It's Not a Fifth Column- It's Worse

 

     A fifth column is defined as an attempt to destroy a government from within. In fact this is how Wikipedia defines a Fifth Column:

     "A fifth column is a group of people who undermine a larger group or nation from within, usually in favor of an enemy group or another nation. The activities of a fifth column can be overt or clandestine. Forces gathered in secret can mobilize openly to assist an external attack. The term is also applied to organized actions by military personnel. Clandestine fifth column activities can involve acts of sabotage, disinformation, espionage or terrorism executed within defense lines by secret sympathizers with an external force."

     Let me know if any of that sounds familiar.

     I've been saying for the two decades I've been a political blogger that the Republican Party is nothing less than an unacknowledged, unaccused Fifth Column. God knows we've seen countless examples of Trump undermining the country and its interests, all of them, seemingly, benefiting Russia and other adversaries. And anyone who's been paying the slightest fucking amount of attention  can see that Trump 2.0 is far worse than Trump 1.0 ever was.

     And the reason why the second iteration of a Trump junta is far worse is because this takeover and hollowing out of the government is technically not even a Fifth Column because this unprecedented sabotage is spearheaded by a South African Nazi named Elon Musk who's not even a legitimate government official. Elon Musk was elected by no one, and the tiny fig leaf that Trump gave him (a "special government employee"?!) still should not allow him access to the agencies that he and his Clearasil cavalry have essentially taken over.

     It's an administrative Blitzkrieg, to borrow a favorite phrase from Trump's lexicon, "the likes of which have never been seen". Under the rickety justification of DEI and wokeness, paper and garbage bags have been placed over walls and windows in government agencies in the sloppiest, pettiest censorship in US history. 

     USAID's signage was pried off the building, with a black garbage bag placed over the agency's logo on the front window. The names of women who'd worked for the NSA have been papered over, NASA's website has been purged of any mention of female leadership and contributions by indigenous people. The FBI training academy at Quantico had a wall containing words like "Leadership, "Fairness" and "Equity" covered with gray paint. A wall at a VA hospital dedicated to pictures of LGBT people who'd been in the military? Gone.

     The White House's Spanish language page disappeared, USAID's website also disappeared. The list goes on. And this is just the censorship of history. What Elon Musk is doing is far, far worse.

     They essentially took over the Treasury Department, the EPA, gutted USAID and attached what's left of it to the State Department. He and his little goons have access to all or most of the government's databases, including that of the 70,000,000+ people who are on Social Security. Several courts have weighed in, some of them Republican appointees, and have put a temporary stop to this ransacking of the government's databases.

     But just because a judge places an injunction on Musk to stop accessing sensitive information and orders him to destroy whatever information he's illegally obtained doesn't mean he'll obey the courts. And anyone who thinks Musk will needs to get their heads examined.

     USAID, created by JFK and Congress in 1961, once employed 10,000 people. They now have fewer than 300. It once provided $60 billion a year in aid to poor people in 60 nations. They provided food, medicine and medical care to some of the most disadvantaged people on earth. Food pallets that were loaded with food just prior to this purge are still on loading docks waiting to get shipped and now, they never will.

     Musk and Trump are exactly what Hannah Arendt once called "desk murderers".

     Meals on Wheels? Gone. Head Start (another part of the Kennedy legacy)? Gone. Our nation's entire health infrastructure? Gone. NIH indirect research funding? Cut to a ridiculous 15%. 

     A thinking and perspicacious person cannot help but come to the conclusion that Trump and Musk are trying to kill as many people as possible not just in this country but all over the world. And what makes this truly evil is that it's not a mere misguided attempt to root out fraud and corruption in the government but petty revenge.

     At least five Inspectors General that had been fired by Trump had one thing in common: They were investigating Musk and his various companies. Musk is going after these watchdogs and the agencies for whom they'd once worked out of petty revenge. This is exactly why Trump is trying to purge the DOJ and the FBI of anyone who ever investigated him. It's white male petulance at its very worst because this is how Nazi authoritarians think. They honestly have an inflexible righteousness about everything they do and how dare anyone even investigate much less convict them?

     Don't look for the courts to save us. All they're doing is slowing down the inevitable and, in the absence of any actual enforcement mechanism, don't assume that Musk and his minions will obey the various injunctions placed on them. We're on our own and it's up to us to stop this madness. It's our patriotic duty, plain and simple.Because authoritarianism feeds on silence, inaction and consent.