Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has been increasing the volume of his rage at what he characterizes as the takeover of American democracy by a billionaire oligarchy in the second Trump administration.
Taking special aim at Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and de facto boss of President Donald Trump‘s DOGE agency, Sanders asserts that Musk’s interest — like that of other billionaire members of Trump’s inner circle — is self-serving rather than a mission to, as Trump puts it, make America great again.
Trump issued 100 executive orders in his first 65 days, 83 more than he issued during the first 65 days of his first term — an effort that former Trump top advisor Steven Bannon calls “flooding the zone.” The orders also align with the Silicon Valley entrepreneurial ethos — embodied by Musk –known as “move fast and break things.”
Sanders contends that the DOGE effect is breaking society rather than streamlining government, and that the Trump-Musk dismantling of agencies and willy-nilly firing of federal workers, along with removing government watchdogs like inspectors general, is a plot against America’s success.
The Senator accuses the oligarchy of aiming to further increase the wealth and power of the most wealthy and powerful Americans — and of leaving working class and middle class people holding the bag.
Last week Sanders called out a new attack in the “Trump-Musk war against workers,” saying that Trump had “issued a blatantly illegal executive order essentially destroying AFGE & NTEU, the unions representing federal employees. The Oligarchs don’t like unions. We do.”
The Trump-Musk war against workers continues. Last night, Trump issued a blatantly illegal executive order essentially destroying AFGE & NTEU, the unions representing federal employees.
The Oligarchs don’t like unions. We do. Let’s stand together against this assault on workers.
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) March 28, 2025
Was the order “blatantly unconstitutional” as Sanders asserts? The way American democracy works means that it is up to the courts to decide the legality of the move, though with calls for the impeachment of judges and the issuance of executive orders punishing law firms that oppose him, Trump is also moving fast — his opponents say — to break the courts and the judicial system too.
In that particular union case, the DOJ has sought to protect the legality of Trump’s order, Georgetown Law Professor and Supreme Court lawyer Steve Vladeck says, by “judge shopping” — a criticism the Trump team often levels at Democrats.
Vladeck points out that it is common for litigants suing to stop an executive action to file that suit in a district where it might find judges predisposed to consider the case favorably — or at least in a court where rejection isn’t the presumptive outcome given the court’s history.
There have been 46 cases in which federal judges have blocked Trump policies.
The rulings in those cases have come from 39 different judges appointed by 5 different presidents of both parties to 11 different district courts in 7 different circuits.
Maybe it’s not the judges?
— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) March 30, 2025
Yet Vladeck’s research shows that of the 67 Trump executive actions currently being challenged in district courts — where a temporary restraining order (TRO) or a preliminary injunction (PI) is being sought — effectively none of them have been aimed at single-judge divisions where an outcome might be more predictable. The practical effect, then, is that while there are some courts more likely to be favorable, each suit essentially rolls the dice on which judge in that district will hear the case — it might be a judge appointed by Trump himself.
Vladeck then notes the contrast between that statistic and what’s happening in the AFGE union case that Sanders is railing against.
There is no such judge randomness in the DOJ’s case defending the executive order crushing the federal worker unions, which it filed in Waco, Texas. Vladeck reports:
“That absence is in noticeable contrast to a lawsuit the Justice Department itself filed just last Thursday—seeking a declaratory judgment that it should be allowed to terminate collective bargaining agreements between eight agencies and dozens of affiliates of the American Federation of Government Employees. Where did the Trump administration file this nationwide suit? In the Waco Division of the Western District of Texas—where it had a 100% chance of being (and has been) assigned to a Trump-appointed district judge, and where any appeal goes to the Fifth Circuit. It’s the height of irony that the only judge-shopping we’re seeing in Trump-related cases is … from Trump.”