As a candidate, Trump promised not to cut Social Security. So the administration is trying to weaken it by stealth. In the wings, some top Wall Street executives see an opening to relaunch the perennial campaign to privatize it. Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, is promoting the lucrative idea of converting part of Social Security to individual accounts.

On Tuesday, the Social Security Administration announced rules that will make a well-managed, user-friendly public institution more frustrating for citizens to deal with. Beginning March 31, even people with verified phone numbers will no longer be permitted to transact routine business by telephone and will be required to come in person to Social Security offices.

Just to make the process more difficult, the administration picks this moment to close local Social Security offices and lay off staff. There is no legitimate purpose to these changes. They are pure mischief, intended to weaken a widely appreciated and efficient public system that Elon Musk has disparaged as a Ponzi scheme.

The move was so transparently outrageous that it even roused AARP to action. The organization, as I have written, professes to be an advocacy group for seniors but in reality is mainly a front group to sell insurance for the worst insurer in the country, UnitedHealthcare.

If you search "AARP," the first several items that pop up are pitches to join AARP and buy products from UnitedHealth. But search this week, and eventually you will land on AARP Vice President Nancy LeaMond’s indignant letter to Leland Dudek, Social Security’s acting commissioner. "Asking tens of millions of Americans to jump through new hoops and prove their identity in the next 13 days to access the customer service they have paid for is deeply unacceptable," LeaMond wrote.

In changing long-standing policy to require in-person visits for elderly people, many of them with mobility challenges, Dudek claimed, "For far too long, the agency has used antiquated methods for proving identity. Social Security can better protect Americans while expediting service." This is of course BS.

Meanwhile, the assaults against Social Security have also led to a tougher-than-usual court order. Yesterday, in a 137-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander blocked DOGE’s efforts to get personal information from Social Security records, supposedly to combat fraud. The Social Security Administration, of course, has its own highly professional anti-fraud operations.

Judge Hollander’s order did not mince words. DOGE’s approach’s "is tantamount to hitting a fly with a sledgehammer," she wrote, adding, "The DOGE Team is essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA, in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion. It has launched a search for the proverbial needle in the haystack, without any concrete knowledge that the needle is actually in the haystack."

After Judge Hollander’s order, SSA’s Dudek threatened to shut down the agency entirely. He declared: "My anti-fraud team would be DOGE affiliates. My IT staff would be DOGE affiliates." Dudek added, "As it stands, I will follow it exactly and terminate access by all SSA employees to our IT systems."

Seriously? AARP has 38 million members. The clumsy administration ploy and its escalations hand the corrupt group a lifeline. AARP can regain some legitimacy by rousing its members to protest. How would Trump like 38 million angry seniors on his case?

Those of us seeking ways to resist Trump’s deepening dictatorship have been struggling for ways to mobilize ordinary Americans harmed by Trump’s actions. His Social Security actions are a gift.

In a recent piece, I quoted University of Michigan constitutional scholar Sam Bagenstos telling me, "With only a few exceptions, we have seen the judges respond to this unprecedented assault in the same way they would respond to garden-variety legal violations." Judge Hollander’s order may signal a new toughness.

Yet even Judge Hollander allowed DOGE access to general data that does not identify individuals. This flies in the face of another ruling, by District Judge Theodore Chuang, holding that Musk’s role violates the Constitution’s Appointments Clause, and that DOGE has no legitimate authority to do anything.

If anything restrains Trump and Musk, it is less likely to be judges than politics—in this case, the politics of enraging the 73 million people who receive Social Security checks. Trump’s policies are also beginning to encounter resistance in public opinion.

According to summaries of polls by Blueprint, Trump’s net job approval rating is -6; Musk’s is -16, with a favorability score that has steadily declined since the election. And in a new poll by the Working Families Party, Trump scores -9 with working-class families. Most politicians, parties, and public figures have negative approval. The highest approval is for federal government workers (+30), the Working Families Party (+15), and Bernie Sanders (+10).

The pattern of Trump and his minions is to make almost random forays, and then pull back or adjust when they encounter serious resistance. My guess is that by next week, the order that retirees must use Social Security offices rather than the phone will be gone.