This is the thing that really frustrates me: much of the discussion around the damaging effects of what Trump and Musk are doing seems to assume some sort of go

This is the thing that really frustrates me: much of the discussion around the damaging effects of what Trump and Musk are doing seems to assume some sort of good-faith motivations on the part of Trump and Musk. But that's not what they're doing. They're dismantling the executive branch of the federal government because they want less regulation for all their corporate buddies, and they want to privatize lots of government functions to, again, benefit all their corporate buddies. And on top of that, they want to cut taxes (for corporations and the wealthy, mainly) at a level that will reduce tax revenue beyond the spending cuts they want to make. So they won't be balancing the budget, or reducing the deficit. We'll still have a federal government that borrows more and more money every year, but provides less and less to the people of the country. That's it. There's no noble plan here.