https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/comment/2025/02/11/democrats-loved-unelected-power-trump-weapons-against-them/
With Democrats in disarray and unable to choose a positive theme, they have settled on the obvious alternative. Unite around their shared hatreds. Near the top of that list is Elon Musk and his Doge project. “Nobody elected Musk.” “He is more powerful than the president.” Time magazine tried to drive home that point by depicting him behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office.
These attacks are manifestly untrue, but they follow a shrewd piece of political advice, given by the old Leftist organiser, Saul Alinsky. Personalise your political grievances. Let one person stand for much bigger complaints. It’s easier to mobilise around that concrete target and move on to bigger goals by taking him down.
Republicans recognise the risk here. They have responded by pointing out that Musk answers directly to president Trump. There are no middlemen, no bureaucratic protections. Trump can fire Musk as soon as he becomes a political liability. That, of course, is what Democrats hope to make him.
This predictable back-and-forth is part of a broader attack on Trump’s swift, aggressive actions against entrenched Washington power centres. Rolling them back and asserting control is the heart of Trump’s MAGA agenda.
Both sides recognise that basic point, but they have overlooked another, equally important one that illuminates the long arc of America’s changing governance. Democrats created all the tools Trump is using to attack official Washington. Oops. They hoped to centralise power in the presidency and break through the old limitations of the 1787 Constitution. They largely succeeded after decades of effort.
What the authors of this transformation never expected was a president who would use the great powers they handed him to dismantle their own cherished projects. Yet that is exactly what Trump is doing.
