MAGA's authoritarian subversion of the rule of law: It cannot get much clearer than this

“In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true. ... Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.” -- Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951

A NYT article reports that DJT’s DoJ has fully politicized and weaponized the rule of law for federal crimes (not paywalled). What his now subverted and corrupted DoJ is doing is purely political. The situation here is Trump thug Emil Bove accepting federal prosecutor Danielle Sassoon’s resignation. 

Sassoon resigned because she refused to stop prosecuting New York City’s deeply corrupt mayor Eric Adams. To get the feds off his back, Adams sucked up to DJT, was at DJT's inauguration and probably set up a quid pro quo deal where Adams would support Trump’s immigration policies in exchange for the DoJ dismissing the case against him. After Trump’s inauguration, Adams’ legal team reached out to high-ranking DOJ officials, requesting their intervention to dismiss the charges. The corrupted DoJ complied. The honest federal prosecutor resigned. 

“The constant lying is not aimed at making the people believe a lie, but at ensuring that no one believes anything anymore. A people that can no longer distinguish between truth and lies cannot distinguish between right and wrong. And such a people, deprived of the power to think and judge, is, without knowing and willing it, completely subjected to the rule of lies. With such a people, you can do whatever you want.” -- Author unknown, A plausible restatement of Hannah Arendt’s views of the power and social effects of authoritarian demagoguery, lies and slanders

As one would expect from a chronic liar and sociopath, DJT denies any direct involvement in ordering the DOJ to dismiss the case. Well, that leaves plenty of room for direct involvement, e.g., wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

What is terrifying and beyond flagrant here are the false arguments and slanders that Bove leveled at Sasson. He falsely accuses her of doing exactly what he is corruptly doing to her. The NYT article posted Bove’s poisonous 8-page demagoguery letter with annotations at his key lies and slanders. It is worth taking a look at Bove’s toxic screed to see what I am talking about.

What we are seeing right now coming from our government is what experts on authoritarianism have documented for decades. American authoritarianism and kleptocracy are no longer hypotheticals for academics to bicker over. They are here right now and viciously aggressive. MAGA does not care if the lives of innocent, decent people are destroyed. MAGA cares only about wealth and power. 

People, this is the real deal!

“To the extent that knowledge gives power, to that extent do lies affect the distribution of power; they add to that of the liar, and diminish that of the deceived, altering his choices at different levels. .... Lies foster the belief that there are more alternatives than is really the case; at other times, a lie may lead to the unnecessary loss of confidence in the best alternative. .... When we undertake to deceive others intentionally, we communicate messages meant to mislead them, meant to make them believe what we ourselves do not believe. We can do so through gesture, through disguise, by means of action or inaction, even through silence.” ― Sissela Bok, Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life

MAGA updates: Musk's faux website; Regarding DJT's immunity; To the victor go the spoils

404 Media reports that Musk's highly touted government waste tracking website is the pinnacle of transparency in government. The problem is that it is an empty shell: Elon Musk's Waste.gov Is Just a WordPress Theme Placeholder Page -- Musk told reporters all of DOGE's actions are "maximally transparent." The website tracking waste is currently about an imaginary architecture firm. “Waste.gov: Tracking government waste,” the tagline for the website, archived here, says. .... “We actually are trying to be as transparent as possible. In fact, our actions—we post our actions to the DOGE handle on X, and to the DOGE website. So all of our actions, which are maximally transparent,” Musk said. “In fact, I don’t think there’s been — I don’t know the case that where [sic] an organization has been more transparent than the DOGE organization.”

Once the 404 Media reported about the faux website, Musk took it down to hide it. The images above are from the archived web site page. 

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The New Republic reports about an implication of the USSC grant of immunity to DJT that TNR spins as a setback for DJT in a lawsuit. TNR writes: "Trump’s Supreme Court Immunity Ruling Just Came Back to Bite Him -- A federal judge ruled Monday that Trump’s FBI must disclose records from its Mar-a-Lago case file, complying with a FOIA request by Bloomberg’s Jason Leopold. U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell decided that the Supreme Court’s decision—combined with his return to the White House and its executive privileges—has insulated Trump enough from further criminal prosecution to allow the release of documents."

DJT did not want the case file documents to be released. To hide the documents showing his crimes, DJT ordered the federal agency involved to argue that the government could neither to confirm or deny the existence of the requested records or information because of the possibility of DJT being prosecuted in the future for the laws he broke in his Mar-A-Lago crime spree. That's an odd argument considering the DoJ released photos of the documents.

Remember these photos from

the fun-filled past?

Ah, the good old days . . . . .

Anyway, the judge blew a raspberry at DJT's argument and said the documents had to be released because (i) the USSC gave him vast immunity from prosecution in 2024 (Trump v. US), and (ii) because a sitting president cannot be prosecuted, even without the extra wall of immunity he got in 2024. Since there was no realistic chance of him being prosecuted for any of those federal crimes, his claim of possible future prosecution was baloney.

Although TNR spun this as a setback for DJT, it is in only a very narrow sense. The documents will be released, maybe causing a moment or two of mild discomfort for him, but probably not. To me, the much bigger point is a federal judge saying that all of his past federal crimes are no longer prosecutable. That's the main point.

“He didn’t get away with anything, yet.”

Remember what the cynical liar Mitch McConnell said in 2021 about a former president being prosecutable?

“President Trump is still liable for everything he did while he was in office. ... He didn’t get away with anything, yet. We have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation. And former presidents are not immune from being [held] accountable by either one.”

 

Guess what? He got away with all of his federal crimes. For practical purposes, we no longer have a significant criminal or civil justice system in this country for DJT or MAGA supporters or elites he chooses to protect. And, he can protect by (1) pardoning himself or his criminal friends for federal crimes, (2) ordering his subverted Department of Justice to not prosecute himself or his criminal friends for federal crimes, (3) pressuring or coaxing state law enforcement in red states to not prosecute himself or his criminal friends for state crimes, and (4) threatening state law enforcement in blue states to not prosecute himself or his criminal friends for state crimes in those states.

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The Independent reports an incident that shows how aggressively DKT and MAGA are using their power to obliterate inconvenient facts and truths to advance their twin authoritarian and pro-corruption policy goals: "USAID inspector fired after revealing nearly $500m in food aid was about to spoil amid Trump funding freeze -- The inspector general for the U.S. Agency for International Development was fired on Tuesday – one day after his office issued a critical report warning that nearly $500 million in food was about to go bad due to President Donald Trump’s freeze on the agency."

If one isn't mistaken, isn't letting half a billion in food spoil a form of waste? Seems so. But, the spoils here isn't the food gone bad. It's DJT and MAGA's power to fire fraud and waste watchdogs in the federal government and replace them with deeply corrupt loyalist MAGA goons. This is the new normal. Like it or not, it's time to get used to it.

 ☹️

I don't like it!

MAGA’s incoherent social engineering

In another sign of MAGA irrationality, e.g., belief in false realities, a WaPo opinion discusses federal infrastructure spending guided by a false image of traditional family structure (not paywalled): 

The Trump administration recently issued new guidelines for the Transportation Department, surprisingly prioritizing spending and infrastructure for “communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average.” In other words, communities with large traditional families. .... That means rural and small-town America — presumably President Donald Trump’s core constituency — will disproportionately benefit from these funds.

Our research shows that over the past three decades, among women ages 15 to 44, marriage rates have fallen much faster for rural women than for their urban counterparts. Between 1988 and 2018, the proportion of rural women who were married fell from 55% to 33%. Marriage among urban women also declined, but to a lesser degree. 

The opinion points out that in rural areas, cohabitation rose more sharply and divorce has declined more slowly. By 2018, rural women were more likely than urban women to be in an unmarried cohabiting partnership (19 percent vs. 14 percent). The proportion of urban women who never marry is still slightly higher, mainly because urban women marry at older ages. In addition, the “baby bust” in America is larger among rural women than urban. 54% of rural children are born outside marriage compared to 45% of urban children.

Collectively, the data indicate that using marriage and family size to guide transportation funding is going to disadvantage rural regions. Once MAGA elites come to understand the stupidity of their plans, assuming they ever do, maybe they will rethink and try to come up with sensible, cost-effective transportation policy based on reality, reason and empirical data. 

Ha! MAGA understanding? Fat chance.

Three bits: MAGA and corporate attacks on consumer protections

As promised in Project 2025, DJT and MAGA elites are making massive attacks on regulations and protections for workers, consumers and the environment. NPR writes about the killing of the CFPB, which is the federal agency that protects consumers from massive corporate greed, theft and fraud in finance: "The Trump administration has stopped work at the CFPB. Here's what the agency does -- The main U.S. agency tasked with overseeing the financial products and services used by everyday Americans — from credit cards to checking accounts to home loans — is the latest target of the Trump administration's effort to remake the federal government. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's new leader has shuttered the agency's headquarters and told staffers to stay at home and refrain from doing any work. .... An independent bureau within the Federal Reserve, the CFPB's job is to ensure that the financial products and services offered to American consumers are fair and transparent."

The Hill comments: "The Trump administration is moving rapidly to gut the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), halting the agency’s work, cutting off its funding and shutting down its headquarters. .... “I think everyone assumes this is the USAID playbook, and I think everyone’s operating off of the assumption that we’re about to get annihilated, the way that they were annihilated,” a CFPB employee told The Hill, referring to the U.S. Agency for International Development."

So, there we have it, MAGA is doing exactly what Project 2025 promises and what DJT claims to be 100% ignorant of, while falsely claiming to not like some of it. How can anyone not know anything about something, but still not like some of it? They can't. But, they can lie about it.

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And, it's not just MAGA government that is going after worker, consumer and environmental protections. Brass knuckles capitalists are gleefully joining in the massacre. Techdirt writes: 

"Automakers Sue To Kill Maine’s Hugely Popular ‘Right To Repair’ Law -- A little over a year ago, Maine residents voted overwhelmingly (83 percent) to pass a new state right to repair law designed to make auto repairs easier and more affordable. More specifically, the law requires that automakers standardize on-board diagnostic systems and provide remote access to those systems and mechanical data to consumers and third-party independent repair shops. But as we’ve seen with other states that have passed right to reform laws (most notably New York), passing the law isn’t the end of the story. Corporate lobbyists have had great success not just watering these laws down before passage, but after voters approve them. They’ve also been swarmed by coordinated industry lawsuits and falsehood-spewing attacks. -- But the Alliance For Automotive Innovation also just filed a new lawsuit saying the law isn’t fully cooked and therefore violates the law. .... The group is correct that Maine’s right to repair law isn’t fully cooked yet. What they don’t say is they’re one of the reasons the law isn’t fully cooked. Or that they oppose the popular law either way."

It's just business as usual. Capitalism always does the same thing. It looks for new and exciting ways to screw the customer harder and harder. It always seeks to charge what the market will bear, and a little more if it can pull it off, e.g., via plutocracy or oligarchy. When capitalism is under-regulated, there are lots of new and exciting ways to screw the customer harder and harder.

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Another target of MAGA and Project 2025, is the right to privacy. MAGA and its Project are generally hostile to privacy rights for average people. It is hostile to the right to privacy, particularly in areas like reproductive care, data collection for marginalized groups, and in the broader context of consumer data privacy. Its proposals and policy directions reduce privacy protections. That transfers to power inherent in privacy from citizens and consumers to government and the business sector. With the loss of privacy power prioritize, government and business interests are free to take whatever advantage of newly exposed individuals there might be. 

Senator Charles Percy (R-IL, 1967-1985)

Commenting in the hearings on the Privacy Act of 1974

Lawfare writes about DJT and Musk grossly violating federal privacy law:

DOGE Betrays Foundational Commitments of the Privacy Act of 1974

Musk’s attempts to gain access to agency databases is an egregious violation of the act, which protects personal information from abuse

Under the auspices of the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency,” Elon Musk and former staffers—all recent college and high school graduates—have been given access to agency databases teeming with sensitive personal information. The group has entered the Treasury Department’s payment system, which stores federal tax returns, Social Security numbers, home addresses, and birth dates; the Office of Personnel Management’s system, which contains background checks, medical information, bank account information, and biometric data of current, former, and prospective federal employees, contractors, and family members; and the General Service Administration’s system, which stores similarly sensitive personal data.

Condemnation and lawsuits followed, and rightfully so. No one—not even special government employees—should access agency “systems of records” without proper authorization under the Privacy Act of 1974. Nothing suggests that Musk or his employees have such authority. Privacy Act violations are not trivial. Profound harms to privacy and democracy are at stake.

What are the consequences of abandoning the right to privacy? Things like (i) unlimited government and corporate surveillance without oversight, (ii) abuse of power by unrestrained law enforcement, corporations and religion, and (iii) reduced data security to save money. China's digital tyranny relies very heavily on it unrestricted power to surveille its people and its corporations. There, all the power is with the government. In the US, all the lost privacy power will flow to governments, corporations and Christianity.

Asymmetry in power 

Wealthy and powerful elites will have their privacy and private affairs (figurative and literal) protected as much as they want. How much? Essentially all of it, if that's what they want. How can that be possible? Easy. They can live their lives and run their businesses shielded behind privacy laws they demand remain intact, e.g., tax privacy laws, business privacy laws and NDAs (non-disclosure agreements). Elites and big corporations routinely use NDAs to hide wealth, personal activities and illegal activities. How many NDAs shield you? I bet none. 

Qs: Do you think that DJT, Musk or MAGA elites generally care at all about our loss of privacy rights and abuses that will entail? Do you think that obliterating the Privacy Act of 1974 will lead to more transparency in the federal government, wealthy people and large corporations?

Two bits: MAGA attacks on pro-democracy guardrails, including ethics; The Musk wrecking ball

The AP reports:

In the first three weeks of his administration, President Donald Trump has moved with brazen haste to dismantle the federal government’s public integrity guardrails that he frequently tested during his first term but now seems intent on removing entirely.

It’s all being done with a stop-me-if-you-dare defiance by a president who the first time around felt hemmed in by watchdogs, lawyers and judges tasked with affirming good government and fair play. Now, he seems determined to break those constraints once and for all in a historically unprecedented flex of executive power.

Princeton University presidential historian Julian Zelizer is quoted: “The end goal is to avoid accountability this time. Not just being protected by his party and counting on the public to move on when scandals or problems emerge, but this time by actually removing many of the key figures whose job it is to oversee. .... It’s a much bolder assertion than in his first term, and if successful and if all these figures are removed, you’ll have a combination of an executive branch lacking independent voices that will keep their eye on the ball and then a congressional majority that at least thus far isn’t really going to cause problems for him.”

In direct attacks on ethics, Trump fired (1) the head of the Office of Special Counsel, which processes whistleblower complaints and handles the Hatch Act that prohibits federal employees from partisan activities on the job (that firing is now contested in court), and (2) the head of the Office of Government Ethics. To head watchdog agencies DJT named Doug Collins. Collins is a loyal DJT ally. 

Ethics in the federal government is now a true oxymoron. Ethics is dead and buried.

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The NYT reports (not paywalled) about another deeply troubling blast of MAGA damage to respect for truth, democracy and transparency in government:

The billionaire Elon Musk said in an extraordinary Oval Office appearance on Tuesday that he was providing maximum transparency in his government cost-cutting initiative, but offered no evidence for his sweeping claims that the federal bureaucracy had been corrupted by cheats and officials who had approved money for “fraudsters.”

The goal is to “restore democracy,” Mr. Musk said. “If the bureaucracy’s in charge, then what meaning does democracy actually have?”

Among Mr. Musk’s claims, which he offered without providing evidence, was that some officials at the now-gutted U.S. Agency for International Development had been taking “kickbacks.” He said that “quite a few people” in the bureaucracy somehow had “managed to accrue tens of millions of dollars in net worth while they are in that position,” without explaining how he had made that assessment. He later claimed that some recipients of Social Security checks were as old as 150.

Musk is quoted as saying “We are actually trying to be as transparent as possible. So all of our actions are maximally transparent. I don’t know of a case where an organization has been more transparent than the DOGE organization.” Musk was referring to some postings by his team on X as evidence of transparency. But as the NYT points out, Musk’s team operates in secrecy. They surprise federal employees by barging unannounced into agencies to get access to vast amounts of sensitive data. 

In another act of secrecy, since Musk is a “special government employee,” DJT says that his financial disclosure filing will not be made public. That is the opposite of transparency. But, it is the epitome of corruption. 

In all of this, DJT claims that he is just delivering the radical overhaul of the federal government he promised in his campaign. What he fails to say is that his intended radical overhaul was authoritarian and kleptocratic. His dark free speech rhetoric subtly led people to believe that his reforms would be pro-democracy and anti-corruption. This is somewhat like DJT claiming he mentally declassified all the classified government documents he stole and refused to return.

 

So, what MAGA delivers so far is secrecy, corruption and allegations of vast criminal activity in government. The allegations are yet not supported by one shred of evidence. That is just like DJT’s completely unsupported allegations of vast vote fraud and criminal activity in the 2020 election. We're still waiting for the Pillow Guy to release all the evidence.

Qs: If Musk’s allegations of vast criminal activity in government are true, should we expect that the DoJ would start dozens or hundreds of investigations and then criminal prosecutions of the criminals? If few or no prosecutions happen, would that constitute solid evidence that Musk is lying? Do MAGA elites lies to the public no longer matter because denying or ignoring inconvenient facts and truths no longer matter because most people still like what DJT is doing?

Legal analysis: Can the US Constitution accommodate authoritarianism or kleptocracy?

For years, my understanding was that (1) if a small group of committed authoritarians and kleptocrats could gain enough power and public support, and (2) the US Constitution is ambiguous enough that the US could become a nation that is more authoritarian, clandestine and kleptocratic than democratic, transparent and honest. 

The issue now seems ripe. 

Q: Is the US Constitution ambiguous enough to allow for the rise and maintenance of a federal regime that is more authoritarian and kleptocratic than democratic and honest? Take into account Supreme Court decisions like Citizens United, Trump v US, Snyder v US and other inherently anti-democratic or pro-corruption cases.

A: The U.S. Constitution, while designed to establish a framework for democratic governance, contains inherent ambiguities that have been interpreted in ways that could potentially facilitate the rise and maintenance of a more authoritarian and kleptocratic federal regime.

Ambiguities in Constitutional Text

1. Separation of Powers and Checks and Balances: The Constitution's system of checks and balances, as noted by James Madison in Federalist No. 51, assumes that ambition will counteract ambition among the branches of government. However, the development of political parties has often led to branches acting in concert rather than in opposition, potentially undermining this system 6.

2. Vague Language: Terms like "executive power," "judicial power," and "necessary and proper" are inherently ambiguous, allowing for broad interpretations that can shift the balance of power 4.

Supreme Court Decisions 

1. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010): This decision held that independent spending on political campaigns by corporations and unions could not be limited, arguing that such spending does not pose a substantial risk of corruption. Critics argue this ruling has allowed for an influx of "dark money" into politics, potentially enabling kleptocratic behaviors by allowing wealthy individuals and corporations to exert disproportionate influence over elections 3 27.

2. Trump v. United States (2024): The Supreme Court's decision granted the president absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for "core constitutional powers" and presumptive immunity for "official acts." This ruling could be seen as expanding presidential power in ways that might facilitate authoritarian tendencies by reducing accountability 11 30.

3. Snyder v. United States (2024): This case narrowed the definition of corruption under federal law, making it harder to prosecute state and local officials for accepting gratuities after official actions. This decision could encourage corrupt practices by reducing the legal risks associated with such behavior 22 24 29 32 34.

Potential for Authoritarian Constitutionalism

Authoritarian Constitutionalism: Scholars have discussed the concept of authoritarian constitutionalism, where constitutional mechanisms are used to maintain power rather than limit it. This could theoretically occur within the U.S. framework if constitutional ambiguities are exploited to centralize power or protect corrupt practices 2 7 9.

Federalism and Anti-Commandeering: While federalism provides a check against centralized authoritarianism by preserving state autonomy, it also means that federal efforts to combat corruption at the state level can be limited, potentially allowing for kleptocratic practices at lower levels of government 8.

Conclusion

The U.S. Constitution's ambiguities, combined with certain Supreme Court interpretations, provide a landscape where authoritarian and kleptocratic tendencies could theoretically flourish. However, these tendencies are not inevitable outcomes of the Constitution's design but rather potential interpretations and exploitations of its ambiguities. The balance between democracy and authoritarianism largely depends on the political culture, the integrity of elected officials, and the vigilance of the judiciary and the public in upholding democratic norms and values.

While the Constitution provides a framework for democracy, its effectiveness in preventing authoritarianism or kleptocracy relies heavily on the interpretation and application of its principles by those in power.

According to that, and assuming it is a basically correct analysis, I conclude that the US can legally become mostly authoritarian and mostly kleptocratic. 

I see that as possible, maybe likely in the next 2-4 years, despite the opposing will of the American people, who overwhelmingly say they are pro-democracy in opinion polls. However, despite 80% in one poll saying they are pro-democracy, 41% also say they also support “having a strong leader who does not have to bother with parliament or elections”, which they see as is a very good or fairly good system. And, an annual poll indicates that for 2024, ~65%, are "afraid" or "very afraid" of government corruption.

Data source

A final point -- the human mind: How can some people be both pro-democracy and pro-authoritarianism at the same time? Easy. They unconsciously rationalize it. They do not think deeply or even rationally. This is not a matter of people being stupid. It is a matter of humans being human. In two recent posts, here and here, I tried to articulate this idea. In short, lots of people rationalize reality into comfortable illusions and they don't have any inkling they did it. They sincerely believe in their illusions. Two prominent social scientists wrote this about political reasoning in 2016:

“. . . . the typical citizen drops down to a lower level of mental performance as soon as he enters the political field. He argues and analyzes in a way which he would readily recognize as infantile within the sphere of his real interests. . . . cherished ideas and judgments we bring to politics are stereotypes and simplifications with little room for adjustment as the facts change. . . . . the real environment is altogether too big, too complex, and too fleeting for direct acquaintance. We are not equipped to deal with so much subtlety, so much variety, so many permutations and combinations. Although we have to act in that environment, we have to reconstruct it on a simpler model before we can manage it.”