Summary
Elon Musk’s DOGE faces mounting pressure to show achievements amid criticism. Staffers, under pressure from Trump administration officials, seek public relations wins to counter negative headlines.
Cuts to federal offices led to mass layoffs, and efforts to modernize government services have been chaotic. DOGE prioritizes speed over security and protecting sensitive information.
Trump has distanced himself, stating agency chiefs, not Musk, control department cuts, preferring a “scalpel” over a “hatchet” approach. Public opinion has turned against DOGE, with 48% disapproving versus 34% approving, according to a Washington Post-Ipsos poll.
With limited time before their tenure ends, DOGE officials are desperate to show results.
Someone should send them an email l to summarize their work from the past week
Taking drugs and fucking shit up are my strengths but I’m not to shabby at sexual harrasment or cheeky wanks at my desk either.
I’d say it’s predictable … Had it been a success I think Trump would be shouting “One of my master moves, this is the mother of all my moves” Now we get to read “Trump has distanced himself” meaning it’s failing and Musk is gonna be sacrificed without a thought “I don’t know what Musk did, he acted like a loose cannon but I fired him for his incompetence”
The people Trump fired this way in the past didn’t pay for his campaign.
Trump works for Musk, not the other way around.
True, but what does musk have left to give to trump? If he’s no longer useful, trump will have no problem dumping him and moving on. As soon as he thinks it’s more beneficial to turn on musk than it is to suck his dick, he will. Loyalty is one way for him.
I think its a game of “who owns the zeitgeist?” Its why “Rumble” exists; why fascists sought their own media ecosystems; its why Elon bought twitter.
There is some threshold where another billion buys you no more power, or at least, significantly less than your last billion. Hence buying a the worlds largest microphone, twitter, for what seemed like an overpriced market value.
So if Elon controls Trumps access; or even more threateningly, if Elon captures the zeitgeist, and Trump is no longer in control of narratives, or Elon is able to create and inject his own, thats a real material threat.
Trump is going to die soon; whoever inherits this cult is the real threat.
Elon has said he will spend the money to drive out any Republican that votes against Trump. Elon controls Congress.
Oh, one can dream.
Turns out the federal government is actually pretty efficient. Who would’ve thought!
Efficient and complicated. Not that these dipshits would understand that.
Every time there’s a World War, a bunch of industries are put under the control of the government in a process called Nationalization, or a “War Economy”…
…this is because it’s highly efficient. This is an excellent argument against free market libertarian types. They don’t put business in charge of government (like is being done now, eg. Privatization) they put the government in charge of business/industry.
My societal dream is that the government would nationalize industries once they reach the monopoly or oligopoly stage. Like, congratulations Comcast/Verizon, you won the game of capitalism. Now move over and let the government actually provide services to the people at a reasonable cost.
But I know this is just a dream.
I wouldn’t call it “efficient” but I would call it optimal given the complexity.
“Optimal given the complexity” fits the definition of efficient.
I think it certainly can, since humans are involved, and humans are messy.
A lot of government stuff should be automated in software, but that takes an immense amount of time to develop. Like… why are taxes so hard when the IRS always has all my data?
Efficient? Not as much as it should be. But good luck wrangling that many people’s needs at once.
I mean, simple file should already be a thing, and the IRS would prefer it be easier for everyone to file. But h&r block and turbotax have lobbied heavily against it because they’d lose money with easier filing. One way to make things more streamlined and efficient would be to get rid of middle men and focus on making internal systems better.
But this administration wants the internal systems to be broken and needlessly complex so that they can outsource it to their preferred middle men so that they all make a lot more money.
A lot of government ‘redundancy’ is the auditing/oversight process where people check other people’s work. Plus ensuring there is adequate staffing for the busy times, like tax season!
But a lot of the things like not having taxes automatically calculated for the vast majority of the population or similar complex systems is the fault of the legislature. They wrote the laws that kept the IRS from building the system that lets people confirm their taxes are right and add exemptions.
Taxes are so hard because Tax Return Companies spend a lot of money to lobby the government to make it harder. The IRS could do it all in-house for “free” but there’s too much money in making us go through 3rd parties to file our taxes. Private business always finds a way to add more inefficiency to processes to make us pay more so they can nickel and dime us. “Want that efficient service? Well, you got to pay more.” It’s a scam.
There is a lot of stuff, sure, that could be automated in software, but that’s mostly admin work, like processing invoices and things like that. But then, no one ever wants to spend money on things. For instance, I work for a state DOT. It’s a battle to get the state legislature to properly fund maintenance. They’d rather spend their money on new shiny things they can show off to get elected.
The real inefficiency in government is almost always directly related to the elected official’s decisions. Take graffiti, they don’t want to spend money, and we don’t have the budget to keep up with graffiti and provide road maintenance. But then a big sports event or famous band comes to town for a huge event, and next thing you know graffiti is our number one priority.
Next: Elon Musk will try to fake one and will pull a full on Eric-Cartman-style “screw you guys, I’m going home” when his incompetence is inevitably revealed…
Defunding the nation, and undermining its function, is the win they wanted, and they’re getting it.
People forget the point is to hand things over to corporate America. Hence this article is out of touch, and based on the author’s feelings about Musk’s feeling…
…whilst completely being ignorant of the plan. The plan is corporate run libertarian fifedoms. Corporate mini-states.
There’s still time to die a hero Elon. All you have to do is commit hari-kari and I will build you a statue.
Will the statue be a dual flush model?
Typical of useless employees: show some results even if they are in detriment to the business. The important thing is to show that you are doing something.
The fall-out between Trump and Musk is going to be explosive! And it will come. Sooner than we think, I’d guess.
If Canadian and European movie theatres want to boost attendance, they might want to think about screening the whole thing.
When Trump inevitably threatens to have him deported, it’s going to be the comedy event of the year. Oscar worthy.
This would make my year. I hope you’re right
Part of me wonders whether the whole thing is just a set up so Trump can look good for shutting them down…
No, that would require planning and forethought.
DOGE was always just an excuse to fire a bunch of government workers, cancel contracts (except for Musk), and run the government into the ground. If trump did fire Musk for overreach it would be afger the damage is done and trump will just proclaim mission accomplished.
You’re giving too much forethought for a plan, but Trump thinks that way about everyone. He’s not just a bully but a toxic boss who always has someone lined up to be the fall guy.
The goal was always to fire a bunch of workers and replace them with sycophants: people actually trying to do their job inhibited the damage in trumps first term, so nope the priority is sycophants. Sycophants. everywhere. But every action needs a fall guy
They’ll make something up. If they actually care about corruption, and I don’t believe they do, that shit takes a lot of time to uncover. You need subject matter experts, forensic accountants and a bunch of lawyers, not a handful of 20 year old tech bros
Yes where are the weapons of mass corruption?
Maybe Saddam Husein can help?
Oh no they hung him!
