No Judge Can Block Musk’s Access to Your Data
He already has it — so now what?
Let’s stop pretending, shall we? A lawless administration cares nothing for a judgment telling them to cease and desist. A lawless administration has only one response to such an order: Make me.
With the DOJ in the hands of Donald J. Trump and with Pam Bondi as Trump’s Attorney General, who do you think will force Musk to give up the access he has?
Musk has already rehired the child who resigned after the stink about his admitted racism. “Normalize Indian hate.” That was this kid’s mantra. Meanwhile, Vice President J.D. Vance supported the Musk protégé, who was also quoted as saying, “I was a racist before it was cool.” If Musk’s Nazi salute was not enough to trouble you, this should send a chill down your spine.
Vance’s wife is Indian, by the way. But Vance thinks it’s okay to promote hatred of his wife’s nationality because hate is acceptable here in America. Without it, where would Trump and Vance be? They ran on hate; they can’t abandon it now.
So, while the folks at Democracy Docket are crooning over the latest lawsuit win, let me remind you: lawsuits are meaningless to Trump and Musk. They have already taken over our government systems, and they have full control. Despite 1,600 calls/minute to Congress, threatening to break the system, the dismantling of USAID, and Musk’s access to our Treasury Department’s most sensitive data, Republican James Comer refused even to entertain putting those protests on the record and issuing a subpoena to question Elon Musk.
Instead, Comer called for a vote, and when it was clearly in favor of the Democrats, who were pushing to address the issues at hand, Comer said he found in favor of the Republicans, who chose to table the issue. End of discussion.
While Secretary of State Marco Rubio claims he’s asked USAID employees to prioritize their projects, Musk has shut down every communication system USAID employees require to conduct business. They can’t even book travel to leave their station to return home after being illegally fired. Nor can they discuss priorities because their email accounts have been disabled.
Way to go, Rubio. Our Secretary of State doesn’t know what’s happening even as he speaks — and this is only the beginning.
Republicans in power have no shame, morals, or concern for the American people. Their goal was to gain power, and now they have it. But what do they plan to do with it? So far, it appears they have but one goal: to demolish the government.
Stupid can’t be fought with logic
In a brilliant New York Times Op-Ed titled The Six Principles of Stupidity, David Brooks clarifies why using logic with Trump doesn’t work. When people are incompetent, they lack the skills to recognize their weaknesses. This is Trump.
Musk has skills, but he’s using them to trash the government without ever learning how it works or what the consequences of his actions will be. In his mind, he is brilliant, so anything he does must be brilliant, too. There are no boundaries around these men — which is why they are so dangerous.
The game has changed. And as another brilliant Op-Ed, this one by E.J. Dionne, Jr., puts it: “… a lot of what once passed for strategy is useless now.” We need to rethink how we approach politics because politics, as usual, isn’t working.
However, before we begin addressing strategies that could work, we must understand who we are fighting against. Yes, we all know we’re talking about right-wing billionaires — but who are these people, and what motivates them?
Why rich people tend toward far-right thinking
The thing about people with too much money is they lose their ability to prioritize. It’s like a muscle that atrophies. You don’t need to make hard choices when you can have and do whatever suits you in the moment. You don’t need to consider the value of this vs. that. It’s just one big free-for-all, and whatever feels right in any given moment is what you do. This is how Trump and Musk operate. They have no boundaries because nobody can afford to stop them — regardless of how heinous their behavior is.
Billionaires like Bezos and Zuckerberg are the same in this way. They don’t need to think about the rest of us, so they don’t. Their morals and priorities become whatever suits them — never mind the price someone else might pay for it.
Regulations are bad because they make them think about their actions and their effect on others. They don’t want to be bothered with that. They have the money to do things safely, but it takes thought, effort, and hard work. They prefer spending time on luxury yachts or in gaudy establishments where they can show off their wealth and status and where service people treat them like gods. Why would they opt to solve problems when the money keeps rolling in regardless?
Why would they willingly allow the government or anyone else to influence their business decisions? That’s an inconvenience they are not open to. Hence, their far-right leaning. The less government, the better, they say. But this thinking only works for them. The rest of us must suffer. And they are okay with that, too, because they see themselves as special. After all, look at what they’ve accumulated. Surely, that means they are better than we are.
Allowing such people to run a country that requires understanding myriad systems, interconnected processes, and fundamental principles of ethics, morality, operational stability, and forward-thinking is like asking a toddler to handle your finances. And yet, here we are.
The lawlessness factor
Neither Musk nor Trump cares about the law. Their joy (if you can call it that) comes from their ability to say “fuck you” to the rest of us. Neither man is liked by most. Their fans are like-minded racists and losers who have never been on top and now hope that they can feel like winners by virtue of their association with men who pretend to be “all that” but who are just very good at lying and manipulating facts to make themselves appear significantly more innovative and more capable than they are.
Instead of admiring and pandering to these men, we should be exposing them as the weak-minded, egomaniacal, pathologically self-centered people they are.
But because Trump and Musk prey on the weak and frustrated, too many have joined their cause, and now they, too, believe it’s okay to be lawless. And why shouldn’t they? Trump already pardoned the convicted criminals responsible for the violence on Jan. 6. If they commit crimes on Trump’s behalf now, they have good reason to believe they will do so with impunity.
Exposing Trump’s election interference in 2024
If we want to make a difference, we need to start now by ensuring that everybody knows how much election interference was at play in 2024. Between voter suppression, Russian social media interference, burned-up ballot boxes, bomb threats, and playing around with voting machines, we have plenty of reason to believe this election was swayed, if not stolen, by bad actors. We need to expose every incident of this repeatedly.
Since anybody can challenge a voter and most whose votes were challenged didn’t know about it in time to deal with it before the election, those votes were not counted. Investigative journalist Greg Palast estimates the number of disenfranchised voters could be between three and four million. With strategic maneuvering in the right places, Palast suggests that this may have changed the outcome of the 2024 election. Perhaps this is why Trump kept saying during his campaign, “We don’t need your votes.” They had it covered. They knew they would win because they found a way to cheat their way into the White House. And with each nefarious act putting a few thousand more votes in Trump’s favor vs. a single act that would have been obvious to everyone, they managed to pull it off without raising the suspicion of most election watchers. Like I said, they are good at one thing: deception aimed at manipulation.
We need to expose their manipulation so that when elections are held again, people are ready for them, know what to look for, and know how important it is to get out the vote instead of staying home in protest. Refusing to vote is not protest, by the way; it’s an abdication of responsibility.
What the Democratic Party should be doing
With lawsuits against Trump piling up, most of which he will lose, we must understand that these judgments are meaningless unless the Democrats can take control of both Houses in the upcoming mid-term elections. But even then, if the Trump administration ignores the law, Dems will have little power to enforce it.
While fighting those battles is important, the real fight will be taking back the White House. It would be great if enough Republicans could see the dangers of this administration and were willing to act, but nothing we’ve seen indicates that is even a remote possibility.
The only way we can turn this around (legally) is to work like mad to spread the word about the dangers of this administration and the nefarious and illegal behavior that got us here and will continue until we remove Republicans from positions of power.
The mainstream media has caved, with only MSNBC willing to speak truth to power. And since Trump et al. have done so much to discredit them, no one we need to reach is paying attention to Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes, Nicole Wallace, or Lawrence O’Donnell. It will be up to independent media to pick up the baton and run with it.
Instead of patting themselves on the back for winning lawsuits, the folks at Democracy Docket, Legal AF, and other Meidas Touch contributors need to focus more on exposing election interference, citing numbers, and pointing out a few obvious things everybody wants to ignore:
Trump cheated. He doesn’t have a mandate; more people voted for someone else than for Trump, and millions didn’t vote.
The Trump administration is not exercising the “will of the people.” They are ignoring our will and stealing our resources to enrich themselves and other billionaires. You are mistaken if you think people with too much money won’t do bad things for money.
(In Trump’s case, he’s been lying about his wealth, and that’s why he’s scamming people daily.)
However, for the oligarchs who support Trump, it’s not the money they want. They are stealing from us because of the rush they get from taking money from someone else — this is what drives them.
Why the rich want more
The psychology of the wealthy is pretty simple. They have no challenges left except to see how much they can get away with. People, by nature, need to have something to look forward to. What would motivate you if everything you want is already within your grasp?
For the filthy rich, the thrill of achievement only comes from their ability to control others. It’s the only thing that creates the feeling the rest of us get from setting and meeting a goal. All people have this intrinsic need, but when you have so much money that there is nothing in life that challenges you, you must find something to work toward. This is why the rich need more. It’s not about the money; rather, it’s about the feeling of conquering something. For them, the only thing left to conquer is us.
This is why we need to be wary of these people. Few highly evolved people are able to resist this phenomenon after obtaining massive wealth, but it’s clear that Donald Trump and Elon Musk are not among them. Nor are the likes of Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg. We need to see them for who they are, not who they pretend to be.
CBS’s settlement with Trump and why that’s bad
Lastly, we need to constantly remind people that when the media settles a lawsuit with Trump without ever going to court, it means they are afraid — not that Trump is right.
I don’t understand why Trump’s targets can’t show up in court to remind the judge that the lawsuits are frivolous and shouldn’t be brought. Why a judge can’t make a ruling without forcing everyone to throw away millions to defend themselves against a man who is known to use the law to punish people financially is beyond me.
How is it that the lawsuits Trump brings are even allowed to waste resources when there is never any evidence to support his claims? If the lawyers at Democracy Docket want to do something really useful, how about working to bring frivolous lawsuit claims against Trump? It would both expose his game and help protect future victims. Cut him off where it matters instead of fighting battles where being victorious has no immediate practical implications.
The final word
Trump is a master of manipulation and distraction. We must be smart about the battles we choose and how we communicate about what is happening. But mostly, we need to constantly expose Trump and his minions for who they are. Forget what they say; report what they do.
Instead of preaching to the choir, we need dedicated patriots to respond to every lie in every post Trump shares. And they need to do it on the platform Trump uses to spread his lies — not on some obscure website, podcast, or BlueSky. Yes, that’s important, too, but it won’t reach the people it needs to reach unless it’s done in immediate response on the channel where the lies are being told. This is how we win.
The Democratic Party should form a team of media-savvy people to do nothing but monitor Trump and Musk and respond to every lie in real-time. If their accounts are suspended, they should create new ones immediately without missing a beat.
We can’t pretend that Trump means well or that he won’t take advantage of every bit of power we give him. And we cannot expect people to see this clearly without our help when they’ve been lied to for over a decade and have bought into many of the lies.
We must state the obvious over and over. We must unflinchingly expose the truth — even when it seems so clear we can’t imagine others can’t see it. We must repeat the truth just like they repeat their lies.
At every opportunity, we must correct the record. Because every time we let a lie go unchallenged, we lose a little more ground. We must never forget this.
You said it!