To the editor:

We knew it would be bad; we just didn’t know how bad.

As Musk and Trump break our democratic republic and create an autocracy, their actions endanger personal safety, security and health not only for us, but also our children and elders.

They accessed the Treasury Department’s most sensitive information, our tax returns, health records, financial and banking data and social security numbers.

Musk and Trump cut off all communication from the CDC and NIH, which halted public access to medical advice and warnings of contagious illness outbreaks. Additionally, they terminated invaluable cancer research.

Trump and Musk terminated USAID, costing up to 5,000 jobs and U.S. farmers billions in revenue — not to mention causing preventable pain and deaths worldwide. To showcase their ‘accomplishment,’ they posted armed guards to prevent members of Congress from entering the agency’s building.

Furthermore, Trump and Musk plan to shut down the Department of Education, meaning they would cut funds to Head Start and other programs for needy children — literally taking food from children’s mouths. They ended IDEA, which served special needs children.

Those examples are illegal; recent lawsuits have put some of them on hold. Trump has yet to win a lawsuit!

MAGA billionaires have hijacked our government and ceded power to a private citizen, the world’s wealthiest person.

Political scientist Brendan Nyhan said “We’re talking about the idea of whether the president has to follow the law at all.”

A sentence I never thought I would read.

Regina S. Kekis

Rome