WASHINGTON — We are on the precipice of a totalitarian President Donald Trump and his ax-man Elon Musk grabbing the power of a compliant Republican-run Congress, ignoring inconvenient court rulings and ending our system of having three separate and independent branches of government.
There is a difference between dismantling federal agencies in cruel and chaotic ways, then claiming, without detailed proof, that you are ferreting out cheating, and doing the hard work of finding waste, fraud and abuse, making public that information and then doing something about it.
And doing it legally. With transparency. Without cruelty to federally funded workers who every day are scared about what is going to happen to them. They could be your neighbors, friends or family in the Chicago area, with its large federal workforce and many civilian jobs at Naval Station Great Lakes in Lake County.
Trump and Musk don’t understand or don’t care how cruel it is to suddenly fire people, put them on administrative leave or pressure them to quit in the chaotic way they are doing it. There is a humane and orderly way to downsize and cancel contracts. And the sudden stop of humanitarian aid — with no time for people and organizations who depended on U.S. assistance to try to find backup — is beyond ruthless.
The chilling photos that sum up our dangerous era of Trump’s autocratic rule — were shot Friday, when workers were taking down the sign from the D.C. headquarters of the U.S. Agency for International Development and covering other signs outside the building with black tape.
This was happening even as a federal judge issued a temporary order to block Trump and Musk from taking the agency apart and saved 2,200 staffers who were about to be put on administration leave. And the Republicans in Congress — who created and funded the agency — don’t see how they are now Trump’s puppets.
University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana professor Peter Goldsmith said on Bluesky that the Soybean Innovation Lab at the school will close on April 15 “as all USAID funding has ceased.” He had to let go a staff of 30. Illinois — with two Democratic senators — and Iowa — where both senators are Republicans — are the top two soybean-producing states. The wholesale razing of this agency has domestic implications.
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul was part of a 23-state group of Democratic attorneys general who won a short-term victory when a federal judge in Rhode Island issued a temporary restraining order banning Trump from freezing federal funding. But all these lawsuits are in the initial phases, and we don’t know how they will be resolved.
Trump has won a lot already because he has broken a lot of eggs. He understands some things can’t be put back together, no matter what courts ultimately rule. Trump will only be getting stronger as he swiftly takes apart by fiat the federal government Congress is supposed to oversee.
A federal judge also paused a bid by Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from accessing the Treasury Department’s payment system. A White House spokesperson called it a “frivolous lawsuit” that was “akin to children throwing pasta on the wall to see if it will stick.”
That system handles, among many other things, Social Security payments.
Social Security is one of the most unifying federal programs we have. Social Security checks go to people no matter if they are mega-MAGA or super-liberal. What the multitudes of people on Social Security have in common is — at least for now — the absolute certainly that on a set day each month, the direct deposit of their Social Security payment will show up in their bank account.
Letting Musk’s team of workers, who answer only to those in the Musk orbit, have any access to the Treasury payment system — even read only — is insane and does not inspire the confidence we need to ensure the system continues to work.
An excerpt from Trump’s Fox Super Bowl interview was released hours before the game on Sunday. Trump says he is going to tell Musk “very soon, like maybe in 24 hours, to go check the Department of Education. He’s going to find the same thing. Then I’m going to go to the military. Let’s check the military. We’re going to find billions, hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud and abuse.”
We’re all for getting rid of waste, fraud and abuse. Is this the way to do it? With congressional Republicans neutered, we face a fraught road ahead.