The first two weeks of felon Trump’s term has been horrendous. If you haven’t read any thing by Ruth Ben-Ghiat, I hope this article by her will give you some solace. Her work is crucial for understanding autocratic and fascist dynamics in the United States. Her Substack site, Lucid, and her recent book, Strongmen, are especially valuable. What follows is today’s Substack post. She writes:

It seems like the plot of a political thriller. We are living through a new kind of coup. Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, has taken over the payment and other administration systems. These systems allow the American government to function. He has locked out federal employees from computer systems. Many of Musk’s collaborators in this endeavor previously worked for his private companies and/or helped him take over Twitter. 

Musk is subject to no Congressional or other oversight. He seems to have no real official function. His only role is as head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. This is a plunder operation named after the cryptocurrency DOGE. 

Coup in the Making

In my 2017 CNN essay, “Trump and Bannon’s Coup in the Making,” I discussed Donald Trump’s plan. He intended to give power to “a small group of loyal insiders.” These insiders take orders directly from the leader’s inner circle. They bypass the orders of the existing federal government and party bureaucracies. At that time, Musk was not on my radar. Today, Musk would replace Steve Bannon in the title.

What is happening now builds on classic authoritarian dynamics. I described them in Strongmen and in many essays for Lucid. There is always an “inner sanctum” that truly controls everything. It includes a mix of family members and cronies. Some of them have histories of working with or for foreign powers. And there is almost always a purge of the federal bureaucracy. That is now being carried out on a mass scale. 

Historian Heather Cox Richardson, former FBI agent Asha Rangappa, former U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance, and others have analyzed these processes. These interrelated factions are implementing what I have called a Fascist-style counterrevolution. This includes the MAGA loyalists inside and outside of the GOP. It also includes the Project 2025/Heritage Foundation crew. Roughly two-thirds of the executive orders Trump has issued conform to Project 2025 plans. Finally, it includes the technocrats around Musk and Peter Thiel.

Vice President J.D. Vance shows the overlap among the categories. Vance is a MAGA loyalist. He wrote the forward to Heritage CEO Kevin Robert’s book Dawn’s Early Light: Taking Back Washington To Save America. He is the surrogate of Thiel. Thiel bankrolled not only Vance’s Senate race but also his private business ventures.

Rearrange Government

These individuals and groups want to rearrange government around an extremist ideological project of Christian nationalism. They also support White supremacy. Most of them want to enact neoliberal deregulation and privatization measures. They aim to “free” America from “corruption” and “drain the swamp.” This is part of the “revolution.” Roberts has long talked about this concept. It has a history that runs through right-wing dictatorships across a century.

The speed of its implementation makes Trump’s takeover stand out within an authoritarian framework. The more corrupt and criminal the autocrat, the more he is obsessed with punishing enemies and feeling safe. Cue the immediate execution of the revenge and retribution part of this plan. Anyone who was involved in attempts to bring Trump and his collaborators to justice for the Jan. 6 insurrection or anything else is now a target. FBI employees are included.

Only with coups, or crackdowns in response to coup attempts, do you see such a rush. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s post-July 2016 purges are an example. These actions aim to punish and expel non-loyalists from the government.

The new administration also builds on the idea of “power verticals.” This concept was also exemplified by Russian President Vladimir Putin. He allied with oligarchs and billionaires to expand control of the media and other sectors. This alliance allowed him to consolidate his personal power. Those personalist dynamics characterize current autocracies in Turkey, Hungary, and India. The support Trump receives from media tycoons such as Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos is an American equivalent.

And here is where the U.S. 2025 situation starts to look different. The point of personalist rule is to reinforce the strongman. There is only room for one authoritarian leader at the top of the power vertical. Here there are two.

Musk’s Autocratic Capture

Musk already had dangerous amounts of power in America. His defense and other government contracts make our national security partly dependent on his products. His takeover of Twitter, a platform widely used by governments and politicians around the world, gave him even more leverage. What he lacked was the key to the castle, a way to get control of government from within. The $250 million he spent to help Trump get elected helped to unlock the door. And so DOGE was created as a vehicle for his infiltration.

The press reported on Musk’s unusual and constant presence at Mar-a-Lago. They noted the input he had on the presidential transition process. However, they did not highlight the likely aim behind it: to insert his private businesses into the governance equation. Employees from SpaceX and other Musk entities interviewed potential appointees for the Trump administration.

Musk and his surrogates have occupied the Office of Personnel Management. They set up beds to maintain a 24/7 presence. They have also infiltrated the General Services Administration, which manages technology in government buildings. Thomas Shedd, a former software engineer at Tesla, is now director of Technology Transformation Services within the GSA. 

Random individuals now have enormous power over America’s purse strings. Their credentials seem to lie mainly in their loyalty to Musk. They also have access to a treasure trove of sensitive personal data. They locked out the federal employees to prevent any obstructions to this access. 

This is what militaries do during coups. You capture the major targets. Government buildings are high on the list. You also take over communications and other systems.

Yet Musk did not need to deploy a private army to stage his coup. He was given permission to stage this operation by Trump’s Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, a former hedge fund manager. Acting Deputy Treasury Secretary David Lebryk, a career civil servant, resisted when Musk allies demanded access to the payments system. Lebryk was then placed on administrative leave, at Bessent’s suggestion.

A person was interviewed by Politico. They stated that Musk’s team gained entry because Bessent assumed that the DOGE team’s access would be “read-only.” But Musk’s social media posts indicate an intention to cut off funds of people and organizations designated as enemies. 

When extremist and proponent of Evangelical Christian holy war Gen. Michael Flynn claimed on X that Lutheran Family Services charity and aid work was a cover for a “money laundering operation,” he implied a hidden scheme. He suggested this accusation openly. He made allegations about federal funding profits as well. Musk responded: “The @DOGE team is rapidly shutting down these illegal payments.”

Musk and his minions are not working alone to destroy America. The GOP, Heritage, and many American actors are embedded in foreign autocratic and right-wing populist networks. Meanwhile, billionaires Musk and Thiel have ambitions on a global scale. Their ambitions hinge on destroying open societies. Curtis Yarvin, their muse, tells his followers that “democracy is done.”

Musk has various investments and companies. Through them, he is a business partner of China, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and other autocracies. He has been in regular contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin’s dream is to see America implode from within. Even if Musk were removed tomorrow, he plays a role in a larger design. This design intends to wreck America as a functioning democratic society and a global power. It is now America’s turn to be a laboratory of autocratic innovation.