It's a Crime Spree, Not a "Coup"

Let's keep (F)elon Musk in perspective and not give him and Trump power they don't have. Plus:

I came down with a nasty cold a week ago, and while I’m lucky that it’s not COVID or RSV or the flu, I haven’t been this grounded in years. Instead of attending RootsCamp in Baltimore which was my plan for the second half of last week, I curled up indoors, rested, and did a lot of reading. Here’s what I learned. I’ll keep it short and simple.

Far too many of us are shouting “this is a coup.” I’ve lost track, in fact—Timothy Snyder, Michael Moore, Carole Cadwalladr, Robert Reich, Paul Krugman, and Robert Hubbell are just some of the biggest voices using the term. Or they call it a “digital coup,” like Lucy Bernholz or David Pepper. The competition in the commentariat to pen the best screed pinning this word on the actions of the Trump Administration is out of control. And it’s neither strategic nor accurate.

At worst, what we’re experiencing is a potential coup. Trump and Musk’s actions appear to be unlawful, and indeed some courts have already ruled against them. (CourtWatch is tracking all of them here.) But a potential coup is not the same thing as an actual one.

More critically, the language we choose to use affects how our message is received. Here I want to 100% associate myself with the advice of Antonia Scatton, a friend who has been laboring in the trenches of effective communication for decades. Last Thursday, as the “coup” talk started to boil, she wrote on her terrific Substack “Reframing America”:

Experts on tyranny point out that people are ill equipped to handle fascism because they make it look inevitable, and we lose our ability to envision the alternative.

Trump and Musk are trying to gaslight us all into believing we live in their FANTASY WORLD in which everyone bows before their power. [Satire and ridicule of what they’re doing] works by snapping us out of the brain fog and back into the real world where - oh yeah - Elon Musk is not a God, he’s just an a-hole.

That is what our messaging needs to do for people right now, especially for ourselves. As you have heard me say many times before: what we talk about is what appears in people’s minds, even if we are making the case against it.

If we talk about Elon Musk’s actions as a “coup d'état,” we make people envision him succeeding. It makes the task of stopping him feel insurmountable, which increases their ability to scare people into obeying in advance.

If we talk about Elon Musk being on a CRIME SPREE, we make people envision what inevitably happens to people on a crime spree: they end up on the run from the U.S. Marshals.

We need to talk like we live in a world where people like Trump and Musk get stopped, because we DO live in that world! Our successful court challenges, which are happening with remarkable speed, might get overshadowed by the atrocity of the day, but they are still happening.

Our job is to make it possible for people to envision that we can and will defeat these Bozos. [Emphases in the original.]

While I read dozens of posts describing and analyzing what is happening, there was only one other piece that stuck with me as saying something essential. That was from Bill McKibben, the veteran environmentalist and organizer. He wrote:

Our job is not to stop what Trump is doing, because we can’t. For the moment, he has the power he needs, though Congressional Democrats can find some small fingerholds—the need to extend the country’s debt ceiling, for instance—and use them to exact concessions. Our basic job is to make what he’s doing is deeply unpopular, because that will stiffen the backbone of the courts and any remaining moderate Republicans, and set us up for possible gains if and when we next have elections. So: witness, communicate, ridicule, amplify strong voices. [Emphasis added by me.]

On the Protest Front

Ross Barkan’s declaration two weeks ago that “accommodation and acceptance” were the “new watchwords” continues to age poorly, like a piece of Limberger cheese left out too long. The Indivisible Central Ohio meeting over the weekend drew a crowd of 800. In Santa Barbara, an emergency town hall led by Indivisible filled a church sanctuary, overflowed the overflow room and filled the plaza outside the church. An estimated 1500 people attended. My personal Indivisible group, NYCD16/15, saw attendance at our Sunday monthly meeting quadruple from 45 to 180. Nearby where I live, in Rockland County, the library was overflowing last night.

Given how big a role (F)elon Musk is playing in Trump’s blitzkreig, using DOGE to disrupt the functioning of government agencies that were in the process of investigating malfeasance by his own companies, the most interesting development of the last few days is the number of ways people are coming up with to challenge him where he is most vulnerable, at the level of his biggest consumer-facing business.

—Here’s Jonathan V. Last of the Bulwark laying out Tesla’s economic vulnerabilities.

—Here's a short video of people protesting outside a Tesla dealership in Easton, OH for the second day in a row, where people at the mall are stopping and joining in.

—Here’s a photo of protestors at a Tesla charging station in Waterville, Maine:

—Here’s a photo of a protest at a Tesla recruiting event at a “career café” at Michigan State University:

(Photo by Fatih Gorkem Imamoglu | The State News)

—Here are people protesting in front of a Tesla dealership in Columbus, Ohio.

—Here’s a group outside a dealership in San Luis Obispo, California

—Ben Wittes, the editor-in-chief of the Lawfare blog, applied for a job at Tesla. You can too, he notes. God forbid Tesla experiences difficulties processing all the applicants.

—Apparently more than 1,000 people have done something similar, some using AI to help them make realistic CVs.

—You can also make an appointment to test-drive a Tesla. It would be terrible if this makes it harder for would-be buyers to purchase a car.

—Folks are coalescing around the tag “TeslaTakeover” on BlueSky, calling for pickets at Tesla dealerships everywhere on February 15.

—Here’s a list of Tesla stores and galleries.

Bonus link: Sam Stein and Joe Perticone report for The Bulwark that while Republican members of Congress are publicly expressing support for Musk, in letters they are writing to angry constituents, they are saying they are concerned about conflicts of interest and plan to be a guardrail against DOGE. This doesn’t mean anything yet, other than a crack in the wall. But it’s a sign that constituent pressure can work.

Civil Society, Presente?

One of the more troubling aspects of our current situation is how few pillars of civil society have stood firm against Trump’s unlawful actions. But there’s still time for people to gather themselves. Yesterday, for example, the American Bar Association, a pillar of the legal establishment, put out a strong statement defending the rule of law. Here are a few excerpts:

Americans know there is a right way and a wrong way to proceed. What is being done is not the right way to pursue the change that is sought in our system of government. These actions do not make America stronger. They make us weaker. Many Americans are rightly concerned about how leaders who are elected, confirmed or appointed are proceeding to make changes. The goals of eliminating departments and entire functions do not justify the means when the means are not in accordance with the law. Americans expect better….

No American can be proud of a government that carries out change in this way. Neither can these actions be rationalized by discussion of past grievances or appeals to efficiency. Everything can be more efficient, but adherence to the rule of law is paramount. We must be cognizant of the harm being done by these methods….

We urge every attorney to join us and insist that our government, a government of the people, follow the law. It is part of the oath we took when we became lawyers. Whatever your political party or your views, change must be made in the right way. Americans expect no less.

—More than two dozen religious groups, including the Episcopal Church, the Union for Reform Judaism, the Mennonites and the Unitarian Universalists, are suing the administration charging that its effort to mass deport immigrants violates their religious freedom, in part by reducing attendance at religious services. The plaintiffs represent millions of religious Americans and thousands of churches, synagogues and other places of worship.

—Here’s an eloquent call on Weill Cornell Medicine hospital to re-instate its commitment to gender-affirming care for transgender youth, written by Cornell Law professor James Grimmelmann. Many hospitals have moved far too quickly and prematurely to obey with executive orders that have yet to be adjudicated. As Grimmelmann argues, Trump’s order attempting to forbid federal funding to institutions providing such care is blatantly illegal and violates laws preventing discrimination on the basis of sex or gender.

—On the opposite side of the equation, not only has Google added the “Gulf of America” to its Maps tool, it has removed the following holidays and observances from Google Calendar:

• Holocaust Remembrance Day
• Jewish Heritage
• Hispanic Heritage
• Women's History Month
• Indigenous Peoples Month
• Pride Month
• Black History Month

Blindness at Noon

It’s been a week since President Trump announced that the United States would occupy the Gaza Strip and transfer its two million Palestinian residents to who-knows-where so that the American can “own” the territory and redevelop it as some kind of “Riviera on the Mediterranean.”

The day after Trump first made his remarks, the Anti-Defamation League, which says its mission is “To stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all,” put out a statement that read:

“It was significant that in the White House yesterday, Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump discussed critical priorities including the release of all hostages, Israel's security needs and steps for regional engagement. U.S. involvement -- in coordination with Israel and regional partners -- will be essential for long term rebuilding and governance of Gaza. However, any plan must take into account Israel’s security needs and the well-being of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. We continue to hope for a day when Israelis and Palestinians can live side-by-side with security, dignity and peace.”

The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, an umbrella group for 50 organizations, has been silent about Trump’s Gaza madness. So was its CEO William Daroff, until this past Sunday, when he told The Times of Israel that, “There certainly are a number of American leaders who are not pleased by specific policy proposals that came forth in the meeting [between Trump and Netanyahu], particularly the Gaza proposal, but at the moment, Netanyahu and Trump seem aligned in a way that is indicative of the close bond in the relationship between America and Israel, and that is something that every leader in the American Jewish community supports.” Daroff called Netanyahu’s visit to the US “a very positive week where the closeness between our two countries was more evident than ever.” I threw up a little in my mouth as I read that; how about you?

The American Jewish Committee put out a statement that welcomed Trump’s affirmation of the US-Israel alliance but expressed “concerns” about the Gaza proposal. Ted Deutsch, its CEO, said “the President’s surprising, concerning, and confusing comments on an American plan to ‘take control’ and ‘own’ Gaza and the relocation of its population raise a wealth of questions – first among them the impact of the President’s announcement on the ongoing hostage-release agreement. The release of all remaining hostages, and the agreement’s ultimate fulfillment of the objective to rid Gaza of Hamas rule, must remain U.S. and Israeli priorities.”

All of these groups use the phrase “Never again” to describe their opposition to another Holocaust; the ADL even owns the trademark on the phrase. Displacing two million Palestinians would be triple the size of the 1947-48 Naqba, when 700,000 Palestinians were pushed out of their homes in Israel/Palestine. I guess when mainstream Jewish leaders say “Never again,” they actually mean the opposite.

By contrast, Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the liberal nonpartisan Jewish Council for Public Affairs blasted Trump. On Bluesky, she posted: “What do you even say about this absurd & dangerous press conference? Unfathomably horrific and cruel for Palestinians. So incredibly foolish re: US interests. And fundamentally at odds with Israel’s own future — because there is no Jewish, democratic Israel without Palestinian self-determination.”

J Street also condemned Trump. “There aren’t adequate words to express our disgust at the idea of forcible displacement of Palestinians with the assistance of the United States of America,” said J Street President Jeremy Ben Ami.

What’s especially disgusting and astonishing about the way mainstream Jewish leaders have fallen over themselves to kiss the fringes of Trump’s underwear is the way the President’s “plan” destabilizes the existing but tenuous hostage deal with Hamas. After all, the Biden-Trump ceasefire is premised on an eventual Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the return of Palestinians to their homes there. Why should Hamas and other radical Palestinian groups return the hostages they are holding if they will soon be deported to god-knows-where in accordance with Trump and Netanyahu’s desire to cleanse the strip of its inhabitants? Hadar Susskind, the president of New Jewish Narrative, makes this point well. “Trump’s call for the forced displacement of Gazans is ethnic cleansing--a war crime. His dangerous rhetoric is now actively jeopardizing the ceasefire and the return of the hostages, putting more lives at risk. The right of return is not President Trump’s or Prime Minister Netanayhu’s to grant or revoke. It is a final status issue that can only be addressed within the constructs of a negotiated Israeli-Palestinian peace.”

—Related: The crackdown on Palestinian human rights in Israel/Palestine is getting worse. Sunday Israeli police raided the Educational Bookshop, a Palestinian-owned store in East Jerusalem, and arrested its founder/owners. Why? Because they found books with the Palestinian flag on them, including a children’s coloring book called “From the River to the Sea.” They were accused with incitement to terrorism, but that charge has now been lowered to “disrupting public order.” I’ve been in one of their bookshops, at the American Colony Hotel. It’s where I bought a copy of Michael Fischbach’s The Movement and the Middle East: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Divided the American Left, a book about the post-1967 debate among American liberals and leftists. Their collection was the single best I’ve ever seen on all sides of the hundred-year conflict.

End Times:

Too soon for 2028?