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MAGArthyism

There's a new (unelected) sheriff in town...

Dave Pell

Feb 3

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It's hard to imagine that the market whiplashing, on again-off again tariff threats against America's staunchest allies isn't the biggest news you should be paying attention to. But it tops this newsletter when a unelected private citizen gets access to the Dept of Treasury systems, threatens to shut down entire agencies, and is part of an employee purge designed to remove non-loyalists and cripple the federal government. Heather Cox Richardson has an overview of a busy weekend of democracy damaging. "Billionaire Elon Musk’s team yesterday took control of the Treasury’s payment system, thus essentially gaining access to the checkbook with which the United States handles about $6 trillion annually and to all the financial information of Americans and American businesses with it. Apparently, it did not stop there ... Yesterday two top security officials from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) tried to stop people associated with Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, from accessing classified information they did not have security clearance to see. The Trump administration put the officials on leave, and the DOGE team gained access to the information. Vittoria Elliott of Wired has identified those associated with Musk’s takeover as six 'engineers who are barely out of—and in at least one case, purportedly still in—college.'"

+ Just look at some of these headlines and see if you can see a common theme emerge. Musk Threatens to Fire Federal Employees Who Leak Information During DOGE Purge. Musk Says DOGE Halting Treasury Payments to US Contractors. Trump moves to wrest control of USAID as Musk says, ‘We’re shutting it down.' USAID headquarters in Washington are blocked after Musk says Trump agrees to close the aid agency. (There's a new sheriff in town. But it's not the new sheriff anyone elected...)

+ USAID to be merged into State Department, 3 U.S. officials say. "Mr. Trump said Sunday the agency was 'run by a bunch of radical lunatics. And we're getting them out.'" (Some of the stuff these radical lunatics work on: "The range of activities it undertakes is vast. For example, not only does USAID provide food in countries where people are starving, it also operates the world's gold standard famine detection system, which uses data analysis to try to predict where shortages are emerging. Much of USAID's budget is spent on health programs, such as offering polio vaccinations in countries where the disease still circulates and helping to stop the spread of viruses which have the potential to cause a pandemic.")

+ Over the past week, we've seen government officials fired, made too uncomfortable to stick around, and urged to report on their colleagues who aren't sufficiently loyal or anti-DEI. MAGArthyism is the new McCarthyism. And it's moving at internet speed. E.P.A. Tells More Than 1,000 They Could Be Fired ‘Immediately’. FBI in ‘battle’ with Trump amid purge of officials, top agent warns staff. And the purge isn't just for people. It applies to information. Thousands of U.S. Government Web Pages Have Been Taken Down Since Friday.

+ Franklin Foer in The Atlantic (Gift Article): Trump’s Campaign to Dismantle the Government. "Some of these moves are transparent provocations—trolling by executive order—that press the limits of the law and will be slapped away by the courts. But it may not matter. This psychological gamesmanship might obviate the need for an actual purge because its tactics have been conceived to prod a huge chunk of the civil service to exit on its own accord." And some more good analysis of the strategy being deployed: Trump’s DEI purge targets federal workers who did not work in DEI.

+ Denise Cana in Slate (Gift Article): I’m a Federal Worker. Elon Musk’s Government Data Heist Is the Entire Ballgame.

+ "The best people in American federal law enforcement, national security, and national intelligence are being fired. The reasons given for this are DEI and trumpwashing the past. Of course, if you fire everyone who was concerned in some way with the investigations of January 6th or of Russia, that will be much or even most of the FBI. Those are bad reasons, but the reality is worse: the aim is lawlessness: to get the police and the patriots out of the way." Yale professor Timothy Snyder on The Logic of Destruction.

2

Everything is Tariffic

"President Trump will fire his first tariff salvo on Saturday against those notorious American adversaries . . . Mexico and Canada. They’ll get hit with a 25% border tax, while China, a real adversary, will endure 10%. This reminds us of the old Bernard Lewis joke that it’s risky to be America’s enemy but it can be fatal to be its friend." That biting commentary of Trump's tariff plans comes not from some liberal rag but from the WSJ editorial board.

+ Are the tariff announcements just threats to move other policies? For now, the Mexico tariffs have been suspended after President Claudia Sheinbaum agreed to send 10,000 national guard troops to the border. Canada calls are happening later today. In the meantime, our neighbors to the north are none too pleased. US anthem booed at basketball and hockey games in Canada.

3

The Sweet Science

"I love two things in this world: sugar and myself. One result of my nonstop efforts to delight myself is that I end up consuming, every day, vast quantities of sugar. Oh, my God, I forgot my husband. Sorry, I love three things in this world: sugar and myself and my husband. Now that you bring him up, my husband, who is very dear to me, is worth mentioning. He does not love sugar." NYT Mag (Gift Article): Caity Weaver tries to quit her favorite substance in a week. How My Trip to Quit Sugar Became a Journey Into Hell.

4

Carter Administration

"Her first album of the year win for Cowboy Carter represents a new career-defining milestone for Beyoncé, who holds the record for being both the most nominated and most awarded artist in Grammy history." At the 2025 Grammys, Beyoncé takes home album of the year and Kendrick Lamar wins big. Even though broadcast only includes a handful of actual awards, many of which seem interchangeable and feature the same nominees, there were several excellent performances. You can watch it online on Paramount Plus. And some snubs and surprises. (In my book, the biggest snub was Pearl Jam not winning best rock album for Dark Matter which is just insanely good.)

+ "You may not have heard of the first woman to be named best songwriter at the Grammys before - but you may well have sung along to one of her hits." Amy Allen becomes first woman to win best songwriter Grammy.

+ And the evening's most memeable moment: Beyonce's reactionto winning best country album.

5

Extra, Extra

Perp Talk: "High-level executives with the NFL’s New Orleans Saints football team and the NBA’s Pelicans basketball team had a deeper role than previously known in connection with a list of priests and deacons faced with credible allegations of child molestation while the clergymen worked with their city’s Roman Catholic archdiocese." Crisis communications’: emails show how NFL’s Saints and NBA’s Pelicans helped New Orleans church spin abuse scandal. (Who hears about child sex abuse and thinks, "How can we help the perpetrators?")

+ In Fact It's a Gas: "In fact, culinary professionals generally don’t shop for equipment at stores with names like Puff N Stuff or Condom Sense. The true clientele inhales the gas to get high." The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Illegal Drug at Every Corner Store. (In 2025, we'll classify this as news you can use.)

+ He Comes Lowly Recommended: "The letter was meant to lend credibility to Kennedy’s nomination, which has faced strenuous opposition from experts due to his decades of anti-vaccine activism." Doctors Whose Licenses Were Revoked, Suspended Named In Pro-RFK Jr. Letter To Senate.

+ A Gov Supreme: It's not just who they're firing. It's who they're hiring. "Darren Beattie, a conservative journalist who was fired from the Trump administration in 2018 after revelations about his attendance at a conference with white nationalists, will serve as the acting undersecretary of state for public diplomacyunder Secretary of State Marco Rubio,"

+ Berlin Sprawl: 160,000 people took to the streets of Berlin to protest against Germany's far-right. (A teachable moment for Americans?)

+ Luka What I Found: For any sports fans, I buried the lede today. Everyone was swept up over the weekend with news of one of the most shocking trades in NBA history—so shocking that people assumed the reporter who first broke the news had his account hacked. The Luka Doncic–Anthony Davis Trade Is an All-Time NBA Shocker. (When I first heard about a shocking trade, I was hoping America had traded Elon to Russia for an oligarch to be named later.)