We have a billionaire shadow president. Robert Reich sagely traces back this awful situation in which we find ourselves to Citizens United, which allowed a flood of dark money to enter politics. Once that happened, Reich argues, somebody like Musk was inevitable. The Musk/Trump alliance is the Murphy’s Law result of all that we have seen in government corruption in the past forty years, if not before that.
You couple that with the right-wing media silo, Musk taking over Twitter and using it as a Trump mouthpiece, and the other billionaire oligarchs buying major outlets like the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post and using their outlets to appease Trump. This entire confluence of events has gotten us to where we are now, where we have an unelected shadow president running the government. This is straight out of Illuminati conspiracy theory but it’s real. Unfortunately.
The highest-ranking career official at the Treasury is leaving after clashes with DOGE over access to sensitive payment systems that control Social Security benefits, tax refunds, and federal salaries.
Remember: This isn’t Trump’s second presidency. It’s Musk’s first. pic.twitter.com/ABezlXXE7h
— Robert Reich (@RBReich) January 31, 2025
From Reich’s newsletter entitled “The F*cking Nightmare”
I remember when our biggest domestic challenges were civil rights, women’s rights, and gay rights — not the very survival of democracy and the rule of law.
But over the last forty years, starting with Reagan, America went off the rails. Deregulation, privatization, free trade, wild gambling by Wall Street, union-busting, record levels of inequality, stagnant wages for most, staggering wealth for a few, big money taking over our politics,
Corporate profits became more important than good jobs and good wages for all. Stock buybacks and the well-being of investors became more important than the common good.
Democratic presidents were better than Republican, to be sure, but the underlying rot continued to worsen. It was undermining the foundations of America.
The Trump regime will harm many innocent people. It already has. Its lawless cruelty is sickening — as is the cowardice of so many CEOs, Wall Street bankers, leading lawyers, university presidents, publishers, social media titans, Republican politicians, some Democratic politicians, and other so-called “leaders” who are staying mum or obeying in advance or sucking up to Trump.
There will be a reckoning.
As bad as this “fucking nightmare” gets, it will awaken Americans to the truth about what has happened to this country — and what we must do to get it back on the track toward social justice, democracy, and widespread prosperity.
That’s what I believe. That’s my faith as we slide into deepening darkness.
Be well. Be safe. We will prevail.
I pray to God he’s right. One thing is certain, this is an existential moment in American history, much like the Civil War.
*******
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traders are shorting US bonds and the dollar betting the tarrrifs will short the economy. if you have savings withdraw them. F47 will make Truss, who crashed the UK economy in 2022, look like a genius.
with a layer of corrupt cabinet secretaries and the power of the pardon, Trump has insulated hi.self from accountability and can get all the others out of trouble, should that remote possibility occur. about the only thing we can do is wait out the next two years, if the country lasts that long, and get a congress that will impeach Trump’s fat ass, a d Vance, charge them criminally, promote the spesker of the house to the White House, form a new cabinet , charge the old one, and deport Elon Musk. Short ofva military couple, that os aboutt the only solution.