That Trump gives Elon Musk his own ministry to “streamline the bureaucracy” is a blatant attack on democracy and the principle of separation of powers that is central to democratic states. This is because what will be purged are important control institutions that scrutinize power. The aim is to remove obstacles so that Trump can rule with unlimited power, like the fascist that he is.
Elon Musk, together with Vivek Ramaswamy, has been appointed to lead the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the Trump administration. Their task? To abolish as many authorities as possible. This should worry all Americans, but also the rest of the free democratic world because the USA’s influence on the world’s political climate is enormous, not least thanks to Musk’s platform X which he has successfully transformed into a political tool to spread MAGA’s fascist ideas and drive its witch-hunt for dissidents. X is now overflowing with hatred and threats against liberal ideas and against the rule of law as a principle.
It should now be fairly uncontroversial to call Trump a fascist considering that several of the world’s leading experts on fascism, such as Robert Paxton and Timothy Snyder, agree on this. It has found a dangerous delusion that Trump is not ideological, but it is certainly time to shake it off now.
Break down the rule of law
Fascists, since their inception in the 1920s, have been constantly mistaken for lacking an ideological agenda and their leaders for having been merely narcissistic power-hungry opportunists. But narcissism and fascism are not mutually exclusive – as fascism often develops into a personality cult, they rather presuppose each other.
All autocrats must break down the rule of law in order to secure their power, because with an independent judiciary the leader cannot rule unhindered. In the United States, SCOTUS, the Supreme Court Of The United States, is already politicized as it is, and the civil courage of these judges will in the next four years be absolutely decisive for the democratic future of the United States. The real test will probably be Trump’s plans for mass deportations of unwanted people—a project Trump is by no means the first fascist to attempt. There is only one rule: all laws that favor fascism and the leader are good, those that disfavor fascism and the leader are bad.
The aim is to terrorize the judiciary into obedience and to appoint politically reliable puppets
Musk and Trump are therefore now attacking the separation of powers principle that is central to free democratic states – the separation between executive, legislative and judicial bodies. It thinks Musk and MAGA are bad because it doesn’t let the leader do as it wants. One step in this is to attack the courts and hang individual judges, prosecutors and lawyers, that is, precisely the living parts of the rule of law that guarantee it. We see the same thing in Sweden from SD and its foot soldiers. The aim is to terrorize the judiciary into obedience and to appoint politically reliable puppets. It is, in the long run, a systemic threat.
One could give many examples of this. Trump has been clear that he intends to use the legal system for his personal vendettas against political opponents. Musk has also time and again shown a fundamental contempt for the principles of the rule of law. The other day, Musk commented on an Italian court decision that went against Giorgia Meloni’s government on a migration issue, saying this was “unacceptable”. He then rhetorically asked if the Italians still live in a democracy or if “an unelected autocracy makes the decisions?” The court had thus ruled in accordance with the democratically established laws.
Attack enemies
In another tweet, he wrote “The Hammer of Justice is coming” as he retweeted MAGA activist Valentina Gomez who expressed that she hopes Musk has a list of everyone who “came after” him and his company. Again an explicit indication that he hopes to use the legal system to attack his enemies.
However, a democratic rule of law is not only guaranteed by the separation of powers and people in the judiciary, but also by a bureaucratic apparatus of independent control functions whose purpose is to review power. Without these control bodies, democracy becomes fragile and weak and autocratic forces can gain ground. An important part of the DOGE’s task will probably be to abolish precisely such control bodies that can prevent Trump from exercising his power unrestricted.
Brutal awakening
Despite this, Musk and Trump present themselves as champions of freedom of expression and democracy. It is not surprising that fascists claim to be passionate about democracy, because fascism has always considered that the leader embodies the will of the people. Everything the leader does is therefore by definition more democratic than democracy itself, which is considered to distance the people from power. Ultimately, however, it’s all about giving the leader more power. What all those who believe this propaganda do not seem to understand is that the only guarantor of freedom of expression is an independent judiciary. Without the state’s willingness to guarantee that the law is followed, there is no freedom of expression. It risks being a brutal awakening in January.
