DOGE

DOGE

Irony (“You sheep voted for the wolves!”): 

The story of DOGE is irony and hypocrisy. 

To wit: After promising and winning the election in large part based on a commitment to cut costs in, and streamline, the US government, it is notable that the first step of the trump administration has been to go in the exact opposite direction and ADD a large new ‘umbrella’ department or organization -- this “DOGE.”  But then it is named after all after bitcoin the history of which is mostly about fraud and impoverishing everyone except the elite, the early entrants.  DOGE, in other words, represents the exact opposite of what it itself claims as its objectives.

Or similarly if you have not wondered at all about the advisability of putting two billionaires, one the richest man in the world, who certainly does not live frugally, in charge of cutting costs for the rest of us, I would wonder about your ability to think critically.  Musk, himself an immigrant who once allegedly worked illegally in the US – funny how the immigration-hating MAGAts are fine with turning everything over to an immigrant -- and Ramaswamy certainly don’t deal with tight budgets themselves and have never had a need to cut their own personal budgets in any way.  In fact, it should be immediately apparent that they do NOT have extensive experience, if any at all or, indeed, any understanding, of cost cutting.

Of course, trump voters are so lacking in wisdom as not to notice that the man raging against the eastern elites, the ivy league tea drinkers, is himself exactly that (New Yorker wealthy from birth who uses gold toilets and has gone to Wharton ad Yale) who has turned all the interests of America’s working class and middle class, trump supporters or not, over to a team made up exclusively of the most elite figures imaginable.  Billionaires (aside from trump, Musk, Ramaswamy, McMahon, just to name a few) with the pedigrees of Simpsons-like mega-villains, the very elitists trumpers are trusting them to oppose!

It's crazy, yes?

Beyond that however, I would remind readers of the wise point that it is so much easier to tear things down than build them up – many US departments have been built slowly since the New Deal, or, indeed, the founding of the US.

The DOGE Billionaires most saliently know nothing really nothing at all (except how to win contracts from it) about government and/or the issues that have given rise to the need for most government services.  Musk himself has derived a substantial portion if not all of his fortune from turning government-funded research to his private benefit, some of which was developed in programs of the nature he now derides and promises to cut.  (It may be helpful to think of this, perhaps, as the equivalent of recent immigrants who wish to slam the door on new, later-arriving immigrants, a common MAGA element.)  Musk has grown rich, in other words, while through his companies relied upon huge contracts and financial connections to the government he now wants to streamline.

Ignore, moreover, if you will, the glaring glaring glaring conflict of interest here (conflicts of interest are, I know, completely de rigeur in MAGA culture, as is nepotism, which is only evil if practiced by Democrats or non-trumpers, and although the MAGAts have for years raged about the mere potential for conflicts of interest among Democrats) in having a man who depends on the US government for so much of his wealth and who has enriched himself beyond all imagining on US spending, being placed in charge of cutting other costs, the kind that affect other companies and people.

But most pointedly, in the hands of its two billionaire chieftains, DOGE is really about the very rich in America doing away with and avoiding any future regulation on their own businesses, without ever having to defend their own business’s economicity or discuss the need for eve carefully targeted regulation in particular areas.

It is not as though Musk and Ramaswamy are promising to preserve the kinds of regulations that are widely supported.  No, they are coming in with chain saws, modeling on their prophet, Argentina’s Milei and do not care about ANY thing government may do that is need or laudable. Indeed, when the average citizen says about something that seems outrageously unfair, “they can’t do that, can they?” the answer now will be “sure they can!”  Charge outrageous banking fees?  Overcharge based on misleading advertising?  There is no apparent effort on the part of the DOGE billionaires, whose wealth places them far about those who need protection, to preserve beneficial regulation, the kind almost universally approved as necessary, including environmental regulation.  The answer now is “they can do whatever they want.” 

When the average trump supporter or swing voter understands this, there may be an explosion of buyer’s remorse and even a large contingent saying, “how could we have been so foolish?” 

But of course it will be too late at that point.

DOGE will already have acted without any input from anyone except the two DOGE Billionaires and maybe President trump.