Letters from an American - Hell-bent

Episode Date: September 9, 2026

September 8, 2026Germany’s far right AfD party won 43.8% of the vote in the small state of Saxony0Anhalt, formerly part of the Soviet dominated East Germany, Right wing leaders across Europe celebrated the outcome, Elon Musk, a supporter of AfD, was the largest donor to any political committee in the 2024 presidential eletion, Musk has plowed money into the Texas Senate election, pitting Ken Paxton against James Talrico, Musk is attempting to buy elections for the Republicans, Musk used DOGE to strip agencies like USAID, but appears not to have made signficant savings, Musk’s antics have confirmed the sense that billionaires are a threat to democracy, There is pushback, but it is unclear whther populr pressure can withstnd the extrqaordinary amount of money thta Musk and other billionaires are pouring into the midterms, DOGE’s access to detailed information on US citizens is poised to corrupt the midterm elections. Watch today's recording here: https://www.youtube.com/live/g9TUa1Rwd6U?si=T8_KKcHQZElhpnZ-Get full, free access to Letters from an American here: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribeYou can also find me:Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/hcrichardson.bsky.socialInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/heathercoxrichardson/?hl=enFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/heathercoxrichardson/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@heathercoxrichardson Get full access to Letters from an American at heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribe

September 8, 26. On Sunday, Germany's far-right alternative for Germany, or AFD, party, won 43.8% of the vote in a legislative election in the small state of Saxony-on-Halt, formerly part of Soviet-dominated East Germany. The AFD. is anti-immigrant and pro-Russia, and has won the support of both Vice President J.D. Vance and billionaire Elon Musk. When Musk posted, well-done in German, to the co-founder of AFD, Elise Vital, another AFD leader responded with thanks, posting, If we take on responsibility here, I would very much welcome the opportunity for strong and constructive cooperation. Germany would then once again be a place worth investing in. Best regards from Saxony-on-Halt. John Henley of The Guardian noted that right-wing leaders across Europe celebrated the outcome, including ousted Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban,

who called the election results a huge night for Germany and Europe, adding, buckle up, this is just the beginning. Musk was the largest donor to any political committee in the 2024 U.S. elections, putting around $290 million into the 2020. election to help elect President Donald J. Trump and Republicans. On August 28, Andrew Howard, Aaron Dordy, and Meredith Lee Hill of Politico reported that Musk was planning to meet with House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican of Louisiana, as he considered investing at least $100 million to elect Republicans in the midterm elections. Since that meeting, Musk has plowed money into the

Texas Senate race to support Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton against Democratic nominee James Talarico. According to Theater Schleifer of the New York Times, Musk's investments, many through political action committees, target Senate races in Alaska, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, and Ohio, as well as House races in at least California, Wisconsin, and Washington. Musk's open attempt to buy elections for the Republicans should be bigger news, not only because of the political power his money has given to one man, but also because of what his behavior says about the MAGA administration's ideology and its goals. After supporting Trump in 2024, Musk appeared to become the head of the Department of Government

efficiency. The administration was coy about who actually held that type. where he worked to slash government spending. On February 3rd, he posted on social media, we spent the weekend feeding USAID into the woodchipper. Could gone to some great parties. Did that instead. Musk called USAID, the United States Agency for International Development, a criminal organization, and a vipers' nest of radical left Marxists who hate America. In July 2026, Erie Daniel, David Augustine, Kazim O'Walli Nasiro, and Lamek Nyagudi of NPR, reported on a study by Boston University Infectious Disease Modeler Brooke Nichols that estimated more than 700,000 people had died from the sudden stop in USAID funding, including more than half a million children in developing countries.

and yet, for all his talk about slashing government expenditures, Musk's Department of Government Efficiency did not appear to save much. Emilio Perez Ibarguyen of Politico reported in August, when the Department of Government Efficiency officially ended, that a report by the Government Accountability Office found that the savings it claimed were in large part exaggerated or couldn't be corroborated. Meanwhile, government contracts continued to flow to Musk's businesses. As Desmond Butler, Tricia Thadani, Emmanuel Martinez, Aaron Gregg, Luis Melgar, Jonathan O'Connell, and Dan Keating, reported in the Washington Post in February 2025,

Musk himself has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of taxpayer dollars in history, taking in at least $38 billion in government contracts, loans, subsidies, and tax credits over the course of more than 20 years. Once he was in power in Trump 2.0, government investigations into those businesses ended. The very public nature of Musk's antics has helped to wake the public up to the fact that our current system is skewed toward billionaires. In July, economist Paul Krugman noted a growing backlash against those billionaires. A poll by UMass Samhurst found that 58% of Americans think billionaires are a threat to democracy, and 45% of them say the U.S. is an oligarchy, a government in which a small group exercises control, especially for corrupt and selfish purposes. As Krugman noted, only 28% of those polled disagreed.

Krugman pointed out that wealth has been concentrating at the top of the U.S. economy for decades, so the growing wave against that concentration of wealth appears to be driven by those like Musk and Trump himself, who has flaunted his use of taxpayer money for his own interests while dismissing the pain of regular Americans. This flow of taxpayer dollars to favored businesses rather than to programs that serve the needs of the people seems to be a feature rather than a bug in the Trump administration

and reflects its rejection of democracy in favor of the right-wing axis of authoritarianism. Last night, Tarini Party, Josh Dossi, Michelle Hackman, and Summer Said of the Wall Street Journal, published a deep investigation of the machinations of Corey Lewandowski when his colleague, Christy Noem, was Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. They report that Lewandowski, who was Trump's campaign manager for part of of 2016, appeared to offer aid to foreign countries navigating U.S. bureaucracy in the department for a fee, selling government services for his own gain. The journalists also report that Lewandowski may have been involved in awarding government contracts improperly, an accusation

covered in a November 14th, 2025 article by Justin Elliott, Joshua Kaplan, and Alex Mergeski of ProPublica. The Wall Street, Journal reporters note that Congress gave the Department of Homeland Security an additional $75 billion to spend during Trump's term on deportations, detention facilities, and technology, providing deep pockets for corruption. While the administration appears to have sidelined Noam and Lewandowski since Noam resigned under pressure in March, the journalists say Lewandowski has told people close to him he expects the president would pardon him

in the event of a criminal case. Lewandowski responded on social media that the story was just another example of the kind of anonymous source politically driven reporting that Americans have seen time and time again. We've lived through the Russia collusion hoax,

the fake birthday card, and countless other sensational allegations that ultimately failed to withstand scrutiny. I'm tremendously proud of my work as a volunteer in advancing this administration's agenda and remain confident that the facts and not anonymous accusations will ultimately speak for themselves. But of course, every official investigation into the 2016 election, including the one conducted by the Republican-dominated Senate Intelligence Committee and unanimously adopted, agreed that Russia did work to get Trump elected in 2016.

And while Trump claims he did not create the birthday card to child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, apparently bearing Trump's signature on a drawing of a nude girl that was produced by the Epstein estate, the story was convincing enough that it helped to push Congress to pass the Epstein Files Transparency Act,

and the first case he brought against the Wall Street Journal for publishing the story was dismissed. A second case is pending. There is, in fact, increasing pushback against the world Musk and Trump are trying to put into place instead of liberal democracy. In the U.S., the growing opposition to data centers, which seems to represent anger at the very wealthy tech bros who want to call the shots, is perhaps a sign of the direction the wind in the U.S. is blowing. Whether that popular pressure can withstand the extraordinary amounts of money Musk and other right-wing

billionaires are pouring into the midterms is unclear. Jud Leggum of Popular Information reported today that Musk is funding an advertising campaign encouraging people in swing states to check their voting registration status at a different website than the one run by the Election Assistance Commission, which is an independent agency of the U.S. government. Instead, Musk's campaign urges people to go to Votesafe.org, which collects their full name, home address, date of birth, email address, cell phone number, IP address, and location, which identifies city and zip code,

every link clicked, every page looked at, and voter registration status, among other information. Legham reports that the privacy policy of the website allows Musk's Super PAC, AmericaPack, to share or sell personal information with our business partners, including whether you are registered to vote and how you submit your vote were permitted by law. AmericaPAC can also sell inferences it makes about a user, including psychological trends, predispositions, behavior, attitudes, intelligence, abilities, and aptitude. A new documentary about Musk by filmmaker Alex Gibney argues, as Stephen Zyitchik of the Hollywood

reporter put it, that Musk is a dangerous hoaxter who is stealthily aggregating power to exploit us, primarily by centralizing and controlling massive amounts of data. The documentary, called Musk, notes that under Musk, the Department of Government Efficiency had access to federal IT systems. And as Zytechik recalls, a whistleblower warned that members of the Department of Government Efficiency accessed and shared sensitive data from the Social Security Administration. Zychik reports on the on-screen comments of Nobel Prize winning scientist Jeffrey Hinton, known as the godfather of AI. who said,

It's fairly clear to me that Trump is hell-bent on corrupting the mid-term elections, he says on screen. If you wanted to corrupt those mid-term elections and you wanted to use AI, all you needed to do was get detailed information on U.S. citizens, and what the Department of Government Efficiency did looked like just what you would do. In Europe, in the wake of the rise of the AFD, German defense minister Boris Pistorius said today that Germany will send missiles to Ukraine to help it fight off a winter incursion from Russia.

Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson. It was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dead in Massachusetts, recorded with music composed by Michael Moss.