The terminally on-line are in cost now.
Produced by ElevenLabs and Information Over Audio (NOA) utilizing AI narration.
The bulletins of Donald Trump’s early picks for his administration have been just like the limbo: The bar retains dropping and the dance retains going.
One of many first nominees was Marco Rubio for secretary of state; the Floridian holds some questionable views however is at the least a third-term senator and a member of the International Relations Committee, and isn’t the nihilist troll Richard Grenell. Then there was Consultant Michael Waltz for nationwide safety adviser; he has no expertise operating something just like the Nationwide Safety Council, however he does have experience in nationwide safety. Former Consultant Lee Zeldin for EPA? The bar stored sinking, however hey, he has labored in authorities and isn’t a present oil-company government.
By yesterday afternoon, although, the bar was hitting superb new lows. Former Director of Nationwide Intelligence John Ratcliffe was one of many least-qualified appointees within the first Trump regime; he may be one of many extra skilled this time round, although Trump’s assertion placing him ahead for CIA director, which cited not his résumé however his sycophancy, was not reassuring. For the Division of Homeland Safety, one of many largest and most intricate elements of the federal authorities, Trump chosen Kristi Noem, a small-business lady and governor of a frivolously populated state—however a die-hard MAGA loyalist. The low level, thus far, was reached when the president-elect introduced Pete Hegseth for secretary of protection. Hegseth is a Nationwide Guard veteran who has lambasted the navy for being “woke” and lobbied for pardons of convicted struggle criminals. He as soon as bragged that he hadn’t washed his arms in 10 years, however he nonetheless hawks cleaning soap formed like grenades. His main {qualifications} to run one of the vital complicated bureaucracies in human historical past are that he appears the half and Trump has seen him rather a lot on Fox Information.
Maybe the bar can not get decrease from there—at the least not when it comes to positions of immense consequence with actual energy to do lots of injury on the planet. However one other appointment introduced yesterday was in a way much more ridiculous: Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to move a Division of Authorities Effectivity. That’s DOGE for brief. Get it? Such environment friendly. Very slash. Wow. Welcome to the period of presidency by meme.
Memes are slippery, neither critical nor fairly joking. Attempt to pin them down they usually slide by your fingers. DOGE, like doge, is not any completely different. Why is that this factor known as a division when solely Congress has the facility to face up a brand new physique by that title? Is it as a result of Trump doesn’t know or as a result of he doesn’t care? Why does a government-efficiency panel have two chairs? Perhaps it’s a joke. Who can inform? Is DOGE a intelligent solution to sideline two annoying loudmouths who can’t or received’t get by the Senate-confirmation course of, or may it radically reshape the federal authorities? Just like the meme says, why not each? The entire thing is vaporware, concocted by three folks—Musk, Ramaswamy, and Trump—who’re all terminally on-line.
“Waste, fraud, and abuse” is one thing of a meme itself—an concept that will get repeated and utilized in many alternative codecs, however presents extra of a symbolic which means and cultural connotation than particular denotation. Like most memes, this one is neither critical nor joking. Who may probably need waste, fraud, or abuse of taxpayer cash? The issue, as Eric Schnurer has defined in The Atlantic, is that there merely isn’t as a lot of it as folks suppose. The best way to radically reduce authorities spending is to slash entire classes of issues. (As a contractor, it have to be famous, Musk is a big beneficiary of presidency largesse.)
Trump has not offered a substantial amount of element about how DOGE would work, although Musk has, naturally, already produced a dank meme. Paradoxically, we don’t know the way DOGE will work or how it is going to be funded. Trump says it is going to “present recommendation and steerage from outdoors of Authorities” to the White Home and the Workplace of Administration and Finances, making suggestions no later than the nation’s semiquincentennial, on July 4, 2026.
Within the absence of actual information, Musk’s takeover of Twitter might be a fairly good mannequin for understanding how this may perform. When Musk purchased the social-media community, he made many guarantees. He stated he’d remove bots, enhance the consumer base, fine-tune the enterprise, and scale back political interference, in order that Twitter may perform as “a standard digital city sq..” Judged by these metrics, the takeover has been a failure. The service is awash in bots. Customers and advertisers have fled. Many technical features have degraded. Quite than changing into a extra politically impartial venue, it’s change into a playground for the exhausting proper, with Musk utilizing it to unfold conspiracy theories and assist Trump. He has given it a slick rebrand as X and slashed the workforce.
We will count on a lot the identical from DOGE. Will it efficiently obtain the acknowledged coverage purpose of reconfiguring the federal workforce to scale back waste and fraud and enhance the supply of providers? Nearly actually not. Will it work to drive out devoted staff? In all probability. The surest wager is that it is going to be a extremely efficient car for furthering Musk and Trump’s political agenda. Such successful. Very chaos. A lot bleak.
