Musk's Actual Plan For DOGE Is Heartbreaking
Elon isn't saving anyone money, so what is he doing?
For months, I have been racking my brains for a word that accurately describes Trump and Musk. The closest I have come is “illusionist,” but that gives them far too much credit. They throw up distracting bullshit, the least subtle sleight of hand, and then steal all our valuables. The trouble is, we know this is all sloppy misdirection, and we know every single one of our pockets is being picked, yet we are so transfixed on their tomfoolery that we can’t sucker punch these kleptomaniac clowns. We need to break past their disorientating phantasms and call a spade a spade; only then can we have the wherewithal to deck these fools and get our wallets and watches back. So, what is Musk actually trying to do with DOGE? Because he sure as hell isn’t saving anyone any money.
Musk claimed DOGE would find and prevent government fraud and waste. However, DOGE has not found anyone guilty of fraud, and no fraud cases have been taken to court. So it must all be waste, right? Well, no. Musk’s cuts will cost the US government more than they save. This is partly from legal recourse, given that illegally firing people incurs huge legal fees for the government. However, DOGE has also kneecapped government income. For example, DOGE wants to cut 20% of the IRS agents, even though every dollar spent on IRS agents returns between $5 and $12 for the government. As a result, multiple reports have found that DOGE won’t reduce the US deficit but will increase it! And that isn’t a speculation. Musk initially said that he would cut $2 trillion, then he peddled back to $1 trillion, and now he is saying DOGE has cut $150 billion. But even that figure is dubious, with plainly bad accounting errors. And even with these cuts, Trump has spent $155 billion more than Biden had this far into his term, and Biden was dealing with COVID! This is the opposite of the fiscally conservative stance Trump and Musk were pushing, yet this extra expenditure hasn’t boosted the economy nor helped US residents live better. They aren’t cutting government waste; they are creating it!
Still, both Musk and Trump seem wildly happy with DOGE, hinting at the hidden motive behind this illusion. So, what has DOGE actually done for them to be so pleased about?
Well, DOGE has engaged in several instances of wild corruption and conflict of interest, eroding the government’s ability to hold billionaires like Musk and Trump accountable. DOGE and Trump together effectively shut down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which would have regulated Musk turning X into an online bank, as well as Trump’s cryptocurrency schemes. “Regulated” may be the wrong word, as they would make these ventures impossible, given that Musk and Trump wouldn’t be allowed to scam their customers. And DOGE has also fired almost all the staff at the NHTSA that regulated self-driving cars. On a side note, Teslas have the highest fatality rate per mile driven of any brand in the US (twice the national average), mostly because their self-driving features are so woeful, and Tesla’s high value is based on their self-driving tech, so no prizes for figuring out why Musk would fire these guys. DOGE has also installed SpaceX operatives in the FAA, who regulate aviation and space launches, and they are making wild cuts and demands. Just a reminder that Starship is a massive aviation and environmental risk, and it isn’t even operational yet, and it was being heavily investigated by the FAA. So yeah, this is another open-and-shut case of corruption.
Because Trump is obviously trying to butcher the US government into a plutocratic authoritarian mess, it is no wonder why he is so happy for DOGE to create so much corruption.
But don’t forget, Musk and Trump are capital “F” Fascists. They have marginalised a group — namely, brown migrants — to obfuscate their inadequacies, bolster their fragile egos, and attempt to justify their power. Both have pushed the heinous, demonstrably false, and transparently white supremacist “Great Replacement Theory” and are actively violating and circumventing the law of the land to dehumanise, discriminate against, and deprive these people in hopes of “purifying” the US.
And DOGE is aiding this to devastating effect.
You see, DOGE has accessed sensitive personal data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Social Security Administration, and the IRS, which legally has to stay safely locked away within these agencies. This data contains the names, addresses, and social security details of anyone living in the US. DOGE is sharing this data with Trump, who is using this to deny anyone in these databases he suspects of being an undocumented migrant and removing their ability to access social security by placing them in Social Security’s “death master file”. This would prevent them from using or accessing credit cards, bank accounts, financial services and benefits. Why? Well, Musk and Trump want to pressure these accused undocumented migrants to “self-deport”, which is just barbaric. However, not only is sharing this data by DOGE likely wildly illegal, but denying basic financial services breaches these people’s rights. What’s more, this is again happening without due process, so Musk and Trump could do this to anyone, not just undocumented migrants, but asylum seekers or even US citizens.
This, combined with Trump’s recent admission that he wants to ship off US citizens to prisons in El Salvador that resemble concentration camps (read more here), makes it obvious DOGE is being used as a tool of fascist cleansing.
But we aren’t finished yet. The cherry on this horrid cake is how DOGE effectively sabotages government agencies.
Authoritarians hate government agencies that are out of their control or that work for the public and not their inner circle. They particularly hate those who hold them or their businesses accountable. Now, Trump doesn’t have the power to dissolve these kinds of agencies directly, at least not yet. So he has to find workarounds. If he can get away with it, he puts a loyalist in charge, and they then dissolve the agency from the inside out, as we have seen with the Department of Education. But if he can’t do that, as with the Social Security Administration or the Department of Labor, he sends in his personal sabotage unit, DOGE.
DOGE made so many debilitatingcuts to Social Security that the department was in “complete, utter chaos”, and insiders said the agency was entering a “death spiral”. DOGE went in and crippled it by cutting out whatever they could, enabling Trump to have a legitimate route to dismantling the agency. After all, if it doesn’t work, it must either be fixed or go.
And it turns out DOGE might have also been trying to frame these agencies. A recent whistleblower claimed the DOGE disabled practically all safety measures on the National Labor Relations Board database, which holds highly sensitive information. They then downloaded reams of data, again likely to fuel Trump’s “self-deportation” plans. But, after DOGE did this, there was a spike of attempted logins from those with IP addresses from outside the US. One was a Russian IP address that tried to log in using a correct username and password; luckily, the whistleblower blocked this attempt, but the two-step authentication DOGE turned off would have previously stopped it.
What is going on here? Well, either DOGE is just incredibly sloppy, which is possible. Or, they are deliberately trying to weaken the security of these agencies to create massive security risks, something which Trump can later use to justify the agency’s complete closure. Considering the removal of security protocols and a foreign login attempt with correct details, it’s hard to see how this isn’t what DOGE is purposefully trying to do.
I’m sure I don’t have to explain how horrific it would be if the likes of the National Labor Relations Board, Department of Labor or Social Security were shut down. Let’s just say it would open the doors to total plutocratic rule.
So, this is the actual impact of DOGE. It hasn’t saved any money or discovered any fraud; it has enabled widespread corruption. It has enabled the illegal brutalisation of minorities and the deprivation of peoples’ rights. It has acted to sabotage and frame government agencies that defend the public against oligarchy and corporate abuse. DOGE in action has nothing to do with efficiency; it is pure subversion, a coup d’état invited in by the president. It is undermining and destroying the values and principles of the US government, overthrowing the established social order and structures of democratic power in an explicit attempt to make the US a white supremacist, fascist, plutocratic, authoritarian state. That is why Trump and Musk are so happy with DOGE. It has fulfilled its purpose beautifully.
If that doesn’t shatter the illusion enough, I think we should rename DOGE (the Department Of Government Efficiency). Instead, I think we should call it DOOFAS: the Department Of Oligarchical Fascist American Subversion.
Thanks for reading! Don’t forget to check out my YouTube channel for more from me, or Subscribe to join my monthly film club. Oh, and don’t forget to hit the share button below to get the word out!
Sources: NBC, The Guardian, The Independent, The Verge, NY Times, Will Lockett, Fortune, The Independent, The Independent, Fast Company, NBC, World Bank
Change approved. (And "conman" has always worked for me.)
They are criminals, period. Like Hitler and his cronies, just criminals running the long con.