Generally speaking, I hold Elon Musk in pretty high regard. While I’m still not convinced of the mass utility of EVs, with Tesla, he’s redefined them on a scale of success yet to be achieved by anyone else. Of course, it’s amazing that he’s made a company, Space X, like a NASA on steroids at a fraction of the cost, almost to the point of making their space travel divisions irrelevant. Then there’s Starlink that’s patching together Internet channels for people all over the world that otherwise would not have any connections, in some cases, because of deliberate intent by governments. I hold Elon in the highest regard for buying Twitter, taking the reins of the new media company most successful at grabbing the ear of the public and policy makers. They long ago eclipsed the New York Times as the publication of record. I do not overstate when I suggest that this may have saved Western civilization; otherwise, we were headed toward a perverse one-party government. And by the way, this is just a partial list of his private endeavors. He’s like a half dozen successful mega-CEO’s all rolled into one person. Then you hear some snide little puke on social media claim: he knows nothing, he’s produced nothing himself, he’s mean. Well then little puke, what have you done for us lately?
Fast Forward to DOGE, the cost cutting juggernaut set loose on the discretionary elements of the federal government. They were chartered to move fast and break things and have thus far succeeded in disruption; but I do see pitfalls.
Have they really hit meat yet? Saying you can cut all the bureaucrats to save the country from bankrupt annihilation is not too different than saying you can tax all the billionaires out of all their wealth to do the same thing; it simply isn’t true. Yes, it would make a huge onetime dent and then next year you’d still be underwater all over again. We’re gunning for a Trillion$ but we’re nowhere close. I’m hugely in favor of many of the cuts already made and yes, they are crucial on many levels, not just saving money. For example, almost all of USAid falls outside of any constitutional mandate, US interests, and some even greatly undermined our cause, but it’s still a drop in the bucket. All the really big stuff is invisible to us, backroom material, things they would never be able to announce. Perp-walking a handful of fraudsters than never showed up for work is easy, telegenic low hanging fruit. Team DOGE has to get past the publicity itch and go where the real wild spending lives.
Mistaking polling for success. DOGE is hugely popular in the heartland and the team enjoys positive polling numbers, nationwide. This is because of decades of hatred built up against Washington insiders that’s been building for decades. You wouldn’t know that if you were one of the army of government worker bees compacted around Washington DC or really, most places on the East and West crust-coast. The popularity of DOGE is shocking to Democrat pols, maybe because they mistook controlling news information for the outcome of a public consensus in their favor, but that season has faded. DOGE could essentially make a similar mistake. Polling is an extremely fickle inexact science. GIGO, garbage in garbage out. You can rig a poll to get any result you want. You can rig it intentionally, passively, or inadvertently. If your DOGE campaign is dependent on positive polling, DOGE people will ultimately juice it in their own favor until one day they wake up and it’s no longer real, a perilous situation. One day you’re being hailed in the street and the next day they’re carrying pitchforks. DOGE thinks publicity is their friend – and that may be true today, but…Publicity is ultimately not your friend, friends.
Juvenile and Retarded. The biggest example of counter productive publicity comes directly from our hero himself, Elon Musk. Sarcasm laced insults and threats to people you’re going to fire, even the desperately deserved ones, yelled from a national podium, are the most self-defeating publicity possible. That will play well to your angry base, until it doesn’t and that won’t take long. It’ll divide your newly minted and popular team, and your overconfidence won’t take long to generate even more foolish self-defeating publicity. So why, just why? As for Musk, documented to be on the autism spectrum, this provides the most plausible why. As someone said, he doesn’t make the autistic community look very good. To the normies, it just comes off as juvenile and retarded. This is where a few sensible people on the side should come in and manhandle the situation. That they haven’t, yet, is problematic. If Donald Trump has a failure in this process, he owns this one. Instead, he appears to also be googly eyed over the positive polling. Right now, it’s a tactical mistake, but next up, it’ll be a strategic one. DOGE really is important, too important to fail due to stupid stuff like this. Get a grip.
Walk softly and carry a big stick. The only proper posture for DOGE is to walk softly and carry a big stick. Most of the team is silent, so should Musk also be silent. Besides, he doesn’t dress too well. Spread the wealth and spread the ‘blame’ around. You make only recommendations? Then let the decision makers take some credit and take some heat.
I wish Elon Musk and the whole DOGE team very well and nothing but ultimate success. If DOGE fails, we will fail. But restructuring the whole American State, government, economy, whole communities, families, households and children is going to mean a lot of destruction; at least do it soberly.
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