This Is Mostly To Amplify My Last Post's Thesis -- But The NYT Graphic Is So Good, It Deserves Its Own Post.

I borrowed this base graphic, and modified it -- to amplify the excellent point the NYT made overnight.

This man is a non-disclosed, unregistered LOBBYIST, in the West Wing -- and in the Capitol Rotunda -- actively "bending the rules" -- and threatening the funding -- at dozens of agencies charged with protecting Americans (in many cases, from businessmen like him).

. . .Whatever you choose to call it, Elon Musk has captured the inner workings of the U.S. government on President Trump’s behalf. His operatives reportedly infiltrated the General Services Administration, gained access to the nation’s system for issuing payments like tax refunds, locked workers out of computer systems at the Office of Personnel Management and strong-armed U.S.A.I.D. into halting humanitarian work across the globe. They have vowed to slash essential research budgets and have put the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in their sights. . . . [As of this morning, the CFPB is 404 / Offline, on the web.]

Republican voters signed up for “The Trump Show: Politics Edition.” Musk is producing and distributing that show, one chaotic bite at a time.

In response to a brutal week for democracy, the Democratic leadership in Congress held a news conference. Chuck Schumer led those gathered in a chant, “We will win,” hands held high with Maxine Waters. Elizabeth Warren did a nice job of explaining what the payments mean to regular people. They framed the takeover of the Treasury Department’s payment system as an unprecedented overreach of power.

But the minority party cannot just chant. It has to act on what isn’t debatable: Trump has deputized [an un-]questionably [unlawful] extragovernmental actor. His mission is not just to dismantle the federal government, but to demoralize it. . . .

It is fast becoming clear that this content-driven chaos is going to be the M.O. of Trump 2.0. Trump may have learned in his first term that there is a political price for not feeding your loyalists enough content. Governance got in the way of the content machine he built on the campaign trail. Since then, he has had four years to refine his strategy. Chaos is central to his deployment of unchecked executive power. But chaos has to be tended like a fire. It needs the right amount of constant oxygen to keep it going. . . .

Do go read it all. It is. . . depressing, but a needed jolt of. . . the reality, and the new tactics we of good faith, but opposed to autocracy, need to embrace -- to put this fire out, once and for all. Onward.

नमस्ते