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At some point we have to consider the possibility that these aren’t just cuts to the budget, but an intentional plan to visit each government department and giv
by qgin 2y ago
At some point we have to consider the possibility that these aren’t just cuts to the budget, but an intentional plan to visit each government department and giving it a stab wound to let it bleed out and die over the course of the next year or two.
- llamaimperative 2y agoIMO we don’t need to attribute malice to it, which will drag everyone into a debate about what’s going on inside the clearly broken minds of a few rich men. The sheer incompetence of it all is disqualifying by itself. In my experiences arguing with MAGA, the incompetence argument lands a lot more convincingly than the evil argument.
- croes 2y agoGiven the sheer amount of incompetence malice becomes a lot more probable
- llamaimperative 2y agoI’m not saying what’s true, I’m saying what is useful to argue. The goal is to convince other people, not to rah-rah the already-believers. Trivially: these websites go back up in a few days, is that more convincingly malice or just “these people don’t know how to operate a government?”
- smallmancontrov 2y agoDemocratic turnout was a problem in the 2024 election. Rah-rah is important, like it or not.
- llamaimperative 2y agoAnd do you have evidence to suggest more people would’ve been activated by more “he’s a fascist” messaging?
- smallmancontrov 2y agoYou open with "IMO" but want evidence from me? Lol. There were many dems who remembered Trump as the funny orange man, didn't really care to turn out against him, and fell for the "both sides bad" messaging that was absolutely rampant on the left (esp with regard to Kamala and Palestine). So no, I don't think the most important rally-the-base rhetoric was to ratchet up "Trump is Fascist" so much as suppress "Both Sides Bad" while we had an election to win.
- ethbr1 2y agoBoth sides were bad. Biden and Kamala were terrible candidates for the Democrats to run, and their campaign positioning lacked a unifying aspirational message. What was Kamala's 2024 campaign slogan?
- someothherguyy 2y agoWe're not going back?
- ethbr1 2y agoExactly.
- datavirtue 2y agoWhich was a horrendously stupid tag line. All people saw was "prices not going back." Everyone in America remembers simpler, better times. 1990s race relations alone were far better than they are now. I saw that slogan and cringed immediately.
- datavirtue 2y agoSorry downvoters, I'm no MAGA cultist, it's just the worst slogan ever.
- llamaimperative 2y ago
- croes 2y agoThen incompetence as as reason isn’t useful. If it’s malice then it’s an attack. You have react differently to an attack than to incompetence. The EU made the same mistake with Trump‘s appeasement to Putin. They hoped it’s some kind of clever negotiation tactic but they learned it’s not. It’s just two autocrats teaming up at the expense of Ukraine.
- llamaimperative 2y agoThat is not even close to analogous. Meh, feel free to disagree. How many MAGA voters do you talk to on a daily basis?
- croes 2y agoIn person? None. Online? More than enough and they show the same kind of malice like our own type of MAGA: AfD voters
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- derbOac 2y agoTo borrow a phrase, any sufficiently incompetent organization becomes indistinguishable from malice. Although I agree with others' sentiment that focusing on incompetence can be more persuasive to certain segments of society.
- johannes1234321 2y agoIt is not incompetence to put people with no relevant experience into cabinet positions. It's purpose. Destruction with a huge amount of distraction is the purpose.
- lkrubner 2y agoWhat we are seeing is clearly an act of malice. We need to be honest about that. Trying to obfuscate what we are seeing helps no one. We should use plain English and talk in a straightforward way about what is happening.
- llamaimperative 2y ago“Helps no one” except probably winning elections, given the “he’s a fascist” messaging (while true) didn’t seem to resonate.
- throwaway894345 2y ago[flagged]
- lesuorac 2y agoI'm not sure the crying wolf is accurate. It's like shouting that the bridge is going to collapse because you see a few supports buckle. Anybody with eyes can see the bridge is standing and heavy ass trucks are driving on top of it. Trumps first term was relatively neutered because people just refused to do what he asked. Those supports are gone now though and like the bridge collapse the observable changes happened slowly and then suddenly all at once.
- throwaway894345 2y agoI would agree with you if I had been talking about using "fascism" to describe first-term Trump and his hardcore supporters, but I was very specifically referring to the application of the term toward liberals and progressives who were deemed too moderate on identity politics. And to be clear, by "too moderate", I mean stuff like "advocating nonviolent protests" and "criticizing the weaponization of Title IX at universities". I think warning about Trump fascism was appropriate and legitimate, but I think using the label as a lazy cudgel to get liberals and progressives to toe a poorly-conceived line did a tremendous amount to erode the term's significance and rhetorical power.
- sjsdaiuasgdia 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Enlightenment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Enlightenment https://www.ft.com/content/02217acf-ac64-49c2-acd5-ef4f107f014c https://www.ft.com/content/02217acf-ac64-49c2-acd5-ef4f107f0... https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/techno-fascism-comes-to-america-elon-musk https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/techno-fas... There can be incompetence and malice together in all this. The malicious often leverage the incompetent to further their goals. One way to get more people on board with destroying government structures is to render the government structures as ineffectual and incompetent as possible.
- llamaimperative 2y agoI didn’t say there isn’t malice.
- sjsdaiuasgdia 2y agoYou want to downplay the malice to avoid arguments about whether it's really malicious. I want to spotlight the malice because it's really fucking bad and a lot of people are going to get hurt, and that's not an accidental outcome.
- llamaimperative 2y agoAnd when these websites are back up? What then?
- genter 2y agoThis isn't a possibility. They've publicly stated it's their goal. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43225342 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43225342
- throw0101c 2y ago>> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43225342 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43225342 > Everyone should watch the director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, speak on government workers: Russell Vought is the architect of Project 2025: * https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c977njnvq2do https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c977njnvq2do * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025 You know, the thing that Trump publicly said he wasn't part of.
- sjsdaiuasgdia 2y agoThat was a master class in weasel words. "I haven't read it, I don't know what's in it." "I know nothing about it." I absolutely believe he never read it during the campaign, probably hasn't done more than skim a summary to this day. He doesn't need to. None of that matters to him. Keeping his distance gave him "plausible" deniability...kinda. Anyone who actually thought Trump wasn't going to let Heritage Foundation people take over substantial control of government should take a long hard look at their sources of information, internal biases, and critical thinking capability.
- smallmancontrov 2y agoIf history is any indication, it won't even go towards fixing the debt. Capital Gains tax cut incoming in 3... 2... 1...
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 2y agoWhat capital gains? Everyone will be getting tax relief next year for market losses.
- bloopernova 2y agoThat's already planned. The republicans want to pass another 4.5 trillion of tax cuts for the richest 0.1% They simply lie to their supporters, and are believed because republicans are indoctrinated throughout life to believe that "government bad, corporations good, taxes bad, money good, collective power bad, individual power good" trump said before the election he didn't know what project 2025 was. He lied, pure and simple.
- rozal 2y ago[dead]
- cupcakecommons 2y ago[flagged]
- ethbr1 2y ago> when it obviously can't allocate what it already has No large government in the history of the world has ever perfectly spent its money. We can at best aspire to good government spending, not perfect. Therefore the current dog and pony show of 'look at these excesses and get mad' is just a distraction to functional cuts that would be less popular. Elon Musk, Russell Vought, and Donald Trump are lying. They know exactly what they're trying to do: impair the operation of the US government. Any claims about fiscal justification are ridiculous from a financial standpoint -- if they cared about US debt, they'd be making these spending cuts, and not passing tax cuts.
- ldoughty 2y agoThere's a proven track record with the Republican plan and USPS that they like to sabotage the agency and then point to the dysfunction they created as a reason to get rid of it. I fully suspect that we're going to hear that several agencies have been non-productive since January 20th and should thus be cut... Despite the fact that they BLINDLYfired not only the new employees, but all the employees that have had promotions over the last year as well (And were probationary in their new role).
- i80and 2y agoI don't know how to fix this ratchet of "Republicans shatter things for fun and self-profit; Democrats try to tape things back together but it's harder to fix things than break them; so voters punish them by electing Republicans" that's been going on my entire life
- ethbr1 2y agoIt's not that simple. Democrats are responsible for plenty of stupid ideas, and Republicans have pushed through some good ideas. Being overly reductionist makes one easier to reject as partisan. What is new is the MAGA/2025 hijacking of the Republican party to enact its goals. To the extent that the current Republican leadership is essentially a different party than it was 6 years ago.
- djeastm 2y agoHow is it a hijack? He got and is still getting overwhelming support from the GOP rank and file. It mightve been a hijack at one point, but MAGA owns the whole airline now.
- aswanson 2y ago10 year dominance of a political party by one man is not a hijacking. It's a revealed preference.
- pclmulqdq 2y ago
- MattGaiser 2y agoThis is an explicit Project 2025 goal.
- sigmoid10 2y agoIt's surprising to see how many people still don't get this. None of what happened so far was in any way surprising. You can literally go right now and read up what else they have planned. We're in for a wild ride.
- mschuster91 2y agoI distinctly 'member people even right here on this site taking dumps on anyone who dared accuse the Republicans of being hellbent on implementing Project 2025. Called us "conspiracy nuts", said that this was just "enemy propaganda" or that there was no connection between Trump and Project 2025, downvoted and flagged our warnings... where the fuck are y'all now? Where the fuck are y'all with your guns and "don't tread on me" flags now that MAGA is tearing down the government and installing an autocracy in all but name? And where the fuck are the even more people who did just the same on Reddit? The thing is, almost no one was used to politicians actually following through with their plans and promises. Trump is the first Western leader since I'm alive (other than the current Spanish government) to actually do what he has promised, and I fear this image of him being an "accomplisher" will send him for a wave of support in both the midterms and the next election (and yes, I also believe that there will be no one left to enforce the "two terms" regulation).
- nubinetwork 2y agoDemocrats don't believe in guns or storming the white house... they'll either wait 4 years or wishfully dream that orange man dies of a heart attack.
- ben_w 2y ago> I also believe that there will be no one left to enforce the "two terms" regulation). I don't want to suggest what Trump himself suggested: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-2nd-amendment-folks-stop-clintons-supreme-court/story?id=41239648 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-2nd-amendment-folks-st... I think that's a bad option. What I am saying is: Every single time I've seen a headline about school shootings, someone suggests gun control. Someone reacts that guns keep the government from becoming despots. I said then, no, the military are the ones who decide such things. Militia don't make a dent, despite their self image. And yet, Trump, who just narrowly avoided being killed, signed more support of the 2nd amendment. https://www.nraila.org/articles/20250207/nra-statement-on-president-trump-s-executive-order-protecting-second-amendment-rights https://www.nraila.org/articles/20250207/nra-statement-on-pr... Did he sign because he's afraid, or because he's not?
- agumonkey 2y agoAnd at some point it's time to take action to go around a rogue non government. We have the technology, we can rebuild it.
- lkrubner 2y agoWe can rebuild the government. We will eventually rebuild the government. All of these agencies will eventually be rebuilt. It might take 20 years, but eventually the USA will get back to where it was in late 2024, in terms of state capacity. But the damage being done right now almost guarantees a "Lost Generation" that has to spend its life rebuilding what we had, rather than moving into the future.
- microtonal 2y agoIt is possible, but why do you believe this is a necessity? It's also possible that the US becomes an oligarchy dictatorship like Russia. All the assets are seized by a small group (crashing the economy, removing oversight, removing national park maintenance, etc. makes it possible). Then give people just enough money and fear not to revolt. Feed them propaganda all day, find some enemies to direct their hate towards. I mean, it's pretty much Vance and Thiel's playbook, rule by 'wise' tech CEOs.
- Loughla 2y agoI'm genuinely afraid of what we're doing to our childrens' futures.
- ForTheKidz 2y agoWe're already far too balkanized as a country for a central dictatorship to make much sense in the long run. Especially when the money tap starts running dry. I think we'll just have an extremely weak federal government (or perhaps we will finally split.)
- whatshisface 2y agoA centralized dictatorship is what held the actual Balkans together...
- someothherguyy 2y agoIt is well-known, but it seems like it is hip to be indifferent on this sinking ship.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- throw0101c 2y ago> At some point we have to consider the possibility that these aren’t just cuts to the budget "At some point"? That point was a few weeks, like when they blindly purged the folks that did maintenance on nuclear weapons: * https://time.com/7225798/doge-fires-national-nuclear-security-administration-energy-rehires-musk-trump/ https://time.com/7225798/doge-fires-national-nuclear-securit... Or when they purged people dealing with bird flu: * https://apnews.com/article/usda-firings-doge-bird-flu-trump-fdd6495cbe44c96d471ae8c6cf4dd0a8 https://apnews.com/article/usda-firings-doge-bird-flu-trump-...
- csomar 2y agoGiven that they Kennedy retracted on the vaccine mandate suggests gross incompetence might be at play here.
- kennysoona 2y agoI normally defer to Hanlon's Razor, but with this administration it's 50/50 if their actions are due to incompetence or malice. The only thing we know is their intent is never to benefit the majority of the people they are meant to be serving.
- tedivm 2y agoI don't think we need to pick between incompetence and malice here. I think both apply to most of their actions.
- Jtsummers 2y agoSelect non-malicious but incompetent people to head departments, gives you plausible deniability when people claim that what's happening is malicious. "No, look, RFK Jr is sincere in his desire to help the American people." He's just really bad at it. Of course, that doesn't speak well to the judgment of the people at the top. They'll try and claim that RFK Jr did a fine job and it was the Deep State that caused the problems.
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- FollowingTheDao 2y agoKeep in mind that this my be an internal revolt.
- amelius 2y agoArgentina style. We've seen Musk with a chainsaw, he's not trying to hide it. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly25yny3ego https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly25yny3ego
- yapyap 2y agoDon’t wanna be that guy but if not really being about budget cuts seemed pretty obvious from the start, if Elon and Donald got a hand in it it’s pretty much always ego driven.
- akudha 2y agoEh? “At some point”? You must’ve been sleeping. This has nothing to do with efficiency or improving the budget. Bill Clinton laid off thousands of employees, but he did it in an orderly fashion, got congressional approval etc. This is the exact opposite. The goal here is to cause havoc, be cruel, cut regulations (by reducing budget and reducing personnel) etc. After the carnage, divvy up what’s left among the billionaires. So far, it seems going according to plan. Did you hear what Russell Vought said? “We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected,” Anyone genuinely interested in efficiency should start with why the Pentagon has failed audits and is unable to account for tens (hundreds?) of billions of dollars
- xg15 2y agoI wonder how long until they pull the "who needs public libraries when you have Jeff Bezos?" shtick again.
- ck2 2y agoand it's not like private industry is going to do this work, there's no profit in such services, at least not short term AND if they are doing this to NIH, imagine what they are doing to food and drug inspection for safety just assume all regulation is gone or being ignored without penalty, now scale that out for four years Forget "great depression" it's a dark ages of sorts with smartphones for distraction
- DevX101 2y agoTurboTax makes a lot of profit. This a perfect example of what should be a government service being privatized. That model will be replicated.
- MPSimmons 2y agoIt's really hard to have private companies charge for doing work that a functional government agency performs.
- sneak 2y agoThe US mismanaged the pandemic about as badly as anyone could; other than the ubiquitous surveillance of the population I don’t know many us federal agencies that I personally would describe as “quite functional”. I certainly don’t know any that require they be run by the state.
- UncleMeat 2y agoCurtis Yarvin has been writing about this forever. JD Vance has spoken publicly about his agreement with ideas like RAGE (Retire All Government Employees). Musk has similarly spoken publicly about how CEOs are the best people to run the world. Although Thiel is not directly in power, he's also a Yarvin-ite and has been instrumental in both Vance's rise and also the pipeline for the various people working at DOGE to destroy the government. Alongside these budget cuts, the GOP is proposing massive tax cuts and massive increases in funding for parts of the government related to law and immigration enforcement that will massively outweigh any savings from DOGE destroying entire programs overnight. DOGE is also demolishing organizations that are revenue positive and Trump has fired Inspector Generals, who are responsible for identifying waste and inefficiency in government operations. It isn't a possibility. It is very very clear.
- hedora 2y agoIn blue states, the middle class taxes are going to be hiked to pay for all this, just like under Trump 1. Also, half of the “law and immigration enforcement” budget increase is actually going towards deploying the military inside the US, which is illegal.
- celdon25 2y agoMusk is still there to take the hit, and he will. He's spoken about it openly to a degree. Something about how he's only planning to be in that role temporarily and will get back to building rockets. > DOGE is also demolishing organizations that are revenue positive The revenue will be still be there when the re-org is completed. Are you worried about competitors?
- layer8 2y agoThis article is giving some background on the planning and setup of the new DOGE: https://archive.ph/oJRrI https://archive.ph/oJRrI
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- dcow 2y agoHN was in the same uproar after Musk reformed Twitter. Minor disruption? “The sky is falling!” Brief outage? “It’s malice!” “You see! Musk is obviously driving it into the ground.” Could there be a world in the middle where maybe the government is bloated and irresponsibly spending money and republicans aren’t just myopic nitwits and do care for our country? And they’re executing on cleaning things up but in a way you disagree with? Why is it always malice and ruin? It’s tiring. Twitter BTW pulled 1.25B in profit last year…
- kevin_thibedeau 2y agoThe government is bloated but rather than attacking the bloat (DoD budget that never shrank after ending two wars, subsidies for profitable businesses) they're going after the regulatory infrastructure that protects Americans from corporate greed.
- dcow 2y agoExtraneous regulation stifles innovation and is the definition of bloat. I certainly haven't been protected from corporate greed lately, have you? The main function if gov’t is to provide a military. That’s appropriate spend.
- hooverd 2y agoBecause it's the explicit goal of the people doing it. Why go after the CFPB and 18F and IRS Direct File? They've been very outspoken about destroying administrative capacity and making the executive branch a king to punish the enemies of their national conservatism project. Red states are already trying to roll back women's and LGBT people's rights. How does trying to overturn Obergefull balance the budget?
- dcow 2y agoThere is waste everywhere. I sincerely don’t understand how, when the stated plan is to look closely at all orgs and cut waste across the board, when the lens focuses on specific instances of orgs, the response is “not this one, cutting here will ruin everything”. I don’t buy it.
- catlover76 2y agoIt's already well-known that crippling the government and destroying things is the point. To have ever entertained anything else is to have been naive, morally defective, and stupid.
- jordanpg 2y ago** WAKE UP FOLKS! ** THIS IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW. NO ONE IS COMING TO SAVE US. If you're in the US, it's time to start asking yourself what you are going to want to be able to say to your kids or grandkids when they ask what you did about it when the constitutional republic was falling.
- sizzle 2y agoWhat’s the end goal here though?