checks, tax refunds and Medicare benefits. Musk and his team have also seized control at the Office of Personnel Management and the General Services Administration, key institutions that function as the central nervous system of the U.S. government. “In any other situation, this would be called state capture, and people around the world would be condemning it,” says Democratic strategist Waleed Shahid, who writes in a new blog post that Elon Musk is staging a coup. We also speak with Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, who warns that Musk could be laying the groundwork for major tax cuts Republicans have promised that will disproportionately benefit corporations and wealthy people like him. “Elon Musk is going to pay for his tax cut with your Social Security,” says Owens.
I don’t think that’s a coup though?
Like a coup is a specific thing. What’s happening might be fucked up, and unlawful, but not necessarily a coup.
But in another way he is kinda taking over the government and he isn’t the government
Not really. He has the president’s support. That’s not taking over the government.
Is it a dictatorship?
I didn’t think the president’s role was designed to have absolute power over all branches of government - but maybe I don’t really understand the us govt system.
I think “dictatorship” describes a style of government which may not really apply.
The POTUS is obviously intended to have absolute control hence the existence of executive orders. However, like most of the US constitution it relies on the assumption that the people wouldn’t knowingly elect an autocrat.
That is to say executive orders are intended to be used sparingly, with great caution, not for things like declaring a new official measurement for Obamas penis.
So while the US govt probably wouldn’t be considered a dictatorship generally, Trumps behaviour is certainly autocratic.