What’s playing out right now is a stunning example of oligarchy in action.Elon Musk, a South African billionaire, has called the shots and killed a bill to keep the government open.Rupert Murdoch, an Australian billionaire, is making sure that the MAGA masses are fed disinformation via Fox News and other outlets—blaming it all on Democrats and making it seem like Donald Trump is in the driver’s seat when he’s not—which will allow super-rich foreigners like him and Musk to exert influence over Trump and promote the agenda of lots of stateside billionaires too, donors who’ve been packed into Trump’s Cabinet.To recap, House Speaker Mike Johnson was ready to go to the floor with a spending bill—a continuing resolution that would keep current spending until March of 2025 to keep the government open, otherwise everything shuts down at midnight on Friday. This is something that has played out several times over the past two years, and each time it angered the MAGA nutbags in the House who’ve thrown tantrums because they want spending dramatically slashed.And, as has happened in the past, with both Johnson and Kevin McCarthy before him, Johnson was forced to rely on all Democrats and those Republicans who realize shutting down the government is a bad thing for them—two-thirds of the House, which is necessary to get the bill to bypass the Rules Committee, where the nutbags wouldn’t vote it out and let it go to the floor for a normal vote requiring a simple majority.For the nutbags, this is all pretty self-defeating. Rather than craft a bill in which they can get some spending cuts they’d like while making compromises—because their House majority is so small and they need to compromise—they’d stomp their feet over and over like crying toddlers, demanding massive cuts and refusing to engage unless they got them.This led to the Democrats’ spending bill just being extended each time. Basically, the spending bill crafted by Nancy Pelosi two years ago is the same one—the continuing resolution—that gets extended for three months or more until the next deadline. That shouldn’t be, but that’s how it’s gone.And think about how dumb it is. These MAGA idiots have let Democrats’ spending priorities continue through their entire GOP Congress rather than cutting some of what they want cut—simply because they can’t get all of what they want cut.But it’s even worse for them than that. By forcing the speaker to bypass the Rules Committee and rely on the Democrats to keep the government open, Democrats then have the ability to negotiate and ask for new things in each bill, as do the Republicans who are engaged in the process, a bipartisan negotiation.So this current bill that was just killed had disaster relief for Hurricane Helene and other disasters, as well as renewal of the Farm Bill and a stimulus for farmers—something many Republicans certainly wanted for their rural constituents—and money to replace the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge in Maryland.This was all too much, however, for the mega-MAGA nutbags—Reps. Chip Roy, Thomas Massie, and the rest of the crowd—so they made a lot of noise in recent days, as they do each time.However, the fact that Mike Johnson was ready to go to the floor with a vote tells you that he had to have sign-off from Trump. Johnson wouldn’t dare do anything without Trump’s blessing. And Trump likely didn’t want to come into office with a government shutdown underway and was surely happy to kick this down the road to March. In fact, there was discussion a few weeks ago that that was Johnson’s plan—directed by Trump—to clear this issue out of the way for the incoming president.But then Elon Musk, who invested $277 million in buying this presidency, began posting constantly on Twitter yesterday, as Johnson was readying the bill for the floor. He, along with the MAGA nutbags and fellow billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy, railed against the spending bill incessantly and threatened to primary Republicans who voted for the bill.Trump had been silent throughout much of the day. But he obviously knows who bought and paid for him. By the later in the afternoon he posted a long screed attacking the bill, demanding it be pulled and making like it was all his idea. But why did he allow the bill get so far in the first place? Clearly, his coming out against it was all about saving face as Musk took control. And as soon as Trump came out against it more Republicans fled the bill and Johnson pulled it.On top of that, Trump also yesterday called for any new bill to include raising the debt ceiling—yes, raising the debt ceiling, something the GOP (including Trump) has been opposed to and held the country hostage over time and again, putting us on the brink of global economic collapse. Why would Trump want the debt ceiling raised—and why now, when it doesn’t come up until June?“The most foolish and inept thing ever done by Congressional Republicans was allowing our country to hit the debt ceiling in 2025. It was a mistake and is now something that must be addressed,” Trump’s statement read. Clearly, he decided he wanted it done under Biden’s watch so he doesn’t have the responsibility of doing it and thus angering the MAGA base if he tries to avert global economic collapse and advocate for raising it while he is president.And now, this morning, Trump, obviously wanting the debt ceiling out of the way entirely, is calling for “abolishing” the debt ceiling completely, something many Democrats have actually advocated for a long time, as it’s ridiculous that we even have a debt ceiling. That, however, is not going to sit well with the MAGA nutbags in the House. Trump of course didn’t do this based on any principle.He just decided to call for abolishing it so he’s not faced with another big decision next year. During the entire Biden administration, he spoke against raising the debt ceiling—the responsible thing to do—and never called for abolishing it.What’s pretty clear is Trump is addled and weak, afraid of MAGA in the House, and bowing to Musk, but he can count on Murdoch’s Fox News to make him seem like he’s in charge.Meanwhile, this entire fiasco could cost Johnson the speakership, as MAGA House members are saying this is the last straw and even MAGA senators are weighing in, though Trump is apparently standing by him for now.Democrats are wise to refuse to take anything out of the bill they negotiated—as Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries stated—and watch the Republicans thrash it out and come crawling back to Democrats to keep the government open or reopen it should it close.All of this, however, should be a wake-up call to Democrats that they need to loudly speak out on the extremism, duplicity and continued instability of Trump—and the fact that he’s a puppet not just of Vladimir Putin but of the billionaires like Elon Muk who’ve bankrolled him.NOW READ: If the government shuts down Saturday, the richest person in the world will be largely to blame
