The Masters Of DOGE

Created
Wed, 25/12/2024 - 01:00
Updated
Wed, 25/12/2024 - 01:00
Not so fast It’s one of the classic blunders. Not the most famous — “never get involved in a land war in Asia” — nor the most recent — “everything Trump touches dies” — but it’s up there. Men assume their expertise in one area of human endeavor makes them experts in another. (It’s always men, isn’t it?) President Elon Musk and billionaire-dilettante Vivek Ramaswamy are joining the Trump 2.0 administration (1st classic blunder) to operate as his proposed, informal Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Never having worked in government before, the pair mean to “to cut the federal government down to size.” And inflict pain on the little people. Piece of cake. Except. The irony come Jan. 20 is that Trump, the naif in 2016, now brings experience, if not wisdom, to his White House job. Musk and Ramaswamy are the overconfident naifs (2nd classic blunder). MSNBC’s Jen Psaki invited Bob Bauer, former White House Counsel to Barack Obama and Jack Goldsmith, former Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel under George W. Bush, onto her show Monday night to discuss the obstacles Musk-Ramaswamy may face in implementing government of, by, and for oligarchs through a presidential advisory commission.   View on Threads Whaddya mean, I can’t just slash shit? Trump 2.0 may attempt to incapacitate agencies from within through firing and not hiring, and by installing unqualified MAGA loyalists to run agencies. But Bauer and Goldsmith write in their new substack that the Musk-Ramaswamy effort to…