And you can’t arrest the president because he’s immune from prosecution for official acts: pardoning is an enumerated constitutional power!
So what’s left is impeachment for the president and congress does not want to do this.
And none of that will fall on Musk or DOGE. The government has made itself unable to prevent this.
It's really quite an odd power; very few developed democracies have a _personal_ pardon power today (some kind of vaguely pretend to; in the UK pardons are done by the monarch _at the direction of the government_, say). I think the US just stuck it on the presidency because at the time of independence the president was kind of a stand-in for the monarch, and the British monarchy had it at the time. The US then failed to get rid of it when everyone else did, instead relying on norms and basically on everyone behaving themselves to regulate it.
If the current legal framework were software, I would say that this is an exploit chain that gives root access to the government / country.
If there is not legal way to stop it, what is the alternative?
The current legal method available now is an impeachment process, iterated until we have a president who values societal norms and stable government. (Depending on how you feel about JD Vance not also pulling this shit.)
Currently 28 of the 51 republicans in the Senate are up for re-election in November of 2026; this is a possibility for a makeup change, but a remote one.
It appears a large enough percentage of americans want this that there’s no real possibility of changing course at this point; even the assassination attempts have failed. Understand that over 40% of americans do want what is happening now, as backed up by current polling. Never comply in advance, do not follow illegal orders, and make good friends with your neighbours.
Or separately, whether they feel very strongly about some things that are happening, enough to overlook other things that they'd likely disagree with but don't understand or care about as much.
- Acting Trump lackeys will simply ignore any court orders that block the EOs that Trump has issued.
- Congress isn't doing anything.
- In all likelihood, DOJ isn't going to enforce anything, so long they're aligned with Trump.
- Should some lowly law-enforcement officer decide to play hero, and arrest anyone that any federal judge issues an arrest on, I'd fully expect them to be removed, or meet resistance from any bodyguards/protection that the DOGE boys will receive.
- Even if anyone decides to pursue, Trump can issue pre-emptive pardons for all past federal crimes.
It is sort of a crisis, because the few checks and balances that were put in place, simply aren't functioning.
> is he going to pardon everyone who has a hand in this?
How can anyone have any doubts after the jan 6 pardons?
I would be very surprised to learn that there are not teams working in every state to weaken the integrity of the electoral process.
The problem with dictatorship is that of first-mover advantage; once a dictatorship becomes embedded it's hard to dislodge. There's de facto control of the legal, electoral, and cultural infrastructure which the regime can use to (ostensibly) re-legitimize itself every few years, while in the meantime suppressing dissent through violence and fear. That would be very much in line with the stated goals and actions of the administration so far. And I don't mean this hyperbolically; Trump stated that he would be a dictator on day one, and while his supporters brushed this off as a joke his autocratic behavior since entering office is wholly consistent with that.
Barring abrupt reversals in the next month or two, I think this is going to become a long-term situation, and there is simply no way the US can go back to two party pendulum politics after this. It would be like getting out of hospital after a stroke or a heart attack and heading straight back to an all-you-can-eat steakhouse.