If convicted felon Donald Trump’s first term was defined by lies—more than 30,000 false and misleading statements counted by the Washington Post — his second term looks to be defined by lawlessness — lies translated into action. The explosion of lawlessness from the so-called party of “law and order” was emblematic of the gaslighting that pervaded virtually every aspect of the new Trump regime, characterized by a parade of ludicrously unqualified nominees put forth amidst a rhetoric of restoring merit while vanquishing the bogeyman of diversity (read women, Black people and other minorities.)

Trump’s first two plus weeks in office continued his attack on the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law that characterized the final weeks of his last term in office, when he attempted an outright coup to stay in office. He pardoned all the Jan. 6 rioters, illegally fired 18 inspector generals, began a purge of the FBI that could affect thousands of agents, illegally withdrew the U.S. from the World Health Organization, illegally sought to halt a wide range of government spending authorized by Congress, and tried to undo virtually all Joe Biden-era climate policies designed to protect against growing disasters like the recent LA wildfires.

But Trump’s reliance on overwhelming lawlessness betrayed a core weakness — an inability to govern via normal democratic processes — while a would-be second coup, carried out by right-wing tech oligarch Elon Musk, threatened an even more radical destruction of American democracy and world influence. Musk’s aim is to destroy the administrative state — essentially returning America to the pre-1880s era when the government was run by the spoils system, with virtually no career professional public servants at all. It’s a recipe for virtually endless corruption.

While political reporters have been hazy at best in covering Musk, Techdirt editor Mike Masnick, who has covered Musk for eons, is much more clear-eyed.

“Let’s be crystal clear about what’s happening: A private citizen with zero Constitutional authority is effectively seizing control of critical government functions,” he wrote on Jan 31. “The Constitution explicitly requires Senate confirmation for anyone wielding significant federal power — a requirement Musk has simply ignored as he installs his loyalists throughout the government while demanding access to basically all of the levers of power, and pushing out anyone who stands in his way.”

Bullies Against Aid

Musk is moving to gain control of all federal payments, and to start shutting down whole agencies of government, starting with United States Agency for International Development, America’s global foreign assistance program, which Musk tweeted “is a criminal organization. Time for it to die.” As if to prove Musk’s point, Trump’s Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, appointed an uncharged Jan. 6 rioter, Pete Marocco, to head USAID on a temporary basis.

In the real world, USAID has prevented millions of deaths worldwide: 4.6 million children and 200,000 women in 25 priority countries since 2008, 25.3 million children vaccinated against deadly preventable diseases since 2012, and an estimated 48 million lives saved from TB from 2000-2015, just to cite a few major accomplishments.

In contrast, Musk has promoted debunked conspiracy theories blaming USAID for COVID-19.

In addition to all the lives it’s saved, USAID is perhaps the main institutional source of America’s soft power in the world — soft power that Trump, with his love of strongmen and military threats, is utterly blind to. Musk’s animosity to USAID is credibly linked to its role in supporting the end of apartheid in South Africa, while Musk was growing up there as part of the wealthy white elite.

“USAID/South Africa was responsible for financing projects that apartheid victims viewed as critical in promoting social, political, and economic change through peaceful means,” a 2017 retrospective explained.

“Musk’s allies are moving swiftly to exert control over vast swaths of the U.S. government, as they demand access to sensitive information at federal agencies and lay out plans to block spending they deem excessive,” the Wall Street Journal summed up. So USAID was just their first target. It “marked the start of a far-reaching campaign by Musk to upend the federal government agency by agency, according to his allies,” a campaign totally outside of the law, and fundamentally at odds with Congress’ power of the purse—a fundamental Constitutional provision.

On Monday, Feb. 3, Musk said that Trump agreed and they were going to shut down USAID. Trump later told reporters he didn’t think he needed Congressional approval. But both men are either profoundly ignorant, simply lying, or both.

A Power Grab

“It is uncontroversially unlawful (a minimum 3 bedrock laws) for a POTUS to cut off funding, fire civil service-protected employees & otherwise erase an agency Congress established by statute,” Princeton law professor Deborah Pearlstein wrote on Bluesky. “This isn’t a policy disagreement. This is a power grab.”

“A stunning number of his [Trump’s] executive actions clearly violate the constitution and federal law,” UC Berkeley Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky told the Guardian. “I cannot think of any president who has ever so ignored the constitution as extensively in the first 10 days of office as this,” he said. “I certainly doubt that any president has done so much lawless so quickly that affects so many people. The freeze of federal spending potentially affects tens of millions, maybe hundreds of millions of people.”

Trump’s most striking unconstitutional actions — repealing birthright citizenship and freezing federal spending — were quickly blocked by judges. A Ronald Reagan appointee, John Coughenour, called Trump’s birthright citizenship ban “blatantly unconstitutional” just three days after it was signed. The spending freeze was quickly withdrawn after two judges ruled against it in initial proceedings. But the broad federal freeze followed more targeted ones directed at public health and science that are still in place. And the freeze rollback itself is only partially being implemented.

But the greater threat comes from Elon Musk and his allies, acting entirely without constitutional authority, gaining access to the Treasury Department’s payment system in the Bureau of the Fiscal Service. As Nobel Prize economist Paul Krugman explained in his newsletter, “Congress may have passed a law mandating that money be spent for some public purpose; but Musk and company may simply, in effect, tell the system not to cut the checks.” Musk reportedly doesn’t yet have control, but he does have complete access, control is clearly his goal, and Trump has shown no sign of stopping him.

As a result, Krugman wrote, “We may already have experienced what amounts to a 21st century coup. There may not be tanks in the streets, but effective control of the government may already have slipped out of the hands of elected officials.”

Musk has already gained more control at the government’s human resources agency, the Office of Personnel Management, where his aides have locked career civil servants out of computer systems that contain employee data, according to reporting by Reuters.

But this could cause problems Musk seems unaware of. While one law professor identified six criminal statutes Musk seems to have violated, he knows Trump’s DOJ won’t prosecute him. But civil suits are already shaping up.

“Giving access to SSNs, other data on government employees to non-employees like Musk is a violation of 5 USC 552a, and carries with it a penalty of $1000 per person whose data was accessed,” Stanford University law professor Mark Lemley wrote on Bluesky. “We are building a case. Govt employees who want to participate should contact me directly.”

Civil suits haven’t stopped Trump or Musk in the past, but they’re part of building a unified opposition that can — which is how autocratic coups in Brazil, South Korea and elsewhere have ultimately been defeated.

“The first line of defense of a unified opposition is congress and the states,” Indivisible co-founder Ezra Levin told Random Lengths on Feb 1. ”Congressional Democrats should be using every tool they have to fight back. Blue state governors and legislators should be going offense,” he said. “Because that isn’t happening automatically, the constituents of those electeds have to organize NOW to push them. We need to make a lot of noise to wake up our leaders.”

The next day, Indivisible and several partners did just that, with an organizing call that maxed out at 20,000 participants on Zoom, plus many more on Facebook live. And the day after that, Congressional Democrats began showing up in support of embattled federal workers and agencies. Being locked out of USAID headquarters only gave their message more urgency.

“We don’t have a fourth branch of government called Elon Musk,” said Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin.

“We are witnessing a constitutional crisis. This is what the beginning of dictatorship looks like,” said Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar.

This kind of staunch opposition is essential in laying the groundwork, but mass disillusion may ultimately be key — may not be long in arriving, given Trump’s complete indifference to his campaign promise to lower prices of groceries and other consumer costs. Instead, his attacks on government and green energy spending, tariff threats and more point to the exact opposite.

“It’s hard to know what Trump has done so far that is worst, because we really don’t know what he has done,” economist Dean Baker told Random Lengths. “He has illegally stopped many government payments, but we don’t know how many and for how long. He also is threatening the jobs of 2 million government workers, and millions of more depending on government payments. Needless to say, these people will not be spending lots of money on cars and home remodeling,” he explained. “His import taxes will raise the price of a wide range of goods we buy. Also, his contempt for following the law is likely to discourage both domestic and foreign investment in the U.S., possibly for some time to come.”

Trump’s attacks and tariff threats against Canada and Mexico send a similar message, even with an announced one-month pause (which may be more to the credit of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum — who enjoys an 80% approval rating — than to Trump). Meanwhile, his mass-deportation threats could seriously cripple key areas of the economy.

Trump’s initial rush of activity was intended as a version of “shock and awe” to stun his opposition into mass surrender. It seemed to work for the first eight to 10 days or so. But not any more. There is no telling what lies ahead, but Trump’s power (along with Musk’s) is built on lies — big lies — and intimidation. The clearer that becomes, the less power he has.