Elon Musk thinks he is FDR

By Albert DeSimone

Apparently, Elon Musk thinks he’s Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

His outrageous statements regarding the impeachment of  federal judges who are blocking Trump’s actions are reminiscent of FDR’s famous court-packing plan. 

Roosevelt’s frustration over the Supreme Court’s blocking his New Deal legislation prompted his Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937. Also referred to as a “court-packing” plan, the bill proposed that the president could appoint up to six justices for each justice over the age of 70.5 years who had served at least ten years.  

This potentially increased the number of justices from 9 to 15.

The Court got the message and began to side with Roosevelt’s New Deal legislation, resulting in quite the successful bullying of the Supreme Court. This switch in perspective is referred to as “the Switch in Time that Saved Nine.”

Musk’s threat is an attempt to bully the lower court justices, similar to the way FDR bullied the Supreme Court justices. His threat has been met with strong objections in high places.

At a Justice Department news conference, Attorney General Pam Bondi said, “We’re going to follow the law.” 

“We’ve got a system of checks and balances, and that’s what I see working,” said Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).

Even more to the point is that federal judges are subject to the same impeachment process as presidents, which would require a two-thirds vote by the Senate for conviction. 

Finally, and perhaps most frustrating of all: Why are we even listening to or talking about Musk in the matter of  impeaching federal judges? 

Albert DeSimone is a retired University of Georgia information technologist who resides in Bishop.