Robert Reich: This Is What Dictatorship Looks Like – OpEd

It’s a coup.

As Trump talks about taking over Gaza (“beautiful shoreline”), Greenland (“great minerals”), Panama (“very strategic”), and making Canada the 51st state, the media has gone ape-shite wild. 

Meanwhile, Trump’s goons are taking over the federal government without congressional authority and very little public awareness. 

They’re using two techniques.

The first is to physically take over an agency or department. 

Consider USAID. Elon Musk (now a “special government employee”) calls it a “criminal organization” that needs to “die” and brags about feeding it “into the wood chipper.” 

Which is what he and his tech goons have done — dismantling the work of the 10,000-person, $40 billion foreign-assistance agency, along with the thousands of people in nonprofits and other groups that work with it. 

The irony of the richest man in the world almost single-handedly destroying an agency designed to help the world’s poor, so that the U.S. federal budget has more room for another giant tax cut for the richest man in the world and his pals, should not be lost on anyone. 

Tuesday, all of USAID’s Washington facilities were closed. Nearly all USAID’s 10,000 employees have been put on administrative as of Saturday. Staff working around the world have been ordered to return home within 30 days.

“Thank you for your service,” is the last message on USAID’s website, which for days was offline. 

Make no mistake: The takeover and dismantling of USAID is a test case for whether Musk and the Trump regime can destroy a part of government without legal or political resistance. 

So far, the answer seems to be yes.

Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune says he “doesn’t believe” the Trump administration is closing an agency without congressional approval, but that it is rather reviewing how the agency is spending money.

Thune is either a fool or a knave. 

The second technique being used by Musk and his tech goons is to gain access to the Treasury Department’s payments system, responsible for nearly all payments made by the U.S. government, and alter it — writing new code for programs that control more than 20 percent of the U.S. economy, including Social Security benefits and veterans’ pay. 

Musk says he’ll be shutting down some Treasury payments in an effort to root out “corruption and waste.” That is, whatever Musk considers corruption and waste.

What’s next? Will Trump, Musk, and Musk’s tech goons take over, or stop funding, the Labor Department? (My sources there tell me Department of Labor workers have been ordered to give Musk’s DOGE access to anything they want — or risk termination.)

I don’t know, but I do know that nothing right now seems to be stopping them. 

The Republican-controlled Congress has essentially surrendered Congress’s powers, including the power of the purse (it has already surrendered its powers over tariffs and foreign policy). There’s not much of a role for Congress left.

Yesterday afternoon, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee tried to subpoena Musk, but Republicans called a procedural vote without notice so the Dems wouldn’t get there on time. Here’s Congressman Ro Khanna’s account, followed by Musk’s response.

My friends, this is no longer about Democrats versus Republicans, left versus right, liberals versus conservatives. 

The choice right now is democracy or dictatorship (or if you’d rather use the term fascism, go right ahead). And we are sliding faster than I ever thought possible into the latter. 

Everyone must choose which side they’re on. Now. 

More on this to come.

• This article was published at Robert Reich’s Substack