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I still feel like people are missing the deeper problem with DOGE. Yes, they’re dismantling the government, and throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It’s s
by dimal 1y ago
I still feel like people are missing the deeper problem with DOGE. Yes, they’re dismantling the government, and throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It’s stupid, reckless and cruel. But most Americans want the government reduced, and so we end up arguing over “effectiveness”. Notice how half the comments here follow that track.
The deeper problem is that the richest man in the world bought his own department of the federal government of The United States and was allowed unchecked power within it. Nothing like this has ever occurred before in American history. The only thing that got him out was that Washington isn’t big enough for two egos as big as Musk and Trump, and one had to go. And since Musk’s people are still embedded in there, I would bet that he still has plenty of influence.
For those in the red tribe that support this, would you support George Soros or Bill Gates buying their own department and using it to rearrange the government to fit their will? Well, shit like that is now on the table. Good job.
- lovich 1y agoYea man, I cannot fathom why they would carry out actions like this knowing that their opponents could do the same thing next time they are in charge. It’s almost like they’re governing with the expectation of never losing an election
- nebula8804 1y agoOr they expect the other side to fold like a wet towel since that is all that they have seen since forever?
- malshe 1y agoExactly this. Democratic politicians are beyond incompetent.
- nebula8804 1y agoIncompetent is the wrong word. They showed excellent strategy and cunningness when derailing Bernie Sanders's campaigns. They have repeatedly shown excellence in strategy when outsiders threatened them. I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop when it comes to Mamdani's campaign. What trick will the Democrats pull out of their bag to derail him?
- McAlpine5892 1y agoIt’s a bizarre tactic. The DNC plays very dirty with their own members. On the outward public stage they “take the high road” and seem to constantly neuter themselves to prove how much they care. Democrat voters didn’t turn out this past election cycle. Even in the face of Trump. They’ve truly made their base apathetic. “Hold your nose” is a tough strategy to sell long term. I will never forget what they did to Sanders. Maybe he would’ve lost anyways. It’s likely. But that whole take the high road thing is only messaging. Internally they function nothing like a democracy.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- 1718627440 1y ago> never losing an election There are two ways: never loosing or ...
- dimal 1y agoIt’s pretty clear that’s the end goal — that there is never a Democratic president ever again and we have a Putin-style authoritarian system. They may get there.
- XorNot 1y agoMost people love generic platitudes with no details though. So when you say they "want smaller government" it's that they are literally agreeing with that statement verbatim rather then any plausible version of what that could be (and that's giving them credit: more cynically it's just "take away services from people who aren't me"). See Brexit for another national scale example of this: had anyone been forced to vote for a specific policy, it wouldn't have happened.
- Nursie 1y agoThough this is the exact opposite of the strategy of the Prime Minister at the time - he specifically did not want to make plans for Brexit so that very uncertainty could be used to scare people away from it. He and the rest of the pro EU side feared that any concrete plans would make it look more like a reasonable option.
- ModernMech 1y ago> (and that's giving them credit: more cynically it's just "take away services from people who aren't me"). It's like MS Word -- everyone agrees it's bloated, but everyone cannot agree on a subset of features that would be satisfactory.
- kiitos 1y ago> But most Americans want the government reduced, facts not in evidence tldr: no they do not
- jimt1234 1y agoExactly. I'm not concerned with the size of government. However, I would like to see better ROI - that is, a government that is more effective at delivery services. The "burn it all down" mentality never takes into account the vast amount of services provided by the government, and simply reducing the size of government won't help that.
- krapp 1y ago>The "burn it all down" mentality never takes into account the vast amount of services provided by the government, and simply reducing the size of government won't help that. People with that mentality tend to believe most services provided by the government are waste by definition (especially any "social" services) and should be privatized. At the extreme end, they believe the only legitimate role of government is violence - war, policing and enforcing contract law. But somehow not taxes.
- yibg 1y agoPretty clear a large portion of Americans want smaller government. But they also want the benefits (sometimes only for themselves) that comes with a larger government (and spending).
- tootie 1y agoA large portion of the electorate do not have an accurate sense of how big the government is or what it spends money on. DOGE is a living example. They believed (and musk boasted) they'd find trillions in wasted money. I think a lot of people just believe this must be true because they've heard stories in the past. In fact, DOGE found zero waste. Programs they cut were programs they just didn't like. And they fell short of their goals by multiple orders of magnitude. And are now rolling back some of those cuts because they were either illegal or hastily done. The bulk of federal spending goes straight back to constituents in the form of entitlements or to the military or to debt service. Discretionary spending is a fraction of total spending and covers hundreds of vital services. IGs already look for fraud which is pretty rare.
- oblio 1y ago> But most Americans want the government reduced. I also want to lose weight but I still want to eat lots of burgers with fries. People want all sorts of things but they don't really want all the nasty details needed to make them happen and they definitely do not want the negative consequences of their hasty decisions.
- JackYoustra 1y agoSaying "red tribe" is a pretty dead giveaway of, say, a certain way of thinking. George Soros or Bill Gates will never be able to buy their own department for reasons that the people with the tribalist lens can't seem to grasp: the democratic coalition is FAR more principled and fractured / diverse than the republican coalition. I can already hear people howl for evidence; for evidence, look no farther than the party platforms for the last few electoral cycles.
- zazar 1y ago[flagged]
- mac-attack 1y agoPeople call Elon a Nazi because of the salute he did, stuff he has said about Jewish people, pro-white nationalist dog whistles, etc. I feel like you also overlooked the context of Obama's severe cuts and reorg... it was coming out of the Great Financial Recession which was the worst economy the US had seen in ~100 years...
- hypeatei 1y ago> Obama did far more severe cuts and re-orgs in his second term. You fail to mention that Obama did this through legislation and actual proposals rather than giving random tech bros and billionaires access to government systems to stop payments on a whim. Did you even read your own links? > Nobody cared because we weren't in the sensationalist era where one becomes a "nazi" for wanting a smaller government. This is a strawman. No one is claiming that wanting government efficiency is the equivalent of being a Nazi. Although, there are plenty of other actions from Trump and his ilk that warrant that view. > Did you know that Obama deported more people than Trump as well? Was he somehow a fascist for respecting the border? I'm not sure what this has to do with DOGE but I'll bite: Did Obama send people to a foreign labor camp in El Salvador? Did Obama deport international students for the their protest against Israel? Did Obama create a detention facility called Alligator Alcatraz?
- Aurornis 1y agoThis petty score keeping is an intentional dodge of the real problems: This administration is doing ham-fisted execution of their strategy and trying to go around the law wherever they can get away with it. Any country that enforces immigration laws (almost all of them) will be constantly deporting people. Saying a lot of people were deported under Obama is an intentional dodge around the glaring fact that we have masked ICE agents doing ham-fisted raids and doing extraordinarily dumb things like detaining factory workers at an important battery plant just because.
- istjohn 1y ago> But most Americans want the government reduced... Citation needed. Do elderly Americans selling their every worldly possession to pay for home healthcare after a medical crisis want reduced or increased government? Do single mothers unable to afford childcare want reduced or increased government? Do the people in Granbury, Texas suffering health effects from the noise of a Bitcoin mine want reduced or increased government? Do the Trump voters who want to round up and deport every last undocumented immigrant want reduced or increased government? Do the families stuck sending their chilren to failing urban schools want reduced or increased government? Do veterans struggling to access healthcare want reduced or increased government? Do consumers paying inflated prices to a proliferation of monopolies and private equity roll-ups want reduced or increased government?
- nradov 1y agoHaving more federal government employees doesn't mean better access to affordable healthcare for the elderly. Those things are almost totally disconnected. As for veterans, the VA has been improving access to healthcare by making it easier for them to obtain services from private provider organizations. Likewise, primary school funding and standards are largely state and local government issues. Cuts to federal staffing don't really impact that, either. I'm not supportive of DOGE activities but if we're going to criticize then let's at least accurately connect cause and effect.
- istjohn 1y agoOP didn't specify decreasing government employees. They said decreasing government. And DOGE was promised to cut federal spending. In any case, I wasn't addressing DOGE, but the specific assertion that most people want less government.
- jfengel 1y agoPeople want everyone else's government programs reduced. The programs that benefit them are of course absolutely crucial to the lifeblood of the nation.
- BLKNSLVR 1y agoThe US has been heading towards this for a long time though. It's almost inevitable as a result of unrestrained capitalism, so the fact it was the wealthiest person in the world that got first crack at it make sense. Everything is for sale, including government, if unregulated capitalism is the followed ideology. This is the current state.
- intended 1y agoUnregulated being the key.
- UncleMeat 1y agoYou can look to the writing of major political actors on the right and see that they just want to hurt people. People wrote that they want federal workers to be traumatized. They want to make life so unappealing for people working for institutions they hate (the bureaucracy and universities being the big two) that people simply leave and the institutions wither and die. I have friends who work hard for the federal government to do things that people love. That curator who works at the museum of natural history to bring joy to a child who gets to learn something amazing about our world? That curator broke down sobbing at work multiple times this year. That's what they want.
- exogeny 1y agoYour comment made me really, really sad. Please tell your friend that there is someone out there, someone random, someone who will never meet them, who appreciates them and the work they've done over their career.
- _DeadFred_ 1y agoIf you are on social media, maybe reach out? Like museum pages. Comment. Did you go to DC on a school trip? Maybe post it's impacts, or what you enjoyed/remember? Or just 'imagine a job where you get to positively impact so many peoples' lives! You all are doing good things!" We need to tell each other we are seen. We aren't alone. To keep our heads up. We will get through this together if we keep our heads up. Only when they can force us to cry alone do they win. They are weak and want unnatural things, which is why they are flooding the zone trying to break us all down separately and make us feel isolated/powerless. Every football team defense 'floods the zone' every field goal/extra point kick. It doesn't work. Don't let it work here. We aren't brave and will just complain from the sidelines, but we can at least cheer on those not on the sidelines. It's never been easier to express support. Hit up peoples/institutions socials and tell them they are seen, tell them keep their heads up because we do support them.
- Spooky23 1y agoWe did have depraved and corrupt government with Jackson and Grant. We didnt have the massive military impact in both terms of economics and power. The long game is going to be brutal, and the country bumpkins will suffer the most.
- android521 1y agoAny of these people (Elon Musk , George Soros or Bill Gates) could be 1000x more effective than whoever is running these departments now.
- scrubs 1y agoUh no ... the perspective of corporate businessman does not trivially or with difficulty translate to goverment statesman more so in the legislative branch. I reject the implied inevitability of your statement. A nice read of your claim is you dont trust regular state employees at all - I could see that. But don't way overshoot by going 100 light-years beyond that. I'll leave to others to argue say if musk is running tesla or X well.
- acdha 1y agoElon Musk had the opportunity to demonstrate that, and his track record is negative savings once you factor in the lawsuit losses, economic shrinkage, and vast inefficiencies DOGE cost. For that matter, I note that there’s a direct line from the DARPA grand challenges two decades ago and Waymo’s L4 self-driving cars while his purportedly magic touch has Tesla stuck at L2 for over a decade despite frequent claims that they’re about to make some advances. I bet the DARPA people wouldn’t have nerfed the sensors to save ~1% per vehicle. There are two major drivers for talking about government inefficiency. One is the laws Congress passes, which agencies have to follow: requiring use of private contractors instead of hiring staff significantly increases costs and lowers efficiency, for example, and things like the Senate Launch System only make sense when viewed from the perspective of maximizing jobs in home states. The other is that a lot of the inefficiency is really differences in service: when people look at how much the post office, VA, SSA, etc. spend one of the things which is easy to forget is that they can’t reject people who are harder to serve so a comparison to companies who can stop serving unprofitable regions or demographics are going to be really misleading.