It Could Happen Here - How the Federal Government Fell

Episode Date: February 11, 2025

Elon Musk is trying to become the CEO of America. How did we get here? Garrison unravels a timeline of catastrophe.  https://shatterzone.substack.com/p/how-the-federal-government-fellSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What would you do if mysterious drones appeared over your hometown? I started asking questions. What do you remember happening on that night of December 16th? It actually rotated around our house, looking as if it was peering in each window of our home. I'm Gabe Lenners from Imagine, I Heart Podcasts and Lenners Entertainment. Listen to Obscurum, invasionasion of the Drones, wherever you get your favorite podcasts.

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Callzone Media. The government of two weeks ago no longer exists. We are now in a fundamentally different country. Under the authority of President Trump, Elon Musk is leading a de facto cyber-coup of the United States. Using the intentionally vague and unaccountable Department of Government Efficiency, Musk is seizing control of the United States' critical digital infrastructure, literally rewriting the code that runs our country, and culling the federal workforce. Using the justification of removing government bureaucracy, Musk and the Trump

administration have installed their own batch of bureaucratic tech oligarchs, made up of former Tesla and SpaceX interns and engineers, Teal Fellowship researchers, Palantir employees, Eugenics enthusiasts, and literal Nick Fuentes-pilled groipers. Career employees have been locked out of their respective agencies, both digitally and physically, as the DOGE team ransacks various departments and accesses wide swaths of sensitive government data. Agency officials who have tried to resist Musk's seizure of classified materials have been fired, and more federal employees have been put on leave, including the entirety

of USAID. This effectively amounts to Musk abolishing the whole department, all without congressional authorization or oversight, not even an executive order from Trump that extends presidential authority. On a whim, the unelected Elon Musk decided to carry out the closure of an entire government agency. And he is far from finished. Doge has hijacked the Treasury to withhold authorized payments to multiple agencies, resulting in an ongoing battle of lawsuits and court orders. This is It Could Happen Here.

I'm Garrison Davis, and this episode is an audio companion to an article I published on the Shatter Zone substack, linked below in the description. You can follow along online at shatterzone.substack.com and click the hyperlinks for more information and sources. Elon Musk has personally directed the General Services Administration to terminate leases on quote-unquote mostly empty federal buildings. The GSA, essentially the landlord of the federal government, was one of the first agencies to receive Musk's quote-unquote, fork in the road deferred resignation letter, offering to buy out the entire workforce.

The legality of the letter is still uncertain, as it promises to pay out currently unappropriated funds. IRS workers who accepted the resignation offer have already been asked to return to work until May. The newly appointed GSA Commissioner Michael Peters, a private equity executive that specializes in downsizing corporate real estate, has decided that quote, non-DOD federal building space should be reduced 50% unquote, according to a GSA employee who requested to remain anonymous. On top of planning to cut the entire federal portfolio by half,

DOJ is seeking to cut GSA's own budget by as much as 50 percent, with talk of consolidating GSA offices into a few major cities using a quote-unquote hub model. Wired reports that DOJ staff may be trying to use White House IT credentials to access GSA computers remotely. An anonymous GSA employee claims that few people at the agency have elected to take up the voluntary paid resignation offer, with those who have mostly being of retirement age. High-level Trump appointees used quote-unquote scare tactics in agency emails pressuring career employees to accept the deferred resignation offer, warning that cost-cutting measures will eventually lead to a further

reduction in force. Employees are concerned that a reduced federal workforce would result in federal buildings losing their operations and maintenance contracts, with disastrous consequences for the functionality of government buildings. Quote, the brain drain is going to cripple our ability to maintain the buildings, even more than it already was. We aren't overstaffed, unquote, per a GSA employee. They continued, quote, I think this process is already too far along to stop. I'm hoping we just need to get to the midterms."

What is happening across the federal government right now is unprecedented, but this is not Germany in the 1930s. It's not the fall of the Soviet Union. We grasp at analogies to help contextualize current events that escape understanding. There are similarities, but what's happening is new. It's very American, very 21st century. Think of the growth of the internet, social media, tech startups. In 50 years, what's happening right now could be talked about in the vein of what happened to the United States in the mid-2020s.

Now rhetoric of cutting red tape and breaking federal bureaucracy has been common political claptrap for decades. And previous efforts have been largely all bark and no bite. But now there's been a huge chomp. So why now? What happened? Trump has blamed entrenched federal bureaucracy, or the quote-unquote deep state, for preventing him from enacting sweeping change during his first term.

The obstacles Trump encountered didn't just come from Congress and the courts, but rank and file government workers who run day-to-day operations. Last month, the far-right, America First Policy Institute published a report titled, Tales from the Swamp, How Federal Bureaucrats Resisted President Trump. The author, James Schreck, a former Heritage Fellow, credits, quote-unquote, hostile career employees for, quote-unquote, refusing to implement policies. Schreck says, quote,

Many career employees refused or defied directives, withheld information, slow walked projects that they opposed, performed unacceptably, and used strategic leaking to undermine the president's agenda, unquote. Trump himself realized this late into his first term and sought to remedy the situation by revoking civil protections for tens of thousands of federal career employees, reclassifying them as at-will employees under an executive order called Schedule F. This allowed Trump to treat large swaths of government employees as political appointments. In his article for the America First Policy Institute,

Schreck refers to career removal protections as a, quote, modern invention that protects entrenched bureaucracy unquote. Though Biden repealed schedule F, Trump effectively reinstated the order on the first day of his second term. Trump promised to restore his authority to quote, remove rogue bureaucrats back in early 2023 under his agenda 47 plan, vowing to quote, wield that power very aggressively, unquote. When Trump first ran on drain the swamp in 2015,

he was referring to corporate lobbyists, special interests, and Washington corruption. But now, the term is used to deride the so-called administrative state, federal agencies, regulatory boards, and bureaucratic career employees that maintain the basic functionality of our government. Both Schedule F and Doge are part of a two-pronged assault on the administrative

state, all in service of consolidating then amplifying executive power. Trump has fully embraced the unitary executive theory proposed by the likes of Russell Vought, Project 2025 co-author, and the newly confirmed director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. Although it's understood that Congress has quote-unquote power of the purse under unitary executive theory, Trump now believes that funding appropriated by Congress does not need to be spent. Rather, the executive branch controls the flow of federal spending, and Congress merely

sets a ceiling on spending that the executive must not exceed. Under this interpretation of the Constitution, the president has sole and complete control of the executive branch, including all of its agencies and departments. But people in Trump's circle, like JD Vance and Elon Musk, could be pushing Trump to go even further, to where the president considers both the judicial and legislative branches as purely ceremonial and advisory. In the words of New Right Philosopher Curtis Yarvin. And arguably, we are already well on our way to that point.

This centralized executive power allows the executive branch to achieve goals I would have previously considered to be quite lofty, and I'll outline two of those examples, pulling from the aspirations of the modern conservative movement after this ad break. Music Have you ever looked into the night sky and wondered who or what was flying around up there? We've seen planes, helicopters, hot air balloons, and birds, but what if there's something else, something much more ominous,

that appears under the cover of night, silent, unseen, watching? They may be right above your car late one night as you cruise down the road, or look like mysterious lights hovering above your home. Drones. Or are they? We used the word drone because it was comfortable to other people. One minute it was there and one minute it wasn't.

Oh that is beyond creepy. Do you feel like this drone was targeting you specifically? Yes, absolutely. Listen to Obscureum, Invasion of the Drones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Mary Kay McBrayer, host of the podcast, The Greatest True Crime Stories Ever Told. This season explores women from the 19th century to now. Women who were murderers and scammers, but also women who were photojournalists,

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That's Ticketmaster.com. And we'll see you at our 2025 I Heart Country Festival, presented by Capital One. Thank y'all so much, y'all! Welcome back to It Could Happen Here and get ready to say bye-bye to the FBI. Though the right has typically been thought to be firmly in the back-the-blue camp, this isn't always the case, especially on the more extreme end. The far-right militia movement has long clashed with federal law enforcement agencies like the FBI and ATF. In the aftermath of January 6th, many mega-supporters found themselves at odds with the Federal

Bureau of Investigation. Republican politicians began to feed into right-wing uproar surrounding the FBI as Trump himself became a target for investigations. After the Mar-a-Lago raid in August of 2022, Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted, Defund the FBI! Arizona Representative Paul Gosar joined in attacks on the Bureau, posting, We must destroy the FBI. We must save America.

That same month, right-wing columnist and podcaster Liz Wheeler published an op-ed titled, Abolish the FBI, which called to quote, farm out the vital functions of the FBI and raise the rest, unquote. The New Right Publication, Compact Magazine, featured a slightly better written article by the same title, Abolish the FBI. At CPAC in March of 2023, Matt Gaetz, noted pedophile, advocated to get rid of the FBI among other federal agencies. Either get this government back on our side,

or we defund and get rid of, abolish the FBI, CDC, ATF, DOJ, every last one of them, if they do not come to heel. In April of 2023, Trump joined in in calls to defund the FBI after being charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Next month, two former FBI employees testified in a congressional hearing accusing the Bureau of weaponization against conservatives in regards to the January 6th investigations. The same two former FBI employees, who had their security clearance revoked after espousing J6 conspiracy theories, later called to quote, abolish the FBI at a Heritage Foundation symposium

on the quote, weaponization of the US government in April of 2024. You're given that magic wand, that ability to be Jim Jordan. What would you do? I think you have to abolish the FBI. That's where I'm at at this point. What? Now some people are going to say, okay, yeah, we're going to have to do you just abolish your vote? What do you is there a replacement? I mean, you can't just not have federal law enforcement, right? I think in large part, you could just not have federal law enforcement.

During a live episode of Donald Trump Jr.'s podcast on July 8 2024, he called to abolish several federal agencies starting with the FBI, as well as the CIA and the IRS. Abolish the DEA. You know, I imagine of all the places to abolish, I don't know if that's the best one. I'd start with the FBI. I'd start with the CIA. I'd start with the IRS.

There's a lot of, you know, the DEA. Now maybe I know the agent level guys, so if they're going after narcos and stuff like that, I'm perhaps a little bit more forgiving. They don't seem to be setting up or entrapping people like the FBI. The Trump administration has already begun the process to dismantle large swaths of the FBI before cash betel has even been confirmed by the Senate. Eight top FBI officials have been fired or forced to resign by order of Acting Deputy Attorney General, Emile Boeve, despite resistance from Acting FBI Director, Brian Driscoll.

A questionnaire was distributed to FBI supervisors requesting agents provide information pertaining to their own involvement in the January 6th investigations. This was believed to be used for the targeted removal of agency personnel. Last week, the FBI handed over a list containing the information of 5,000 employees and agents who worked on the January 6 investigations. FBI leadership initially chose to withhold employee names.

In response, Bove accused the FBI leadership of insubordination. This was ultimately a fruitless effort, as data seized by Elon Musk's Doge team could easily match employee IDs to names. Trump has since agreed to not publicly release the names of agents until at least late March, as lawsuits continue, and is required to give two days notice if the administration chooses to publicly disclose names. But individual agents are still worried. An anonymous letter from an FBI agent warns, quote, Currently there is an effort to cull

a significant number of career special agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, unquote. Around one-third of FBI agents were told they would be placed on leave, according to a government source who spoke on the condition of anonymity. FBI employees have lost access to systems only to later regain access, while others were told to wait to find out about their employee status. Agents are now trying to negotiate back into their jobs, with sources saying FBI employees may be able to stay on if they can prove their

loyalty to Trump and disown the January 6th prosecutions. I write all of this not in defense of the FBI, but to demonstrate how far Trump is willing to go to expand his executive power and transfer law enforcement duties to agencies seen as more loyal to the President. Though I doubt the FBI will be completely abolished in the next few years, the agency could become unrecognizable, a shell of its former self, with hard-line Trump loyalists replacing the existing and already largely conservative workforce. Alternative agencies perceived as being more loyal to Trump, like Homeland Security Investigations,

could start picking up the FBI slack. According to a senior government source, on day two of Trump's second term, HSI was instructed to reopen investigations into the 2020 George Floyd protests, to quote, "...identify protesters, BLM rioters, like they did to us after January 6th." For another once considered far-fetched goal of the conservative movement that now seems oddly within grasp, let's talk about the Department of Education. Conservatives have advocated for dismantling the Department of Education ever since Jimmy Carter signed its modern incarnation into law in 1979. Most notably, Ronald Reagan tried and failed to abolish the department in 1981.

But Reagan's commission, ironically, strengthened support for the department. Once Reagan ran into roadblocks, he instead sought to limit the department's power and influence. Since then, calls to abolish the Department of Education have been a recurring Republican talking point among certain think tanks and politicians, but they have struggled to land sizable blows against the department. Trump previously fiddled around with merging the Departments of Education and Labor during his first term, but that plan went nowhere.

In Trump's own Agenda 47 plan released in 2023, he expressed his goal of, quote, closing up the Department of Education in Washington, he expressed his goal of, quote, closing up the Department of Education in Washington DC, unquote. Later at the National Religious Broadcasters 2024 Christian Media Convention in February of 2024, Donald Trump repeated this promise, quote, I will close the federal Department of Education and we will move everything back to the states where it belongs, where they can individualize education." Project 2025 outlined how to achieve the effective dismantling of the department by transferring funding and duties to other departments such as Health and Human Services and the DOJ.

Opposition to the Department of Education was a frequent topic at the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Robert, Sophie, and I attended multiple panels and events taking aim at the department, hosted by groups like Moms for Liberty and the Heritage Foundation. On the first day of the convention, the party ratified their official 2024 RNC platform, which called to quote, close the Department of Education in Washington, DC, and send it back to the states where it belongs and let the states run our educational system as it should be run unquote. And now the department seems to be next on the Trump Doge chopping block. The administration is drafting a sweeping executive order.

While Trump says he wants his education nominee, Linda McMahon, to quote-unquote put herself out of a job. The planned executive order would not just direct the secretary of education to begin dismantling the department, but also ask Congress for assistance in formally abolishing the agency. It's unlikely that Trump would get the 60 Senate votes needed to pass the quote-unquote necessary legislation. But even if they can't manage to technically abolish the department, he could still try to rip its guts out slash spending and forcibly resign or fire employees. Basically make the department simply non-functioning, much like what Doge did to USAID. Upwards of 16 Doge staffers

are currently listed in the Education Department Directory. Federal education employees have already received the Fork in the Road resignation buyout offer, while others have been fired for alleged links to DEI. Without someone like Elon Musk in Trump's administration, there was no clear path towards implementing some of the more lofty plans proposed by conservative thought leaders, whether they be Trump's own Agenda 47, the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, or Curtis Yarvin's dream of a national CEO king. Only Elon Musk could do this. You need someone with his influence, connections, money, experience, and knowledge of fringe, neo-reactionary Silicon Valley political theory to propose and carry out something like Doge.

So how did Musk get here? Though it's common knowledge that Musk has drifted pretty severely rightward the past five years, leading into the 2024 presidential campaign, he was not an out-and-proud Trump supporter. As recently as 2022, Musk deemed Trump too old to serve as president again, tweeting that it was time for Trump to quote, "'Hang up his hat and sail into the sunset'." Initially Musk threw his support behind the doomed presidential bid of Florida Governor

Ron DeSantis. But as it became clear Trump would be the Republican nominee, Musk fell in behind his new party line. But his implicit support of Trump was kept on the down-low. The two met in Florida in March of 2024, among other wealthy Republican donors, as Trump was lobbying for campaign funding. The New York Times reported that Musk did not want to publicly endorse Trump as of early 2024, telling friends the most he would do was an anti-Biden endorsement.

Instead of public support, Musk would create his own super PAC to secretly help get Trump elected, timing payments so his fiscal backing of Trump's campaign could only go public after the election. But all that changed on July 13. After Trump's brush with death in Butler, Pennsylvania, Musk seemingly took Trump's call of fight, fight, fight to heart, tweeting less than an hour later, quote, I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery unquote.

This opened more frequent communication between Musk and Trump. Later that weekend, both Musk and Peter Thiel called Trump to recommend J.D. Vance as vice president. Next week was the Republican National Convention, during which Elon Musk was frequently name-dropped, both by official speakers and regular attendees, talked about as almost some kind of mythic right-wing superhero. On the final day of the convention, rumors circulated that Musk himself would make a

surprise appearance on stage. Though said rumors did not come to fruition, Musk's spectre haunted the entirety of the RNC. Come August, Musk just finished overhauling leadership at his America Super PAC, and was rigorously pushing pro-Trump messaging on X the Everything app. On August 12th, Musk hosted Trump in a two hour live streamed phone call dubbed in X space. This conversation marked the first time Trump casually spoke at length about the assassination attempt.

The pair also discussed quote-unquote migrant crime and the need to eliminate federal bureaucracy. Trump gave a rare compliment to Musk, calling him the greatest cutter, followed up by saying quote, I need an Elon Musk. I need someone that has a lot of strength and courage and smarts. I want to close up the Department of Education, move education back to the states." News outlets were more interested in reporting on the stream's technical glitches, rather than Musk's idea for a government efficiency commission, to which Trump responded very positively. Next month, on September 4th, Trump announced that, at the suggestion of

Elon Musk, if elected he would, quote, "...create a government efficiency commission tasked with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government and making recommendations for drastic reforms." Unquote. Musk himself agreed to be appointed head of the commission, aiming to cut trillions of dollars. This announcement was not taken very seriously.

The New York Times called commissions such as this, quote, a favorite Washington solution for delaying dealing with hard problems, unquote. And the Times later reported that the commission, quote, can issue recommendations around federal funding and regulations, but will be powerless to enact them without executive actions by Mr. Trump or funding approval by Congress."

Even I can admit that both myself and some of my coworkers underestimated Doge's ability to physically carry out Musk's suggestions with no congressional oversight or authority. As the election ramped up, Musk's super PAC mobilized thousands of canvassers across key swing states, and collected data to target both enthusiastic and unlikely voters. Throughout 2024, Musk spent over $290 million in contributions in support of the MAGA campaign, mostly via his own super PAC. On October 5th, Musk made his first appearance at an official campaign event, joining Trump for his return to Butler, Pennsylvania. Musk continued to appear at Trump rallies in the

month leading up to the election. By election day, Musk was firmly in Trump's inner circle, spending election night, and most of the next week, with President-elect Trump at Mar-a-Lago. After this ad break, we will return to discuss how Elon Musk is now trying to become the CEO of the United States of America. Have you ever looked into the night sky and wondered who or what was flying around up there? We've seen planes, helicopters, hot air balloons and birds, but what if there's something else,

something much more ominous that appears under the cover of night, silent, unseen, watching? They may be right above your car late one night as you cruise down the road or look like mysterious lights hovering above your car late one night as you cruise down the road or look like mysterious lights hovering above your home. Drones, or are they?

We used to work drone because it was comfortable to other people. One minute it was there and one minute it wasn't. Oh, that is beyond creepy. Do you feel like this drone was targeting you specifically? Yes, absolutely. Listen to Obscurum, Invasion of the Drones, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or

wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Mary Kay McBrayer, host of the podcast, the greatest true crime stories ever told. This season explores women from the 19th century to now, women who were murderers and scammers, but also women who were photojournalists, lawyers, writers and more. This podcast tells more than just the brutal gory details of horrific acts. I delve into the good, the bad, the difficult, and all the nuance I can

find. Because these are the stories that we need to know to understand the intersection of society, justice, and the fascinating workings of the human psyche. Join me every week as I tell some of the most enthralling true crime stories about women who are not just victims, but heroes or villains, or often somewhere in between. Listen to the greatest true crime stories ever told on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. John Stewart back in action on The Daily Show and In Your Ears with The Daily Show Ears Edition Podcast. From his hilarious satirical takes on today's politics and entertainment to the unique voices of correspondents and contributors, it's your perfect companion to stay on top of what's

happening now. Plus, you'll get special content just for podcast listeners, like in-depth interviews and a roundup of the week's top headlines. Listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Tickets are on sale now, y'all, for our 2025 iHeart Country Festival, presented by Capitol One, happening Saturday, May 3rd at the Moody Center in Austin, Texas. Don't miss your chance to see country music's biggest superstars. Brooks and Don. Thomas Rhett.

Rascal Flatts. Coles Wendell. Sam Hunt. Megan Moroney. Bailey Zimmerman. Nate Smith. All on one stage. Hosted by Bobby Bones.

I Heart Country Festival. Streaming live only on Hulu. And you can be there in person. Tickets are on sale now. Don't miss out. What is up, Austin Texans? Get yours before they sell out at Ticketmaster.com. That's Ticketmaster.com, and we'll see you

at our 2025 iHeart Country Festival, presented by Capital One. Say y'all so much hi! Okay, we are back. And now, a few months after the election, Elon Musk is doing to the United States exactly what he did to Twitter. By the end, it still might technically function on some level, just worse in every way.

Prone to glitches and full of Nazis. The previous version was already bad and harmful, but the new one somehow sucks even more and no longer has the aspects that made it semi-worthwhile. The fork-in-the-road deferred resignation letter sent to government employees used the exact same title as a similar email sent to Twitter employees after Musk bought the company. The Doge team has installed sofa beds on the fifth floor of the headquarters of the Office of Personnel Management to enable working around the clock, mirroring Musk's previous actions during his takeover of Twitter.

Musk has brought on some of the same exact people who helped him take over Twitter, all of whom are now special government employees with odd job titles but immense power. It was reported in Wired that a Musk stooge told General Services Administration workers that the agency will now pursue, quote, an AI-first strategy, unquote, and that the GSA should operate like a quote-unquote, start-up software company. Musk has ordered the General Services Administration to terminate leases for all roughly 7,500 federal offices amidst a national call to return to in-person work. This again is a classic Musk move taken from his takeover of Twitter, in which to cut costs,

he refused to pay rent for Twitter offices in London, New York City, and San Francisco while the buildings were still in use. A current GSA employee was quoted in Wired as saying, quote, they are acting like this is a takeover of a tech company, unquote. Musk's own personal success hasn't been from his skill as an inventor or a software engineer. What he's proficient at is taking over corporations and molding them in his

image. This is what happened to Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter. In 2020, Musk called the federal government, quote, the ultimate corporation, unquote, and now he seeks to become CEO. In doing this, Musk is following the tech industry motto of move fast and break things. So far, all his actions bypass Congress, the slow controller of stable government. Having everything be done via executive order and doge helps to speed run a full reboot of the administrative state. The motto of the old government may as well have been, move slow and build things. Progress is slow, but detonation is fast. The breakage of government isn't a

mere side effect or a bug of this expedited form of rule. It's a feature. To reshape the government into their ideal technocracy, first breaking things is a requirement. They might not get away with all of it, and they don't need to. They are doing so much, so fast, knowing that they will only get away with some of it. But with new Supreme Court approved presidential immunity and unlimited pardon power, they can try as much as they want with zero consequence. These are not the moves you would make if you wanted a stable government. It's the moves you would make as a new tech company.

Which is why Musk's operation is masked with the Silicon Valley language of efficiency. The inefficiencies of government are part of the point. That's what creates stability, makes the country a trusted ally, and gives the dollar value. Quote, regulations can be bothersome sometimes, and downright problematic. But that's kind of the point. They act as a control on imprecise and rushed decision making. If the cost of doing business is slowing down the process, that's the cost that has to

be made. To quote a government employee who spoke on the condition of anonymity. But those inefficiencies and pesky regulations really irritate the Silicon Valley tech bros who think they are the smartest people on the planet. It's their view that since they're so smart, shouldn't they run the country? Musk has a personal interest in slashing the regulatory state, as it interferes with his own businesses and dreams of space colonization. Last year Musk claimed that Doge, quote, was the only path to extending life beyond Earth,

unquote. The White House press secretary has said that Musk himself will determine when there is a conflict of interest involving his businesses and Doge. SpaceX alone has received $15.4 billion in government contracts, according to the New York Times. The large reduction in the federal workforce through the combined efforts of Doge and Schedule F bears an irrefutable similarity to a plan outlined by New Right blogger Curtis Yarvin, Peter Teel's favorite philosopher. Last year, Robert Evans did a Behind the Bastards on Curtis Yarvin, and you should absolutely

check that out for more information. In 2022, Yarvin outlined how a second Trump term could quote-unquote, reboot the United States government. This plan amounts to a corporate takeover of government, which subsequently reshapes the structure of government akin to a corporation. Though in Yarvin's mind, it is not President Trump who assumes the role of CEO. Instead, the president acts as chairman of the board, and before inauguration should select a CEO who is an experienced executive.

This appointed CEO could then quote, run the executive branch without any interference from Congress or the courts, to quote Yervin, while President Trump reviews the CEO's performance in the background. Yervin writes, quote, most existing important institutions, public and private, will be shut down and replaced with new and efficient systems. Trump will be monitoring this CEO's performance on TV and can fire him if need be." Musk may believe that he has successfully maneuvered Trump into appointing him CEO, but Trump could be well aware of Musk's ambitions, but is keeping him around as an emergency patsy,

ready to fire when needed. The Trump admin is currently testing the limits of presidential authority. And once those limits get surpassed by the standards of Senate Republicans, Musk is the easiest guy to blame and push out of the administration's inner circle. The first step in Yarvin's plan has the Trump campaign running on

centralizing executive power to eliminate government inefficiency. This was both in line with Project 2025 and Musk's suggestion of an efficiency commission. Once Trump gets into office, the plan is as follows. Purge bureaucracy. What Yarvin calls Rage. Retire all government employees. This is essentially being carried out by Doge, Schedule F, and by just pressuring career employees to accept deferred resignation offers by threatening future mass layoffs. Senior level officials have been replaced by a batch of loyal tech oligarchs with links to Musk and Peter Thiel. The stupidity of Doge was almost a secret weapon. The cryptocurrency memeness made everyone in respectable society not take the idea seriously.

What's the worst an advisory commission could do with no power to enforce its suggestions? Oops! What's the worst an advisory commission could do with no power to enforce its suggestions? Oops. Another step in Yarvin's plan is to nullify elite institutions of power, like the media and academia. Musk's takeover of Twitter has gone a long way in altering the country's information ecosystem. The Trump admin seems to be utilizing Steve Bannon's flood the zone strategy to

distract and exhaust the media, as well as more directed attacks. On January 31st, the Department of Defense kicked out NBC News, The New York Times, NPR, and Politico from their in-house press offices and replaced them with One American News, The New York Post, Breitbart, and HuffPost. Under direction from Doge, the White House has ordered government agencies to cancel subscriptions to policy news services from multiple news outlets. A White House advisor told Axios, quote, The eye of Sauron is on more than just Politico. It's all the media.

unquote. more than just Politico, it's all the media." In terms of attacks on academia, the federal grant freeze has had devastating effects on university research. Another step in Yarvin's plan is to co-opt Congress and ignore the courts. This is where we are at right now. The goal is to reduce both the judicial and legislative branches to being purely ceremonial and advisory, as advocated by Yarvin. So far, the Trump administration has effectively sidestepped the legislative bodies via Elon Musk and Doge.

It's highly unlikely Trump would ever be impeached or removed by this Congress. Furthermore, this Congress seems to have willfully given up on their power over the federal budget. To quote a senior government official, quote, the real challenge is that Congress is on board for now in losing their own budgetary authority. So far, a lone security guard standing outside USAID and the Department of Education has been enough to deter resistance from the Democratic Party. Last week I interviewed Derek Black, a constitutional law professor at the University of South Carolina. The full interview will air tomorrow, but here's his short take on the current situation.

When Congress is willing to hand the keys over to the president, then we no longer really have a democracy, or at least the constitutional democracy that was created a couple centuries ago. So the bigger danger, I think, is that through law itself, Congress cedes more and more power to the president with a new legislation. So if Congress were to pass new legislation giving the president more centralized power, well, that would be a concerning thing to me. Right now, the real roadblock is the courts.

The Trump administration has already displayed a willingness to ignore the courts based on the continued halting of federal spending and grants, despite an order from a U.S. district judge. The Justice Department has argued that the order to resume funding, quote, contains several ambiguous terms and provisions that could be read to constitute significant intrusions on the executive branches, lawful authorities, and the separation of powers, unquote. This past weekend, Musk raged against a federal judge who ordered to temporarily restrict Doge's access to Treasury Department data. Both Musk and the White House have labeled a judge an activist, with White House spokesperson

Harrison Fields calling the order, quote, absurd and judicial overreach, unquote. On X, the Everything app, Musk boosted claims calling this a judicial coup, and shared an announcement from California Representative Darryl Issa to introduce legislation to quote-unquote, stop these rogue judges. But even without added legislation, Musk and the Trump administration are gearing up to directly defy judicial authority. On Saturday, Musk shared a tweet reading, I don't like the precedent it sets when you defy a judicial ruling, but I'm just wondering

what other options are these judges leaving us if they're going to blatantly disregard the Constitution for their own partisan political goals." And on Sunday, Vice President JD Vance posted a statement undermining judicial power. Quote, if a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal. If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that's also illegal. Judges aren't allowed to control executives' legitimate power.

Unquote. So now it all comes down to force. If the executive branch not just ignores judicial authority, but blatantly defies it, who would be left to enforce the power of the court? That leads us to another step in Yarvin's plan, centralize the police. Nationalize local law enforcement to place them under federal control. Trump has flirted with his tactic in the past when he deputized Washington police as US Marshals to kill Michael Reinhold in 2020.

Doge staff threatened to call US Marshals when US aid security officials, who have since been fired, denied them access to classified systems. Yorvin believes this step is paramount. Quote, support of the democratic public is a cipher. I think that actually all you need is command of the police." Unquote. If you have all of the guys with guns, who can physically stop you?

Support from the public doesn't hurt though. And if things get tricky, Trump could employ the next step in Yarvin's plan, mobilize populist support. But crucially, don't wait until you're at your weakest, at the end of your term after losing an election. Under popular mandate, deploy your empowered supporters at the height of your powers to oppose any obstruction

from government agencies or the courts. Trump may weaponize Supreme Court-ordained presidential immunity and his unrestricted pardon power to make any willing actor carry out his bidding with zero risk of legal consequence. Now, even if Trump himself isn't aware of Yarvin's plan, his Vice President certainly is. On a far-right podcast in 2021, JD Vance laid out a very similar vision for a second Trump

term, using what the Peter Thiel protégé described as a de-wokefication program to purge bureaucracy. I think Trump is going to run again in 2024. I think he'll probably win again in 2024. I think that what Trump should do, like if I was giving him one piece of advice, fire every single mid-level bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state,

replace them with our people. And when the courts, because you will get taken to court, and then when the courts stop you, stand before the country, like Andrew Jackson did, and say the chief justice has made his ruling, now let him enforce it. Yorvin writes that the initial goal of this new administration should not be simply to govern, but to, quote, figure out what the Trump administration can actually do when it assumes the full constitutional powers given to the chief executive of the executive branch, unquote.

What the administration can do once they fully seize this power is so incredibly vast. Without checks and balances, all those crazy things Trump tried to do during his first term would be a lot easier to enact, let alone whatever Musk and the tech oligarchs want out of the United States Incorporated. But that's a whole separate topic. The current fight determines the degree to which this power is seized. And Yarvin notes the importance of going all the way. Quote, when Trump in 2017 took office, he took about 0.01% of power.

If Trump in 2021 wants to have more than 0.001% of power, the only way he can do it is to take 100%. Take it all at once, completely legally. The real Donald J. Trump would never have the guts to even think of doing this, and he's just too old." Funny pessimism from Yarvin there. All of this doesn't even need to benefit average Trump supporters, because Trump's main campaign promise wasn't mass deportations, fixing the economy, or abolishing the Department of Education. It was

retribution. As extremism analyst Jared Holt notes, quote, the right got its base so hooked on the idea of revenge, it doesn't even need to pretend that any of this benefits their base in any tangible way. They just have to say it hurts the wrong people and that satisfies them." If Trump and Musk continue to get their way, it could take years to fix. But the past 10 years have shown us you can't really return to normal. There probably is no going back. The options are to hunker down and play it slow, and try to survive whatever happens in the next two to four years, while offering passive

resistance. Or we accelerate to whatever comes next. Put cards on the table, trigger a kinetic confrontation, and fully manifest the results of this constitutional crisis. We are dealing with managing crumbles versus a full systems collapse. Sad face emoji. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonedia.com, or check us out on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen Here listed directly in episode descriptions.

Thanks for listening. What would you do if mysterious drones appeared over your hometown? I started asking questions. What do you remember happening on that night of December 16th? It actually rotated around our house, looking as if it was peering in each window of our home.

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