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.
I want DOGE to be put to sleep.
imagine this sentence 10 years ago!
rip Kabosu, your alias was not meant to be stained in such a way :(
Dicks out… Er wait.
Nah we can do it for both les go
I mean… If it’s about efficiency, wouldn’t the military be the first place to audit?
The funny thing is that Elon Musk is the wealthiest man ever and enough hecklers chanting “no one likes Elon” in a sing song manner would bring him to tears
Find the student loan records and erase them!
I mean to say… "Don’t find the student loans records and don’t erase them! Migrants hate that soon much! "
I thought destroying the government and setting up racism was the win?
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.
Sounds like a perfect candidate to keep!
/s
Turns out the federal government is actually pretty efficient. Who would’ve thought!
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.
Honestly I’d prefer that the government set up government corporations to provide basic needs. The private corporations could still operate but they would control the higher end market. The gov. corps. would just make sure basics were affordable, not high quality.
Need a car? The gov corp car is $15,000 brand new and is basic as hell, but it gets the job done.
Need Internet? The gov corp fiber network is mid range speed and connects to everyone. As a bonus for profit corps and but rights to the dumb pipe fiber network that the gov corp set up and off higher speed at a higher price.
Basic clothes, basic toiletries, basic food, etc. you want designer or high end stuff, get it from the for profit corps. But basic necessities should be made at cost by the government for the citizens. It is the job of the government to care for it’s citizens after all.
Like they do for snail mail? The government gets an envelope through in one or two days for a dollar or two, the corporations do it in two or four days for ten or fifteen… Because they’re high end?
I mean, the poison is already in your pitch - “private sector gets the high end”. What happens when the government fiber turns out to be faster? What happens when the government cheese is actually better? What happens when the government clothes turn out to be higher quality than the shit we wear today?
What is Verizon going to do? Cry to Congress that they need to go out of their way and pay more to artificially slow down gov fiber. Kellogg will cry free healthy food is ruining demand for overprocessed corn syrup products. If they don’t kill it in the cradle they’re all going to chip away at it, one bit at a time
How about the government produces the basics and the infrastructure, and corporations get fucked? Let small local business take over, and use the infrastructure at cost. Let competition thrive, and we use antitrust like the pro-active protection against oligarchy it was meant to be
I get what you’re saying, but government fiber speeds could be capped, products wouldn’t be high end, ect.
I am by no means an economist, or an expert in these matters, and I apologize if I was presenting as those I was. I just feel like you should put those kind of ideas out there for others to iterate on.
It is the job of the government to care for it’s citizens after all.
This is where some people would have a difference of opinion.
While I disagree with those that feel differently, that’s what this country is supposed to be about, finding a middle ground in differing opinions. Sadly we seem to have largely lost that mentality.
Efficient and complicated. Not that these dipshits would understand that.
And super fucking important
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.
Like… why are taxes so hard when the IRS always has all my data?
In some European countries, the government automatically does the taxes and just sends a letter showing the result of the calculation so you have a chance to review the result.
They have all the numbers already…
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.
Yeah a lot of government inefficiencies can be explained by the private sector blocking their abilities and influencing sellout politicians. If lawmakers truly worked for the interests of the masses you’d see a lot better systems/procedures. You think long voting lines are because the government can’t run elections properly? Nah it’s from lawmakers purposefully making things worse to better themselves
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.
Shit’s so silly. Especially with taxes. It’s an example of exactly what’s wrong with this country.
As far as graffiti goes, I think we should just let people go at it. The city belongs to the people, let them paint it. If someone scrawls “I floss my teeth with ass hair” across a wall, a better artist will come put something cool over it.
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.
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.
Do cults inherit well?
The leadership of the DPRK transitioned across generations, but there was plenty of institutional alignment and wheel greasing.
Trump will be trying to negotiate with the reaper for six months after he’s dead. I can’t imagine he considers his mortality, let alone in the context of anything that has to survive after his departure. There will be a free for all to grab his mantle.
Elon has said he will spend the money to drive out any Republican that votes against Trump. Elon controls Congress.
I’m pretty sure musk is still the richest man in the world (at least on paper, who knows what people like Putin have hidden away). Until that changes there is a .00001% chance of trump and musk’s relationship deteriorating
If you think Trump cares if people did things for him, even Musk, maybe you should talk to one of the dozens of contractors Trump has stiffed over the years.
Oh, one can dream.
With limited time before their tenure ends, DOGE officials are desperate to show results.
Uh first I’m hearing of this
What is this limited time thing?
When they were selling DOGE during the campaign, the pitch was they’d have a year or something to do their thing. The EO might have it spelled out can’t recall. But they also said they would just be an advisory group? Not insider threat hackers and political commissars at the top of every agency. Not sure why they are sweating a time limit since they dont care about any other law, regulation or protocol. I guess if they don’t deliver enough, Trump won’t do another EO extending their presence? They’re literally reworking agency stuff so that the DOGE staff have to sign off on commissioners actions, hiring etc so are they just going to revert that once the clock strikes midnight for DOGE?
I suppose the idea is that the admin wants to lock in all the creepy shit from project 2025 prior to mid terms since they know that all of it will end up being wildly unpopular and will result in republican losses in congress and potentially gridlock from that point forward… but again, their playbook essentially calls for the end of democracy, so why are they sweating something like the midterms…
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 look like this?
Will the statue be a dual flush model?
I will make sure it’s very attractive to pigeons. It’s what Elon would have wanted RIP
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
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.
The plan is corporate run libertarian fifedoms. Corporate mini-states.
Or as we used to call them back when we were still a geopolitical enemy of Russia, “oligarchs.”
Seriously, Musk is fit… Fit for a short tour of the inside of a whicker basket.
Switch that to the wicker man, and I’m listening…
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…
I don’t think it will even matter if it’s fake. They keep talking about that $8 billion cut they made when it was immediately uncovered that it was actually $8 million. Like a week later they’re still saying it was billions.
