Trump, Musk are destroying our government

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I sat down a few minutes ago and brainstormed the likely near-term consequences of the public’s inability to reverse the Trump/Musk administration’s virtual destruction of our government and the cessation of our constitutional rights.

I regret to say that none of this is hyperbole.

The catastrophic implications of our current situation are as follows:

• Without Social Security, tens of millions of our elderly and disabled citizens will end up on our streets. Our homeless situation will be many times worse than it is presently.

• Without Medicaid, tens of millions of our sick, elderly, and infirm citizens will end up in emergency care in our hospitals and the resulting lack of capacity will de facto bar emergency care access to most other Americans. Caregivers along with many former Medicaid recipients will turn up in the streets due to lack of income. 

• Without freedom of speech and the right to privacy, millions of Americans will be discontinuing the use of the internet and/or the use of social media for fear that they will be deported or worse. Vigilantism will abound when neighbors report on neighbors “bad-mouthing” corruption and/or government dysfunction.

• Because of the massive layoffs within our federal government, thousands of scientists and medical doctors will either end up being unemployed (adding to our homeless population) or will be lured into taking job offers beyond our borders resulting in a national “brain drain” and the corresponding decline in economic competitiveness.

• The current debunking of the climate and health sciences will lead to the increasing proliferation of freakish, life-threatening weather events and deadly worldwide pandemics.

• The current unbridled and chaotic results of an autocratic government (e.g., on-again, off-again tariffs) will result in an economic depression for our nation and for the world as a whole.

• Freedom of the press will cease to exist, resulting in an increase in the passivity, gullibility, and ignorance of the American public.

• The imminent decline in public education will also result in an increase in the passivity, gullibility, and ignorance of the American public and a rapid decline in our quality of life.

• Economic isolationism resulting in stagflation will reduce our quality of life by limiting the goods and services available to us. A poor economy will lead to massive unemployment and, again, a steep rise in our homeless population.

• Mass deportation of our front-line service professionals along with punishing tariffs will reduce our agricultural output, put farmers out of business thereby increasing hunger both here and abroad. This will also result in an increase in the costs and slow down the rate of construction, thereby putting more housing out of reach to the general public.

• The wealth of our nation (or what’s left of it) will be usurped by oligarchs and, like Russia, our government will be transformed into a criminal organization equipped with its own military and supported by legions of espionage/surveillance “apparatchiks.”

The only positive spin on all of this is that, in spite of robust efforts by the Republican party to undermine voter participation as well as overturn election results, the Democrats might still win back the House and/or the Senate come November 2026. 

Allan Cooper
San Luis Obispo

This article appears in May 1-11, 2025.