Comment by rsynnott
5 days ago
> operates [..] semi-licitly on behalf or in service of, a government agency
Hard to see how he doesn't fit this criteria? That DOGE thing is clearly a US government agency of some sort.
> The only way you can claim he is a state actor if you think he acts, in his management of X, on behalf of the US state, a claim which would be entirely laughable even to partisans.
If you take the Louis XIV "I am the state" approach, then, well, he has, right? He promoted Trump on the platform during the election, then walked into a job with the state.
Your claim was «He is de facto if not de jure more or less in charge of the US government.». If this is true, the opposite, i.e. «operates [..] semi-licitly on behalf or in service of, a government agency» can't be true. Cold reason decrees it from her awful throne. Talk as much fatalism about that fact as you please: it really must be.