Summary
Acting Social Security Commissioner Leland Dudek threatened to shut down the agency after a court barred Elon Musk’s DOGE team from accessing sensitive databases.
Dudek said he would cut off IT access for all employees, raising fears of halted benefits for 70 million Americans.
The court later clarified that not all SSA employees were DOGE affiliates, leading Dudek to backtrack.
Critics, including advocacy groups, accuse Dudek of undermining the agency and pursuing Musk and Trump’s anti-fraud agenda, which falsely alleges widespread improper payments.
Here’s the problem
Under anything resembling normal circumstances, I agree with you. Because senior citizens vote. Politicians had something to fear because senior citizens are the largest voting bloc by far.
But what happens when Trump and the GOP feel their vote is no longer needed? The GOP have traditionally coddled senior citizens because they tend to vote and tend to skew Republican. But lately, they’ve instead been responding to their town halls by telling voters to suck it up and deal with it. If the politicians feel that the fix is in and the senior vote is no longer a priority, it has the side effect of basically relegating seniors from an influential voting bloc to a whole bunch of old people sitting in a room screaming. Granted, that line of thinking might backfire spectacularly in the 2026 midterms if seniors actually vote accordingly instead of just continuing to blame Democrats, but if Trump throws a monkey wrench into the works (or just suspends elections, or is successful in getting seniors to believe that it’s all the Dems’ fault, or whatever), then they basically win. They’re going all in and are definitely overbetting the pot, but at the same time, they also overbetting with a very winnable hand given the current situation.
This is different from the townhalls. Actual money is involved, simple as that. They themselves said that they are not going to cut/end social security (a little bit too late though, almost like backpedaling). While they might get to a point where “you won’t ever have to vote again”, they are not 100% sure about it (yet). They cannot afford pissing off 70 million people and their close ones.
You have a good point. Except it requires there to be midterms in 2026. At this point I’m not confident that will happen
That’s my point. It only backfires on them if there are even 2026 elections at all, and if Republican voters don’t just continue voting against their own interests. And those are very, very big ifs.