We’re bloated, he says
But don’t worry. They’re not breaking anything that actually matters. They say so themselves.
“We’re cutting down the size of government. We have to,” Trump said earlier on Wednesday during the first cabinet meeting of his second term. “We’re bloated. We’re sloppy. We have a lot of people that aren’t doing their job.”
The administration already moved to fire thousands of probationary employees who were not yet entitled to civil service protections. The president on Wednesday said that the Environmental Protection Agency plans to cut up to 65% of its employees. Employees at the labor department and the Social Security Administration are also reportedly bracing for dramatic downsizings.
See? Stupid shit. Frivolous. Unnecessary. Who needs an environment? What good is labor? Social security is a libbrul plot to weaken us.
Addressing the cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Musk conceded that Doge had made some mistakes in its rapid-fire approach to shrinking and in some cases attempting to entirely eliminate agencies. He conceded that Doge “won’t be perfect”, including when it “accidentally” cancelled an Ebola-prevention effort that the tech billionaire insisted had been restored “immediately” and with “no interruption”.
An official with the US Agency for International Development (USAid), one of Doge’s first targets, disputed Musk’s claim, telling the AP that agency funds for Ebola response had not been released since Trump froze foreign aid last month.
Listen up: white people don’t get Ebola. That’s all you need to know.
If by “we”, he means him and those who slavishly follow his agenda, yeah, they aren’t doing their job. Their job is to protect and support the Constitution. Destroying the separation of powers is not part of that job.
What exactly do they think they’re gonna be left with? Like, I kinda thought I understood the natcon vision but like, what the hell is this? Nothing is going to work anymore… Does anyone think there isn’t going to be some insane shit come April 15th?
I’m guessing this:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/12/the-autocrats-are-winning/620526/
I could buy that, but does it make sense to do that on the front end? There’s a large number of evil but self-interested powerful stakeholders that lose basically everything in the “Maduro model” but would continue to benefit in a country that was corrupt but still at least sort of works.
Now if Elon Musk were a Chinese agent/turncoat/ally a lot more of this makes sense but because that’s insane… Man, I don’t even know anymore.
Again, I think it’s important to see what’s going on in the U.S. right now in light of what has already happened elsewhere. Destroying government institutuions that might otherwise get in the way of a would-be autocrat, appointing officials with no qualifications other than their personal loyalty to the leader, plundering the state and funneling the money into the private businesses of the oligarch in chief, as well as those who remain useful to him, this is all part of the neo-authoritarian playbook. Anne Applebaum’s Autocracy Inc. is essential reading in this regard. Typically, the people who support it are like the people who join a pyramid scheme: A few people on the top know exactly what they are doing and are looking forward to win what the people on the lower levels have lost. The rest have been duped by the promise of unlimited freedom and unlimited profit.
To someone like Trump or Musk (or Putin, Orban, Maduro etc.) controlling 90% of the wealth in a $50 economy ($45) is better than controlling 40% of the wealth in a $100 economy ($40).