Mere Anarchy Is Not Quite Loosed Upon The World

Will the institutions hold as the cabal of right-wing oligarchs seek to dismantle them by ignoring Congress while attacking the courts, rule of law, free press, scientists, doctors, diplomats, and every agency which has endeavored to protect the public from powerful predators?

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) February 9, 2025

Trump is not the government. Elmo is not even a government employee. What Trump orders is carried out by government employees. Who can refuse to defy a court order. Trump may try to fire them, but that’s not an authority they have to recognize.

Which will set off a mess that won’t let Trump do what he wants to do. 

I’m not saying it’s the safeguard, the firewall, the check on Trump’s power grab; but it’s not as simple as Trump saying: “How many divisions does the court have?”

It won’t be less chaos, but it will be a purging of the chaos. At some point even Republicans realize government has to function. Government employees refusing to endanger personal information or SS checks or Medicare payments or any other benefit of government will be public heroes. 

The public already doesn’t like Elmo being government adjacent. And Trump likes Elmo in that position, taking the heat for him. Heat is something Trump definitely doesn’t like to take.

There’s a point where this goes too far, and that point will be ignoring court orders. Even Gov. Kefauver didn’t win national support for that. When Trump declares that he is the law, and he’s above the courts, that’s when he falls.

Did he withdraw the threats of tariffs he never imposed because he was too stupid to know Mexico and Canada were already doing what they agreed to do (or did they each tell him that, and he left that part out?), or did he fold like an empty suit because Big Business/Finance told him to cool it? 

Yes.

Just like he withdrew the China tariff on packages (🤷🏻‍♂️) because nobody wanted to pay the extra postage?

Trump said there would be pain. And there was, and he cut and ran. He’s a bully, which means he’s a coward. He can’t even rehire Marlo Elez (because Elez was never a government employee, and Trump doesn’t want him to be). He just says he wants it done. He doesn’t want to be responsible, doesn’t even want to defy the courts. (He hasn’t told Elmo to do so yet.) And he can’t make the rest of government do it for him. It would be the Saturday Night Massacre on a government-wide scale. Except with civil servants, who can’t be fired for refusing to do an unlawful act.

And even Trump knows that.