We are in a constitutional crisis. The richest man on Earth is attempting to seize physical control of government payment systems and use them to shut down federal funding to any recipient he personally dislikes. Elon Musk is directly usurping Congress’s most important authority, the power of the purse.
Over the years, many people have tried to envision what a constitutional crisis in the United States might look like. But this scenario is so extreme that no one could have possibly envisioned it. Most of those imagined crises have involved a standoff between two equal branches of government. Instead, what has happened is that a third party – the world’s wealthiest man – has sought to simply commandeer, with the acquiescence of the president, the technical systems that make the federal government function. In doing so, he has interposed himself between Congress and the control panels of government……more
