POWER GRAB IN THE USA
As a Slate headline put it: “If this were happening in any other country, we’d be calling it a coup.” In just a matter of weeks, Elon Musk has moved to rapidly assert control over key areas of the federal government.
As officials are removed, budgets are slashed, and Musk’s employees gain access to sensitive government and citizen data, whether an effective pushback will be mounted remains to be seen. With this assertion of control lacking congressional approval, a constitutional clash looms regarding the limits of President Trump’s powers, with stark implications for the USA and the wider world.
Launched on 5 February 2025, this collection provides a gateway to key resources on understanding what is being variously described as an ‘out of control power grab’, a ‘putsch’, or an ‘illegal takeover’.
Page Editors:
Prof. Tomás Daly, Director, DEM-DEC
watch
Comparing Trump's second term to autocracies around the world - PBS (20 February 2025)
PBS. President Donald Trump’s social media post over the weekend that implied he is above the law triggered alarm bells from experts who were already concerned about the legal and constitutional boundaries tested during his first few weeks in office. Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, joins Amna Nawaz to discuss for our new series, "On Democracy.
LISTEN
Trump’s American Takeover - Amicus with Dahlia Lithwick (1 February 2025)
Episode description: Donald J Trump’s second administration is materializing at frightening speed and recklessness and it is hard (and stressful) to keep up with it all. Kim Lane Scheppele, the Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Sociology and International affairs at Princeton University, explains that the speed and viciousness of the legal orders in Trump 2.0 are evidence that America switched over to the fast track for autocracy on January 20th, 2025. An expert in the law of autocracy, Scheppele has seen firsthand what happened to constitutional courts and the democratic norms that governed them in Russia and Hungary and she joins Dahlia Lithwick on Amicus this week to explain how Trump’s executive orders on everything from government funding to transgender people in the military reveal a familiar global playbook that has chillingly familiar endpoints.
Is Elon Musk Staging a Coup? Unelected Billionaire Seizes Control at Treasury Dept. & Other Agencies - Democracy Now! (3 February 2025)
Abridged description: Elon Musk, the tech billionaire and unelected adviser to President Donald Trump, is asserting control over much of the federal bureaucracy and sensitive government computer systems despite lacking clear authority. "In any other situation, this would be called state capture, and people around the world would be condemning it," says Democratic strategist Waleed Shahid, who writes in a new blog post that "Elon Musk is staging a coup."
read
WHAT IS OLIGARCHY?
Read this interview with oligarchy expert Jeffrey A. Winters, author of the award-winning 2011 book Oligarchy and Director of the Equality Development and Global Studies program at Northwestern University.
media analysis
“It seems like the plot of a political thriller. We are living through a new kind of coup in which Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, has taken over the payment and other administration systems that allow the American government to function, and has locked out federal employees from computer systems. ”
EXPLAINERS
Balkinization Blog Digest
Richard PRIMUS, ‘A Thought about the Unitary Executive and the 22nd Amendment’ Balkinization (27 February 2025)
Andrew COAN, ‘How Important Is Presidential Immunity?’ Balinization (25 February 2025)
David SUPER, ‘Emerging Outlines of an Executive Power Grab’ Balkinization (20 February 2025)
Jonathan CHAUSOVSKY, ‘Institutional Vandalism’ Balkinization (11 February 2025)
Richard PRIMUS, ‘Trump Isn’t Going to be Impeached. Let’s Not Pretend That’s OK’ Balkinization (10 February 2025)
David SUPER, ‘Unlawful Funding Freeze Sows Chaos’ Balkinization (28 January 2025)
Additional
Virginia HEFFERNAN, ‘The Broligarchy Playbook: A conversation with Brooke Harrington’ Virginia Heffernan Substack (5 March 2025)
Aaron RUPAR, ‘Marcel Dirsus on the rise and fall of tyrants: "The tyrant usually tries to destroy as many institutions as possible because they’re constraints on his power" Public Notice (3 March 2025)
IS PUSHBACK HAPPENING?
This select reading aims to give a flavour of the resistance happening across the USA to these measures. For a sense of what kinds of resistance to anti-democratic moves have happened in other countries, see our Resisting Threats focus area.
Jacob KNUTSON, ‘Musk, Trump Allies Use Impeachment Threats to Intimidate Federal Judges — What You Need To Know’ Democracy Docket (4 March 2025)
AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION, Statement: ‘The ABA rejects efforts to undermine the courts and the legal profession’ American Bar Association (3 March 2025)
Carl HULSE, ‘Musk and Republican Lawmakers Pressure Judges with Impeachment Threats’ The New York Times (1 March 2025)
Michael M. GRYNBAUM, ‘White House Moves to Pick the Pool Reporters Who Cover Trump’ The New York Times (25 February 2025)
BRAVE NEW WORLD, ‘Juan Cole: Ta-Nehisi Coates: If Democrats can’t draw the Line at Genocide, they can’t Draw the Line at Democracy’ (21 February 2025)
Paul KRUGMAN, ‘What the Musk is Happening?’ Paul Krugman Substack (4 February 2025)
VIDEO ‘We've had enough! Anti-Musk rally in DC demands change’ The Contrarian (6 February 2025)
Christian PAZ, ‘The anti-Trump opposition might finally be waking up’ Vox (6 February 2025)
Dahlia LITHWICK, ‘There’s Really Only One Way to Stop This Thing’ Slate (5 February 2025)
Arit JOHN, Fredreka SCHOUTEN & Arlette SAENZ, ‘Democrats mobilize to take on Musk after weeks of struggling to find a message’ CNN (5 February 2025)
Benjamin GUGGENHEIM, ‘Two Dem lawmakers barge into House speaker's office in backlash against Musk’ Politico (5 February 2025)
Daniella DIAZ, ‘House Democrats try, and fail, to subpoena Musk’ Politico (5 February 2025)
Maddie GANNON, ‘Congress' top Democrats announce 'Stop the Steal' bill to counter Trump’ Musk’ Spectrum News (4 February 2025)
Cybele MAYES-OSTERMAN, 'Fork off': Protesters gather outside OPM to condemn Elon Musk 'stealing' personal data’ USA Today (3 February 2025)
Jeet HEER, ‘Who Will Stop Elon Musk’s Coup?’ The Nation (3 February 2025)
CONSTITUTIONAL & POLITICAL CONTEXT
This select reading list sets out some key works that will help you understand the dynamics of what is unfolding in the USA:
Books
Oligarchy
Luke WINSLOW, Oligarchy in America: Power, Justice, and the Rule of the Few (University of Alabama Press, 2024)
Shelly GOTTFRIED, Contemporary Oligarchies in Developed Democracies · (Springer, 2019)
Luke MAYVILLE, John Adams and the Fear of American Oligarchy (Princeton University Press, 2018)
Jeffrey WINTERS, Oligarchy (Cambridge University Press, 2011)
Democratic Crisis
Suzanne METTLER & Robert C. LIEBERMAN, Four Threats: The Recurring Crises of American Democracy (MacMillan, 2020)
Mark Graber, Sanford Levinson & Mark Tushnet (eds), Constitutional Democracy in Crisis? (Oxford University Press, 2018)
Aziz Z. HUQ & Tom GINSBURG, How to Save a Constitutional Democracy (The University of Chicago Press, 2018)
Book chapters
Laurence D. HOULGATE, ‘Is the American Form of Government a Democracy? Signs of Systemic Oligarchy in a Constitutional Democracy’ in Gordon Albert Babst, Renée Nicole Souris & Joan McGregor (eds), Liberal Constitutionalism and its Contemporary Challenges (Springer, 2024).
Daniel KAUFMANN, ‘State capture matters: Considerations and empirics toward a worldwide measure’ in Susan Ackerman (ed), Public Sector Performance, Corruption and State Capture in a Globalized World (Routledge, 2024) 207-237
Journal Articles
Eli G. RAU & Susan STOKES, ‘Income inequality and the erosion of democracy in the twenty-first century’ Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) (published online: 30 December 2024)
Jean L. COHEN, ‘Cycles of Oligarchy, Democracy, and Authoritarianism: Lessons from the United States’ Constellations (published online: 7 December 2024)
Tom GINSBURG, Aziz HUQ & David LANDAU, ‘The Comparative Constitutional Law of Presidential Impeachment’ (2021) 88(1) University of Chicago Law Review 81
Stephen GARDBAUM, ‘The Counter-Playbook: Resisting the Populist Assault on Separation of Powers’ (2020) 59(1) Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 1
David M. DRIESEN, ‘President Trump’s Executive Orders and the Rule of Law’ (2019) 87 UMKC Law Review 489
Additional Comparative Analysis
Featured - open access book Bálint MAGYAR, Post-Communist Mafia State. The Case of Hungary (CEU Press, 2016)
Pregala PILLAY, Kudzai CHINTUNHU & Luckmore CHIVANDIRE, ‘State Capture in South Africa: Going Back to Basics’ (2023) 14(1) African Journal of Public Affairs 152.
Ivor CHIPKIN et al., Shadow State: The Politics of State Capture (NYU Press, 2018)
“The key tenet of the proposed amendment to our constitutional order is a presidential super-power to override and disregard any law governing the executive branch’s actions. This goal seems clear because the Administration keeps doing things in clear defiance of statutes that it could fairly easily do within existing law. ”
MORE TO COME
We intend to add more to this page in due course, especially key research and policy publications for those seeking fuller analysis of this crisis, its context, and how lessons from the experiences of other states can help.
Images
Banner image: Maxine Waters (D-CA) speaking outside of the Treasury Building for anti-Musk anti-Trump. Photograph by SWinxy (4 February 2025). License. The colour of the image has been modified.
Oligarchy image: Photo by Morgan Housel on Unsplash. The colour of the image has been modified.