Martial Law & Megalomaniacs: America Held Hostage

Trump unleashes troops on L.A. protesters while Musk spirals into sabotage mode, proving once again that authoritarianism and privatized infrastructure don’t mix.

Los Angeles woke up today under military occupation, not because of war, but because people dared to protest. They are protesting ICE raids tearing families apart. Protesting children left alone on sidewalks. Protesting the normalization of authoritarianism with a red, white, and blue ribbon on top. And Donald Trump, whose instincts always lean toward domination, responded not by pulling back, which would calm things down immediately, but by sending 2,000 federally controlled National Guard troops to restore what he calls “order” in a city that never asked for his version of it.

Why the show of force? Because Trump is on a mission to round up brown-skinned “villains” cunningly disguised as college students, farm workers, restaurant staff, and high school volleyball players. The goal is fear and the method is spectacle. The price? Democracy, due process, and any lingering sense that America still recognizes itself.

By dawn, downtown L.A. had become a staging ground for a reality show called Martial Law: Coastal Edition. Flash-bangs cracked, peaceful demonstrators were penned in, and the same people who promised “law and order” brought only provocation and gas masks. The governor objected. The mayor objected. The people objected. But Trump’s regime doesn’t de-escalate, it instigates, then insists it had no choice but to clean up the mess it made.

And now, as if following a script, Stephen Miller is calling the protests an “insurrection.” That word isn’t just a dog whistle, it’s a legal trigger. Say it enough times, and the Insurrection Act becomes justifiable. Say it on Fox News, and suddenly tanks in the streets look like “patriotism.”

This has nothing to do with public safety, it’s all about optics. The Insurrection Act isn’t Trump’s backup plan, it’s the main plot twist. And if unrest can be manufactured, livestreamed, and spun into American Carnage 2: Urban Unrest, then the tanks can keep rolling. All under the banner of saving us from threats that don’t exist while quietly cementing authoritarian rule.

Meanwhile, a very real threat to public safety and national security does exist, one Trump personally helped create.

Donald Trump once handed Elon Musk the keys to the U.S. government, access to IRS data, Treasury systems, federal procurement networks, and even classified geospatial surveillance feeds. He was even presented with a literal, physical key engraved with the unimaginative phrase “Key To The White House.” In exchange, Musk promised “efficiency,” “innovation,” and the usual cocktail of libertarian buzzwords and recycled TED Talk jargon. What Musk delivered instead was a breathtaking catalog of self-dealing, retaliation, and federal sabotage.

The Elizabeth Warren report lists more than 100 documented instances of Musk abusing his DOGE authority to advance his empire, including:

• Forcing Tesla EV chargers into federally funded infrastructure contracts, bypassing competitive bidding.

• Stalling the IRS’s Direct File system after reports it would undercut TurboTax, which Musk had quietly tried to acquire via a shell firm.

• Diverting FAA satellite bandwidth to prioritize SpaceX commercial launches, delaying NASA’s climate-monitoring missions.

• Freezing Department of Energy grants the moment a Neuralink competitor was shortlisted.

And now that the bromance has curdled, Musk, drug-fueled and vengeful, is threatening to decommission satellites, cut off Starlink access, and ground government launches over a budget spat, a bruised ego, and a meltdown over Epstein files. He’s reposting blackmail memes. He’s teasing sabotage. And he’s doing it all live, except, of course, for the tweets he’s now quietly deleting. Among them? His threats to back Democrats if Trump “doesn’t get his act together.”

Trump’s response? A veiled extortion threat: if Musk so much as supports Democrats, his contracts are toast. Not subtle. Not legal. And somehow still not the most unhinged part of the week.

Meanwhile, Trump is screaming in all-caps on Truth Social. Steve Bannon is demanding Musk’s deportation “before he launches himself into orbit.” Stephen Miller is pretending not to notice that his own wife just took a job at X AI, giving Musk direct spousal access to Trump’s most plugged-in advisor, a man who knows the inner workings of every executive order, immigration raid, and constitutional bypass on the books. It’s not just a conflict of interest. It’s an ethical swamp so deep it needs its own evacuation plan. And the U.S. government? Paralyzed, locked in a hostage crisis with a man who thinks he’s Iron Man but behaves more like Lex Luthor with a vape pen.

Which brings us to the now-iconic blow-up between Musk and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, a feud so petty it would’ve been cut from Veep for being too far-fetched.

During a closed-door budget meeting, Musk accused Bessent of “sabotaging innovation” by refusing to fast-track even more subsidies for SpaceX. Bessent responded, “You don’t own the Constitution.” Musk called him “Secretary Midwit,” accused him of colluding with China, and then, in what aides described as a “rugby-style shoulder check”, physically shoved Bessent into a chair. The meeting ended with Musk storming out and tweeting a photoshopped image of Bessent as a Teletubby.

This is Silicon Valley fascism colliding with Trump’s banana republic, and we’re all trapped inside the feedback loop. The man who controls America’s launch systems and battlefield comms has the temperament of a Reddit mod on day four of a stimulant crash. And the president who gave him power is too busy reenacting The Purge: Sanctuary Cities Edition to stop him.

Literally, this is a case study in the catastrophic folly of privatizing critical infrastructure and essential services. We handed over satcoms, rockets, military tech, and tax systems to a billionaire with a fanbase and a martyr complex. And now that he’s angry, we’re discovering the hard way that you can’t nationalize accountability after you’ve outsourced control. The roads may still be paved, and the rockets may still fly, but the foundation of public trust has cratered. We are no longer governed by institutions but by whoever’s trending that morning.

While the tanks roll and the billionaires brawl, the economy is quietly stalling out. According to the Wall Street Journal, businesses across the country are freezing hiring and halting investment as they struggle to navigate Trump’s incoherent tariff regime. One manufacturer in Missouri now owes $2 million in duties on equipment he ordered months ago, all because Trump’s policies change faster than his moods.

Consumer debt delinquencies are rising. The housing market has collapsed into imbalance. Interest rate cuts are paused. And the few remaining job gains mask an underlying truth: this is not growth, it’s drift. One economist told the Journal: “Even Trump doesn’t know what Trump will do next.”

We are living through executive roulette.

Amid all of this, the Earth itself reminds us what real power looks like. Off the coast of Oregon where I live, the Axial Seamount, one of the most active underwater volcanoes on the planet, is about to erupt. Cameras placed by Oregon State University and NOAA may capture the first ever real-time submarine eruption in history.

There is no current tsunami threat. No existential danger. Just the ancient, impersonal rhythm of plate tectonics, lava flows, and microbial life rebuilding itself within months of destruction.

It’s a haunting contrast. While humans invent crises and sabotage their own institutions, nature just moves forward, indifferent and immense. It does not tweet. It does not gloat. And it does not care who holds power in Washington.