Summary
Donald Trump appointed billionaires and major donors like Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead his new “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE), aiming to cut $2 trillion from federal spending and dismantle regulations.
DOGE will operate outside federal oversight, focusing on slashing programs and weakening regulatory agencies, including the IRS and Department of Education.
Critics warn that DOGE and broader deregulatory measures will benefit wealthy corporations, aligning with Trump’s agenda to extend tax cuts for the rich and favor oligarchic interests over public welfare, further cementing U.S. plutocracy.
It bears repeating that the DOGE doesn’t exist and is unlikely to ever exist. A new federal agency can only be created by an act of congress and that’s just not gonna happen.
Therefore, the only power Musk and Ramaswamy possess is the same power any lobbyist with a lot of money possesses: the right to whisper in the ear of representatives who might be convinced to do their bidding.
A new federal agency can only be created by an act of congress
According to who? And who is going to enforce that?
Elon and Trump are not bound by the law. They’ll do whatever the fuck they want and nobody is going to stop them. The GOP is full of spineless bitches we grovel at their feet.
Rule of law is dead. The Justice system is dead.
This is mostly immaterial given the way Trump seems to want to operate this time around. DOGE does not need to exist; Trump will push for whatever Musk and Ramaswamy say.
This is not the time for suggestions of “well, he can’t do this because X, so we don’t need to worry about it.” We absofuckinglutely need to be worrying about all possibilities, even those which may seem impractical given the law.
The thing everyone paying attention said would happen is happening.
If the stupids didn’t listen then, they sure as hell won’t listen now.
That was the plan all along.
All of the Christian Nationalist jazz was just a cover for the dual purpose of winning the support of the religious right and distracting from their real goal, which, from the start, has been to fully institutionalize a government that serves the interests of the wealthiest few at the expense of everyone else.
Yes - to some notable degree, that’s the system we already have, but with some important distinctions. Under the current system, there are still policies and agencies and programs to nominally limit the abuses of the wealthy and/or protect the interests of the common people. The wealthy can generally manage to get around them, but that requires exploiting loopholes and jumping through complex legal hoops and greasing palms and, if all else fails, paying fines.
The goal is to eliminate all of that so that the wealthy few are entirely unconstrained - so that they won’t even have to pretend to do anything other than expand and protect their own privilege, and there will be no legal recourse at all for all of the people they will exploit along the way.
To everyone that thought we had an oligarchy: You haven’t seen anything yet.
Oh it’s going to be horrible, the wealthy will do as they please and flaunt the law, the poor will be worse off year after year.
I simply can’t imagine.
The way it’s looking is almost a guarantee that crime will have to increase as well. Which they’ll try to crack down on hard, which just means compressing and compressing anger until it finally explodes with people slaughtering the rich and burning down their houses and businesses.
They’ll act like the people are the criminals, yet the people were the ones being stolen from the entire time, and had no justice being dealt.
Does Elon have a child riding him at all times for a particular reason, or is it controlling him like Ratatouille?
I think he’s exploiting his kid to gain public validation that he’s an attentive and proud father because he knows he’s not. Like how he’s using alts on Twitter to compliment himself on being a great father.
