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 have been approaching this from a middle of the ground standpoint. Basically I know that a large enough percentage of Americans would reject this as “evil socialism” so putting caps on the government industry at first would be a Trojan horse to get a footing and get society comfortable with the idea.
Ultimately I would like to see companies have to compete with government offered products and services, but I just don’t see it being feasible in our current political climate. Sadly I think it will either take generational change to get it done, or a more kinetic change that would harm the country and take far longer to recover from.
That’s the kind of middle ground with fascism the Democratic party is engaging in…
You can make compromises, you can find a middle ground. But that ground has to be stable, it can’t be compromised from the get go - that’s how you get Obamacare, a payout to insurance companies that has a few positives baked in
If it’s compromised from the start, you haven’t done anything positive - you’ve just opened the floor to bastardize it further
I guess I’m just stuck in the 90’s mindset of trying to find compromise. I know that idea was on the decline then, but I still, maybe foolishly, hold on to it.
I mean, the 90s are what got us here…
You can’t try to meet the opposition halfway, especially not when they’re ideologically opposed to your goals. Especially when they’re dishonest. Especially when they stretch and exploit the rules to get their way.
Even if their strategy wasn’t to rig the system and manipulate the game, they are oppositional on near everything.
It just ends up in you starting the negotiation halfway, before they compromise 75% in their favor, and they might squeeze another bit here and there
The 90s were not a good time politically - it was a civil time. It was also constant pull to the right, we dismantled our social safety nets, we let worker protections get whittled down, we let corporations grow too powerful to reign in. We even removed banking regulations that allowes the 2008 recession, and it all culminated in citizens united.
Our problems now are because of that attitude… Congress used to occasionally erupt into fist fights, and it was better for it. You need the push and pull, or you get the uni party the GOP and Democratic party became - two faces squabbling over social issues as they cooperated to sell out the people
Well in my defense I was a young kid and I was left unattended so I could be indoctrinated by the media to believe cooperation was happening.
I just want to try and find a peaceful way to bring about change, because I fear the only way to make things better will be us having to suffer though a bloody civil war and decades of domestic terrorism from the losers.
Well I mean I can respect that desire, but compromising on our ideals isn’t the way there. Look at healthcare - Obama care was a compromise, and then from there we compromised further, crippling the good parts and leaving in the concessions
Where is our free healthcare?
If we had gone single payer or Medicare for all, people would’ve seen the savings directly. Because it is cheaper, cheaper for individuals and the government too.
That’s the thing - the people overwhelmingly want what we’re selling, they’ve just been convinced it wouldn’t work. You think they’re going to shoot up a nightclub because their medical bills were forgiven? No, they’ll let go of the misplaced anger because their life is getting better and they feel less desperate
And as far as a peaceful transition - we need to organize on the left. Farmers, the elderly, the auto unions, veterans… All the top maga groups are being fucked too fast, too hard, and too directly to pull the wool back over their eyes.
People hate musk and Doge. There’s been attempts on his life, they’re vandalizing Tesla dealerships and vehicles all over, even republican representatives are starting to speak up about it
There’s a chance, when everything is crashing and burning, when the federal government is fully in ruin, where we can build something better peacefully. With the world uniting against our leadership and calling us a shit hole, there will be an opportunity
That or we just keep declining more slowly, with less safety and less opportunity…
But civil war? That can only happen if the military fractures in neat halves along the command structure. We’re too interconnected - if they stop stocking the grocery stores people aren’t going to care nearly as much about which team you’re on. There’s already schocastic violence, there would just be more.
And ultimately, it’s not the left vs the right, it’s the billionaires and their corporation against everyone else. Both sides know this, the independents know it, they just call them “the elites” on the right
So what we need isn’t compromise, it’s to be able to explain simple solutions that most everyone agrees with. And we need to sell it in a million flavors just like the right - we need to be able to win over racists and centrist and each other.
We need to do it by finding simple and concrete next steps we hold in common, not compromising