![\"\"](\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5fe1ca4d-2a18-4add-9fc9-11dc3faef4af_8023x5349.jpeg\")
<\/picture><\/div>\n<\/a> \ud83d\udde3\ufe0f<\/strong> This special free Saturday edition of PN is possible thanks to paid subscribers. If you appreciate our fiercely independent coverage of American politics, please support us. <\/strong><\/em>\ud83d\udc47<\/strong><\/p>\n \ud83d\udce3 Subscribe to Public Notice \ud83d\udce3<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to believe that it has been less than 10 days since Donald Trump and Elon Musk <\/span>waged war<\/a> against each other from atop their respective social media platforms.<\/span><\/p>\n For a brief few shining moments, it was all we could <\/span>talk about<\/a>. Then the administration started hammering Los Angeles and <\/span>illegally deploying troops<\/a>, and everything just sort of faded away. But their slugfest highlighted how much both men have warped democracy.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/a><\/div>\n Today\u2019s <\/span>No Kings<\/a> protests nationwide are about pushing back against Trump\u2019s accumulation of power and restoring genuine political checks and balances. The staggering amount of wealth Musk amassed allowed him to shepherd a chosen candidate into office, install himself atop the government informally, and systematically destroy it from within. That\u2019s not what the United States is supposed to be.<\/span><\/p>\n Musk may have started as a kingmaker, leveraging his wealth to get Trump into office, but Trump\u2019s willingness to let him do whatever he wanted is what made Musk a king. So for the sake of our democracy, we have to figure out ways to turn our norms and guardrails into laws to stop it from happening again.<\/p>\n As Trump and Musk duked it out on platforms they own and control, it was like watching two of the worst, most flaccid Marvel supervillains trying to land punches, both exhausted and past their prime. But they were never really fighting each other, which is becoming more evident now that they\u2019ve both tried to ratchet down the temperature.<\/p>\n Instead, the fight is really about which of them gets to impose their vision on the world. Trump is pretty sure it\u2019s him, thanks to the presidency and his cult following, especially since he gets a helping hand from conservatives in both Congress and the courts. But Musk figures he bought his way into power fair and square, and also that what money giveth, money can taketh away.<\/p>\n During a lot of that fight, Trump and Musk were both playing with house money. So many of their threats to hurt one another depended upon assertions of control over government money and assets \u2014 your money and assets, not theirs! <\/p>\n <\/a><\/div>\n Musk spent his brief tenure at the government steering <\/span>as many contracts<\/a> as he could to his private companies, conflicts of interest be damned. When the Trump-Musk bromance imploded, one of the first things Trump did was <\/span>threaten to terminate<\/a> all Musk\u2019s government contracts, causing Musk to respond in kind that he would decommission SpaceX\u2019s Dragon spacecraft, currently used to shuttle people and supplies to the International Space Station, a threat he later <\/span>walked back<\/a>. So, it wasn\u2019t just that the rift put up to $22 billion in government contracts for SpaceX at risk, but it also put the US space program <\/span>in jeopardy<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n Cast your mind back a decade or so and imagine the entire American space enterprise hanging in the balance because Barack Obama got in a pissing match with Buzz Aldrin. It\u2019s just impossible to contemplate, but the Trump era has already dragged us so far down, both in terms of behavior and of conflicts of interest, that this fight played out far more as public drama than what it really was: a complete breakdown in how government is supposed to work.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/div>\n It was also fairly obvious that at least while Trump and Musk remained pals, Musk was probably going to get out from under millions of dollars worth of potential fines from government investigations. Sen. Richard Blumenthal <\/span>estimated<\/a> that Trump could help Musk wipe out $2.37 billion in existing and potential liabilities related to actions from at least 11 agencies.<\/span><\/p>\n The notion that Musk could just make investigations into things like the safety of Tesla\u2019s autonomous driving technology go away isn\u2019t just about Trump casually giving away your tax dollars, telling Musk it\u2019s just no big deal if he doesn\u2019t pay the fines that would normally be required. It\u2019s also that Trump and Musk could essentially collude to decide that the safety implications of anything related to Musk\u2019s business don\u2019t matter as much as their ability to scratch each other\u2019s backs.<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s Musk\u2019s likely toothless threat to start a <\/span>new political party<\/a>, pitched as some sort of noble gesture to represent what he asserts are the \u201c80 percent in the middle.\u201d Musk was happy to be the face of the GOP as he hammered the administrative state out of existence, <\/span>eliminating<\/a> crucial public health research and science research. He was gleeful in his <\/span>destruction<\/a> of the United States Agency for International Development, boasting of having put it through the woodchipper. It was a move that made clear he bears no ideological allegiance to anything. He wants to be in a place where he has no restrictions on his conduct. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/a><\/div>\n For a while, Trump gave him that, stepping aside to let DOGE run the show and take the blame. But then Trump reminded Musk that he is the literal president and shepherded through the Big Beautiful Disaster of a tax bill, which Musk was <\/span>unhappy about<\/a> because he thought it didn\u2019t cut enough.<\/span><\/p>\n Musk seems to have been genuinely surprised that he wasn\u2019t going to be allowed to shape the budget based on his personal whims. But his rampage through executive branch agencies and his self-dealing didn\u2019t require buy-in from Congress, where the budget bill does. His influence was never going to outweigh the whole of the legislative branch.<\/p>\n \ud83d\udce3 Subscribe to Public Notice \ud83d\udce3<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n It\u2019s not just that the entire American enterprise revolved around getting rid of kings \u2014 as in eliminating the monarchy. It also revolved around protections so that no one person or any single branch of government could be untouchable. It\u2019s the <\/span>whole<\/a> \u201cnation of laws and not men\u201d thing. <\/span><\/p>\n There was a careful crafting of checks and balances that were supposed to ensure that. But the Founders never counted on the idea that the legislative and judicial branches would simply cede their power to the executive branch. Checks and balances, it turns out, only work if the other branches can\u2019t escape using them. If they can choose not to do so because enough people are in thrall to Trump, those checks and balances aren\u2019t meaningful.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/div>\n Make no mistake: reestablishing checks and balances will be a long, hard project, one that requires a radical rethinking of what democracy looks like. And it won\u2019t work if we don\u2019t undertake another long, hard project \u2014 making sure that no one can wield so much money that they have the power to near-singlehandedly install their preferred candidate in office.<\/p>\n Though conservatives would probably be loath to admit it, the Founding Fathers were not actually big fans of the accumulation of wealth at the Musk level. Now, this does not mean you have to hand it to the Founding Fathers, comprised completely of wealthy landowners, most of whom enslaved Black people and had no intention of letting women vote. However, the nation had its <\/span>first estate tax<\/a> in 1797, intended to fund the federal navy, which was signed into law by President John Adams. Many of the Founders supported progressive taxes based on the <\/span>ability to pay<\/a>. A tax policy that allows an Elon Musk to exist doesn\u2019t work.<\/span><\/p>\n A note from Aaron:<\/strong> Enjoy this piece from Lisa? Then please sign up to support our work. Public Notice is 100 precent reader-funded.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/picture><\/div>\nTesla Takedown takes down Musk<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/picture><\/div>\nA felon in the White House is making crime legal<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/picture><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/picture><\/div>\nRepublicans are trying to sell a bizarre fantasy on the economy<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/picture><\/div>\nVoters want Dems to stand up to Trump, not self-flagellate<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n