Coup d’ IT
Call it revenge of the nerds. Or social engineering. Whatever you call it, we’re in the middle of tech support coup, and no one (so far) seems willing or able to stop it. It doesn’t help that the president and his party are handing out passwords like candy. “Ever since the pandemic, the MAGA movement has decried the tyranny of a cabal of self-certain experts, who wield their technical knowledge unaccountably. But even as the right purports to loathe technocracy, it has empowered an engineer to radically remake the American state in the name of efficiency.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Dictatorship Of The Engineer. (Maybe it’s time to try unplugging America for thirty seconds and then plugging it back in…)
+ “Sometimes a constitutional crisis sneaks up on you, shrouded in darkness, revealing itself gradually. Other times it announces itself dramatically. Elon Musk, to whom Donald Trump has delegated the task of neutering the congressional spending authority laid out in Article I of the Constitution, could hardly be more obvious about his intentions if he rode into Washington on a horse trailed by Roman legions.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Constitutional Crisis Is Here. “In theory, Congress ought to revolt against the prospect of Musk deciding which federal programs should live and which should die. In reality, its Republican members largely share Trump’s goals—and to the extent that they don’t, they correctly fear that opposing him would invite a primary challenge.” (The latest example: Republicans block Musk from congressional subpoena as DOGE continues to access government data.)
+ “A couple dozen young men go from government office to government office, dressed in civilian clothes and armed only with zip drives. Using technical jargon and vague references to orders from on high, they gain access to the basic computer systems of the federal government. Having done so, they proceed to grant their Supreme Leader access to information and the power to start and stop all government payments. That coup is, in fact, happening. And if we do not recognize it for what it is, it could succeed.” Timothy Snyder: Of course it’s a coup.
