Trump Announced He's Coming For Social Security Last Night
He doesn't bother lying this much about something unless he wants to destroy it.
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Let’s be clear about one thing upfront: Donald Trump does not personally give a flying fuck about Social Security. He doesn’t want to cancel it because of ideological reasons or because he wants to own the libs. He doesn’t want to destroy this 90-year-old piece of our social safety net because he thinks Those People are getting a free ride or because he hates the poor.1
Donald Trump wants to destroy Social Security because he was ordered to and he’s going to make money from it.
Too cynical? You’re not cynical enough.
Here’s Trump lying last night:
"We're also identifying shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud in the Social Security program that our seniors and that our seniors, people that we love rely on, believe it or not, government databases list 4.7 million Social Security members, people aged 100 to 109 years old.”
Cool story. Except Trump knows that’s not true.2 The right popped that lie out a few weeks ago and it was immediately nuked from orbit in the most embarrassing way: By actual smart people who know what the fuck they’re talking about.
The explanation is really nerdy and has to do with a very old computer language called COBOL. WIRED has a good story on it and Musk absolutely knows what the fuck COBOL is since he was a programmer nerd in the 80s and 90s. I fucking know what COBOL is and I’m not a programmer at all. I’m just old and remember this crap from the ye olden days.3
And yet, Musk is still repeating the lie and he’s having Trump repeat it (because who do you think is ordering Trump to lie about Social Security?).
That means one thing and one thing only: Trump, under orders from Elon Musk, is coming for Social Security.
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His excuse? Rampant fraud and waste he knows is not actually there. Musk calls it a “Ponzi scheme” which is a talking point the right has used for decades in their crusade to get rid of Social Security. But whereas elected Republicans have occasionally tried to mess with it and were immediately slapped down by their voters, Musk is taking a sledgehammer to Social Security because he’s not an elected official or beholden to the public. Or the rule of law. Just his own drug-fueled mania and warped ideology.
That’s why Musk’s fake government agency DOGE is already firing thousands of employees from the chronically under-staffed SS agency and closing offices all across the country. How close is he to breaking the system? Closer than you think:
The former head of the Social Security Administration warns that proposed cuts to the agency could lead the entire system to “collapse,” disrupting benefits payments to millions of Americans.
“Ultimately, you’re going to see the system collapse, and there will be an interruption of benefits,” Martin O’Malley, former Social Security commissioner under the Biden administration, told CNBC. “I think that will happen within the next 30 to 90 days.”
“People should start saving now,” he urged.
Republicans love to call Social Security an “entitlement,” giving it a negative connotation. But Americans have been paying into SS their entire adult working life and they are, in fact, entitled to that money.
But in Musk’s technofascist utopia, a social safety net is a problem. People who have a modicum of security are people who cannot be exploited and controlled by their billionaire masters. The idea of collective action to provide a better future is anathema to the Silicon fascists who think government exists to benefit the rich and the rich alone. Everyone else exists to feed the rapacious neverending greed of their overlords. Stability and security only exist when the ruling elite feels like granting it, thus is the population always fearful and obedient. And under control.
Remember, Musk and his billionaire cohort are having Trump engineer a complete collapse of the economy as rapidly as possible. Along with ruinous tariffs, mass unemployment, gutting American healthcare, pulling billions out of the economy all at once, and sabotaging the banking system, what better way to blow up the economy than to throw millions of senior citizens into poverty all at the same time?
The legacy press is being very careful to not connect these dots. They are, in fact, going to great lengths to present them AS dots. Unique. Discreet. Completely unrelated to one another. But that’s not true. They’re not just connected. They’re all the same dot. A malignant cancer eating away at the country with two goals: To implode the economy and render the federal government incapable of responding to said collapse.
And when “nothing can be done” because the government is “broken?” Well, then I guess the private sector will have to step in.
The only way to save Social Security will be to privatize it.
The only way to make air travel safer will be to privatize air traffic control.
The only way to keep Medicare running will be to hand the entire thing over to the healthcare companies.
Of course, all of those burdensome regulations will have to go and, come on, the private sector has to make a profit, doesn’t it? Don’t worry! It’ll be fine! The free market will solve everything.
Oh, and only companies that are personally approved by Elon Musk can compete in the “free market.” Did we forget to mention that?
Trump, of course, will receive a very generous payday and get to play president until he dies. All of his enemies will be destroyed and that’s all he cares about. Musk gets to be King of America, handpicking the next “president” because, well, elections will be nationalized by then.
One wonders, however, what Musk plans to do when millions of MAGA Boomers lose their Social Security in the next couple of months. Does he think they’ll just watch Fox News and blame Joe Biden? Maybe get angry at trans athletes or the migrants mowing their lawns? I think, perhaps, that will not be the case.
I think, perhaps, when the leopards eat their faces, MAGA voters are going to look around at the wreckage of their lives, get really angry, and come for the people who burned it all down. That would be the Republicans they voted for. Republicans were only supposed to hurt Those People and own the libs, not hurt the MAGA faithful. Trump is betraying them. Their new best friend Elon Musk is betraying them.
As malignant narcissists, how will Musk and Trump react when the Republican base turns on them? Badly. The only thing they want from the right is adoration. Without that, they’ll seek to punish them just as much as the rest of us. It’s the nature of broken manchildren to lash out when confronted.
But what could possibly go wrong when tyrants press their boot down on a group of people they’ve trained for years to respond to imaginary tyranny with increasing levels of violence? When confronted with real tyranny directed at them, I’m sure MAGAland will just lay down and roll over. For sure. Yeah, what could possibly go wrong?
There are 26 days until the first Blue Wave starts in Wisconsin and 243 days until it hits Virginia and Pennsylvania. If I were a billionaire fascist, I’d think REALLY hard about getting out of the way.
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Trump absolutely hates the poor but not enough to care about Social Security.
OK, he might not know because he’s a fucking moron who believes the last thing he was told.
It’s possible the ketamine has melted the drug-addled brain of the billionaire racist. I mean, honestly, I’d pay $1000 to the reporter who has the chutzpah to ask Musk to name all 14 of his kids and their mothers in less than 30 seconds. He’s supposed to be a genius and a “good father,” right?
Your point about it being an entitlement is spot on. It’s not really any different than any other pension. I’ve paid into my 401K and am entitled to the payout when I retire. What’s not an entitlement is a fucking billionaire believing he is entitled to huge tax cuts and impose his racist shit on all of us. Anyway, thank you for being one of the view to point out that social security is in fact an entitlement and that’s not bad.
I've been paying in to social security since 1981, when I was 16 years old. Because of the way that social security was originally developed, most people draw out more than they ever put in. My father lived to 95, for example, so he probably drew more than he ever put in. I am not likely to do that, but if Trump and company wish to shit can the social security system, first I want to check for all of the money I put in over the last 44 years. Once I know that check has cleared, I can invest it myself and will be happy to handle my own retirement. But fair is fair. I paid in with the expectation that I could draw out. If you're not going to honor that, you should just say it out loud. I can help you with the words. They are, "I am a lying son of a bitch."