Following wealth and power flowing from the public interest to special interests

Trump and MAGA politics are focused on accumulating wealth and power for favored elites and their interests. The accumulation is by any means that works, legal or not, harmful or not. The goal is to replace democracy, the rule of law, and civil liberties with a mixed authoritarian, kleptocratic regime consisting mostly of dictatorship, oligarchy and Christian nationalist theocracy, tinged with a significant helping of hyper-aggressive Zionist theocratic influence. Trump's and MAGA's authoritarian damage to government, society, pro-democracy institutions, the rule of law, civil liberties, inconvenient science and expertise and the law have been grievous. It's getting worse, not better. The evidence is overwhelming. Link, link, link, link, link, link, link, link, link, link, link

Examples of recent coverage of MAGA's slow coup help convey the myriad ways in which rich and powerful people and entities are eating their way through the heart of our democracy, laws, civil liberties and the protections they used to operate under. One example is Trump using his power, legally or not, to fire federal employees and replace them with corrupt, incompetent loyalists.

Corrupting the federal government

A NYT article (not paywalled), White House Secretly Swayed Board Meant to Stop Civil Service Politicization, discusses core MAGA kleptocracy, dictatorship and oligarchy goals. By getting rid of competent, honest federal employees and replacing them with inexperienced, unqualified, somewhat independent Trump loyalists the rule of law and democracy are further subverted. The whole point of not politicizing the federal employee workforce was to keep government honest. Installing partisan loyalists who serve the dictator above the law and the public interest neuters the federal law, allowing corruption to take over in the vacuum the absence of law creates. Trump's concept of the "best people" are people loyal to Trump, not to the rule of law or the public interest. Link, link

As usual, MAGA propaganda spins this. MAGA's deflection and lie here is that this makes federal employees responsive to the will of the people. The lunatic idea is that Trump will use his power to fire federal employees, even for no reason at all, to serve the public interest. Before this, those employees were primarily serving the public interest. Now they serve the tyrant, his enablers and their special interests. The public interest gets a hard kick in the ass as it is booted out the door. Link, link, link, link