Elon Musk is terrorizing older Americans. Trump is allowing it. The Republican majority in the House and Senate are encouraging it. Why? Because the destruction of Social Security at any cost was their plan from the start.
“It’s like being invaded,” 83-year-old retired nurse Carol Goldstein of Maryland said in an interview with the Associated Press addressing Musk and his DOGE trying to obtain Americans private data from Social Security.
"What are they going to do with it? Why do they want it?” said retired social worker Debra Brown, 71, who admitted she was “scared to death” about what Musk and DOGE could do with their personal information. "I'm just thinking of all the bad things that are going to happen.”
Trump and Musk have gone beyond anything considered normal for an administration, and they don’t even try to hide that their motives are power, profit, control and fear. Their inhumanity is part of their psychology for creating hopelessness to proceed unchallenged.
"That’s how fascists win, by making us feel like we can’t do anything about it,” former Social Security Commissioner Martin O’Malley said, describing to Rolling Stone the frightening situation retirees and their loved ones are facing.
A growing number of Americans of all walks of life and every political ideology recognize a real line in the sand must be drawn for Social Security. There is a deep dark opinion among many throughout The Resistance that if we cannot win the battle to protect Social Security, we will ultimately lose the war to maintain democracy.
"All of us need to be speaking up. This should be the Bunker Hill on which the Democratic Party is willing to die, because this cuts into the heart of who we are as a people.” O’Malley, former governor of Maryland and Social Security commissioner, declared to Rachel Maddow.
It doesn't matter where you live, Blue State or Red State, or whether you vote as a Democrat, Independent or Republican, Elon Musk and his DOGE delinquents are coming for your Social Security. MAGA is not immune.
“Someone made a huge mistake,” said former convenience store clerk and Trump voter Teresa Casey of Georgia, whose disability benefits administered by the Social Security Administration one day stopped arriving.
“This isn’t about politics now,” Casey, who had to travel to a Social Security office to clear up the glitch, told the Christian Science Monitor. “This is my life.”
The special elections in Florida offered a testing ground for how to build a wall around Social Security. O'Malley aggressively sought out Sunshine State Social Security recipients and elderly advocates, mainly at a string of town halls. O'Malley sought out to create a working model in real time for how to organize and fight back to save Social Security.
“I think this is the beginning of something,” O’Malley told Rolling Stone during his push to recruit voters to fight to protect Social Security from Musk. At a town hall in Fort Lauderdale, O'Malley told attendees that “this is a moment in our country’s history to not give up on the capacity of our neighbors to be engaged. So many of us are checking out because it can be anxiety-inducing, but now is the time to be at the table of democracy.”
Looking for signs that Social Security moved the needle with Florida voters, O'Malley and his allies will comb over the results of the two special elections for House seats vacated by a pair of notorious Republicans. Defrocked Republican Matt Gaetz was Trump's original pick for attorney general, but he was so toxic even the rubber-stamp Republicans in the Senate wouldn't confirm him (says a lot when we consider those who did pass GOP muster). Trump's National Security Advisor Michael Waltz carved out his own special place in Trump World when he invited a well-known reporter and editor into a Signal chat where secret military strike plans for Houthi rebels in Yemen were revealed.
O'Malley and other Democratic leaders, activists and organizations, including Left of Center, intend to cultivate and share lessons learned from Florida. One trend that's immensely helpful: scared or not, people are showing up, and many of them are digging in for the fight.
“I have to say that sitting here and listening to you speak is frustrating because we are at war,” 61-year-old retiree and Marine veteran Enrique Tamayo told participants at one social security town hall, as O'Malley looked on.
“Our country is being taken over. Our programs, our entitlements are being dismantled. What I feel is that we’re bringing a knife to a gunfight,” declared Tamaho, who is Cuban-American. “Do you think they’re going to stop with Social Security? This is authoritarian rule that we’re under and it’s going to get worse.”
Written by Ken Bazinet, former White House correspondent, has covered three presidents and five presidential elections. Still writing, he works with organizations and individuals that focus on opening and expanding ballot access to Black, Latino, Women, Native American, pro-worker and rural voters.