As far as I can tell, nothing that that Musk et al is doing is unusual when an organisation changes hands. This is normal for a change of government or a corporate aquisition.
Perhaps there should be certain, limited, aspects of executive decision making that require congressional oversight, but because left weren't decrying the lack of checks and balances previously, they now come across as sore losers, worse, dishonest sore losers who are cloaking their pettiness as concern.
Secondly, the left lost the public support so badly that the republicans control congress now, so even if such oversight existed, it would also be controlled by the republican party.
Political, not civil, servants taking over these systems without any oversight is truly brazen. Sounds like you're saying that since there wasn't a prior act of Congress declaring this illegal, it's just whining. Please clarify.
You're right that oversight would be influenced by the party in power. Generally, the inspectors general would be relatively independent but guess what, they all got sacked just a few days ago. And Republican congresspeople behave as if they represent the president, not their constituents. The system functioned with some level of decorum before, but this looks like war.
Oversight in these systems tends to be illusory, because for the executive branch to function it fundamnetally needs to have the authority to make the decisions that are currently being made.
The Democrats have, broadly speaking, not cared much for oversight when they were in power, so suddenly caring about it now that republicans are in power comes across as, and probably is, just them being sore losers.
This is all batshit insanity, an assault on democracy.
They are official government employees / advisors, peforming a task within their remit.
Clearly your framing is driven by ideological hatred, but there's nothing about this that isn't above board.
It's fucking scary to see how easily people can jump into camp A or camp B, and simply blind themselves to any sort of criticism because actions come from their own camp.
American politics is done for decades, I don't see how you can recover from the erosion of public discourse steadily degrading for the past 30+ years, it just got worse and worse. The final nail in the coffin seem to be social media, it really hastened this downfall, there's no common narrative, no budging from your position; it's all based on shitstorming and hunkering down in your own trench.
It's just so stupid and sad, Nikita Khrushchev would be in fucking glee "We do not have to invade the United States, we will destroy you from within". And the thing is, I don't even believe Putin/Russia did that much, it was all self-inflicted, you are just imploding by your hands...
Is that the current trope in American political discourse? If someone points out there are brazen acts which haven't happened before you just tack the label "ideological hatred" or "partisan" and think that covers all ground?
They are random goons, DOGE wasn't signed into existence by Congress, the "officer" in charge of DOGE has not been through the process of confirmation by Congress/Senate. Those people are getting access to the Treasury without any checks and balances process.
I cannot believe that Americans are falling for this, you were supposed to fight against the tyranny of highly-concentrated power in a single person's hand and yet now it's ok to do it because it's a team you support? This is all so stupid to watch from the outside, a bizarro-world of hot takes without any regards to civics, government function, nor democratic distribution of power across government branches.
What is infuriating is that any argument against it is then met by some twist of an ad hominem boiling down to "this is partisanship/ideological hatred". It's just all so, so stupid.
It is time for their civics lesson, not ours. Hopefully they can learn to code.
It's more akin to Mao, if you like that then best of luck.
The screeching about Mao and Nazis doesn't work anymore. Accessing payment systems isn't the holocaust and you've cried wolf too many times for it to work anymore.
It's just some pent up rage and anger, now being used for retribution against something not even tangible, it's just wrecking for the sake of wrecking.
The only way to see through if it's "crying wolf" or heeding some warning calls is when you're way past a turning back point, it's speeding fast to that point and you are actively choosing to blind yourself because you feel there's an "other" (as your usage of "you" in there) that is only against what's happening because of some distorted notion of bucketing people into camps of ideology and only thinking through that lens.
I don't even know how to try anymore to shine a light on how absurd each step is growing to be on top of each other, if even the cohort of Americans who have absolute access to information, knowledge, are supposedly well-educated can just blindly follow through the master plan in motion and call anyone trying to warn you there's danger ahead as the opposite-you I simply have no respect left for the general American populace.
You do deserve the reckoning that is very likely to come, perhaps after that we can talk about who is crying wolf or not because this "no, you" rhetoric does work, it's fucking exhausting, it doesn't lead anywhere, and there's no room for talking to be done if you cannot ever reflect on your own position to admit that some stuff doesn't look nor feel right.
For all the fearmongering of a New World Order the conservatives in general have been stoking it does seem, yet again, that every accusation is an admission. Your government is rapidly getting taken under control of a few select people with a plan to fundamentally change how the fabric of your State works (and it's not under the 10th Ammendment or whatever the fuck else is in your fossilised Constitution). The plan has been talked out in the open, they've been talking about it on podcasts, on interviews, on articles, and yet it seems that any warning call is just "crying wolf".
That is what we are concerned about. This violates all kinds of norms, regulations, and laws.
The left did not lose "so badly". They lost a handful of electoral college swing states by small margins. These people do not have a mandate, no matter how much they say they do.
You needn't be an officer to gain access to and analyze payment systems.
[0] https://www.ft.com/content/27ba0a6a-0d9b-4e08-8329-730b581c0...
Normal thing. Provided they are using the same criteria for the Interim Clearances.
He has a mandate to significantly reduce the size of the federal government, and he has the authority to appoint Musk to act in this way.
You can complain about it violating norms all you like, but norms aren’t laws and taking into account the preferences of the left isn’t something Trump is required to do nor is it something the Democrats have done in the past for the right.
As for violating employment laws, there’s no evidence of this. It appears you just threw that in there hoping no one would challenge you on it.
So, no, I didn't just throw that on there.
Even if there weren't, are you so callous and heartless that you can't see how this blow-it-all-up approach is making chaos of people's lives? Is that what you're here for... to make things hard on people?
The Republicans won the election. That doesn't mean trample the entirety of the country to fit their vision. The Democrats have done nothing like this.
Stop defending fascists. It's not a good look.
I'm sure calling them such names makes sense in your echo chambers, but to the overwhelming majority of people this is an inaccurate and inappropriate label.
Calling people things which they are not, does not hurt their reputation, it simply makes your fringe of the political spectrum look immature.
It's just lockeroom talk. Right?
The entire Republican chorus backed up this juvenile locker room talk excuse. Trotted it out for the whole world to see. Not very mature. Did you love it?
Peaceful transition also isn't the law. It was a norm. Until Trump pissed on it.
Trump ordered the vice president to overturn an election, and when Mike Pence refused that order, Trump sent a mob to have the VPOTUS assassinated.
And then, in possibly something like mass hysteria, they vote for Trump again. Or maybe it's an addiction to depravity, anger and drama. Like drug addiction.
Trump voters voted for a rapist, for president. This how low and desperate they've become. They kicked Mike Pence to the curb - all the boilerplate Republican policies they claim to want, but Pence wasn't good enough. It's pretty clear the right wanted an abusive personality.
Don't expect reasonable people to become docile about that.
Or maybe this is something else: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/21/politics/trump-temporary-...