At this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, the world’s richest man waved a giant chainsaw over his head, gleefully celebrating his success at gutting aid to the world’s poorest people, along with mass firings of scientists and medical researchers, national parks and forest service employees, workers who take care of veterans and stop big banks from ripping off consumers.
At least Elon Musk is having fun.
Musk has demonstrated his ability to lie like his titular boss, President Trump, about fictional fraud. He is attacking agencies that have investigated his own business empire, which was built in part on $38 billion from taxpayers.
Musk told his CPAC audience that he’s having a good time. I doubt Musk’s enjoyment will provide much comfort to seniors who won’t be able to get anyone on the phone to resolve issues with their social security.
Musk wasn’t the only one having a good time at CPAC.
Steve Bannon praised the pardoned Jan. 6 insurrectionists in the room. Attendees cheered the confirmation of FBI Director Kash Patel and the retribution they expect him to exact on Trump’s enemies. Far-right political leaders from around the world spoke in solidarity, though a French politician pulled out after Bannon threw up an alarming salute that modeled Musk’s so-called “gesture” at a January Trump rally.
The conference opened with Vice President JD Vance and closed with Trump, a symbol of Trump’s dominance over the MAGA movement.
Although Trump has demonstrated the ability to intimidate much of the Republican Party into submission, it is important to realize that Trump is not the originator or mastermind of the movement pushing America toward fascism. Long before Trump ran for office, right-wing operatives were scheming to reverse more than a century of progressive gains and return the U.S. to a pre-Civil Rights, pre-New Deal era, when the federal government was relatively powerless to protect Americans from corporate wrongdoing.
Trump is this movement’s tool.
That’s not to say he is not a willing and eager tool. He is bitter about “deep state” officials he blames for his legal problems. He seems to revel in flashy displays of king-like power, like signing executive orders to target his personal enemies, banning the use of words like climate or inclusion and making it impossible for transgender people to live their lives in peace.
It is unquestionably alarming when Trump claims that his mission to “save” America puts him above the law. But the threat to our country and Constitution is much broader than Trump.
it wasn’t Trump who came up with the executive orders he is so proud of signing. They came from the ideologues at Project 2025 and the America First Policy Institute. Project 2025’s agenda was backed by more than 100 organizations from across the overlapping legal, corporate and Christian-nationalist right-wing movements.
When Project 2025’s cruel agenda became public, Trump dishonestly disavowed it. At the time, Project 2025 architect Russ Vought wasn’t bothered by the public rejection. Vought knew it was just for show — just one more lie to enable the right-wing movement to “take the reins of government” and forcibly re-shape the country.
Now, as director of the Office of Management and Budget, Vought is aggressively carrying out his admitted desire to put federal workers “in trauma.”
The Project 2025 presidency is a kind of culmination of the massive political infrastructure built with billions of dollars over the past 50 years that moved the Republican Party to the right and enabled the ideological takeover of the Supreme Court. To make matters worse, Vance is aligned with far-right billionaires and thinkers who are openly hostile to democracy.
Political operatives have built support for their reactionary vision by encouraging Americans to be distrustful of media, cynical about government and resentful of efforts to ensure shared opportunity in an increasingly diverse country. They were assisted by a new media environment in which right-wing radio and cable networks were joined by social media and online influencers who amplified these destructive messages.
The good news amid this bleak reality is that resistance is rising to MAGA-supporting Republicans’ harmful assault on Americans’ freedom and well-being.
I believe most Americans share a different vision for our future, a country where everyone has the freedom to thrive and our government supports the common good. All of us who share that vision must make our voices heard in every way we can, now and during the long struggle ahead to reclaim our country.
The purposeful, community-building work required will be hard. It can also be fun. No chainsaws required.
