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Musk, Trumpism, and the Gospel of Perpetual Grift [1]
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Date: 2025-06-02
Once upon a very recent time, in the golden age of self-certification, two titans of hubris—Donald Trump and Elon Musk—discovered that governing a democracy is far easier when you redefine what “governing” means.
Trump, with the political subtlety of a drunken bison, bulldozed through institutions by convincing a third of the country that yelling “witch hunt” was a legal defense. Musk, more Silicon than populist, chose a different path: not through the White House, but around it. He conjured DOGE—the Department of Government Efficiency—a pseudo-agency forged in the fires of deregulation, ego, and a deep disdain for the alphabet soup of federal oversight.
Where Trump used to bluster, Musk deployed branding. And somewhere in the dystopian fog of power, influence, and burner accounts, the two became spiritual kin—different instruments, same discordant song.
The Unbearable Lightness of Authority
DOGE is, to be clear, not a legal entity. It’s not a congressional department nor a White House advisory committee. It lacks statutory authorization, constitutional recognition, and, frankly, adult supervision. What it had instead was Elon Musk, whose understanding of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) appears to be based on whatever ChatGPT generated on a Sunday afternoon.
Under FACA, a federal advisory committee must be formally chartered, open in its proceedings, and answerable to the public interest. DOGE, by contrast, holds meetings in Slack channels, issues directives via cryptic tweets, and defines “public interest” as “whatever saves SpaceX a procurement form.”
And still—miraculously, alarmingly—it continues to operate. It disburses contracts. It makes policy. It has staffing. It shows up in memos. Like a ghost haunting the halls of the executive branch, DOGE is not alive but cannot be exorcised.
A Government in Beta
DOGE is government as designed by libertarian Reddit users: all accelerator, no brakes; all algorithms, no ethics. It has a mission to “streamline inefficiencies,” which is bureaucracy-speak for firing everyone who remembers when the government was about serving citizens instead of optimizing quarterly earnings.
And yet, somehow, DOGE is consulted on everything from immigration databases to social security “modernization.” The same Elon Musk, who can’t decide whether X (formerly Twitter) should be a free speech utopia or a low-rent Telegram clone, was whispering into the ears of federal departments like some Machiavellian Alexa.
DOGE doesn’t write laws. It doesn’t enforce rules. But it shapes outcomes through fear, favor, and the force of Musk’s personality. It is the tech bro version of a shadow state: slick, silent, and entirely uninterested in your vote.
The Grift Gospel According to Musk
To understand DOGE is to understand Musk’s governing theology. The government is bloated, inefficient, and lacks credibility. Musk, by contrast, is lean, visionary, and blessed with the divine right of venture capital. Therefore, replacing FEMA logistics with Tesla semi-trucks or giving Starlink access to the Pentagon isn’t corruption—it’s salvation.
In this gospel, tax incentives aren’t subsidies—they’re communion. Conflicts of interest aren’t ethical violations—they’re signs of strategic omnipresence. Musk is both a provider and a prophet, a contractor and a czar.
No other billionaire could get away with this—but then, no other billionaire has so thoroughly colonized the American imagination. He’s Iron Man to some and Emperor Palpatine to others. Either way, he’s in charge.
The Silence of the Institutions
Here’s the most staggering part: the silence. The courts throw wrenches, yes, and watchdogs bark, but where is Congress? The Republican Party, once the party of limited government, now treats DOGE like a divine appendage—an innovation so disruptive it mustn’t be questioned.
Democrats flinch, afraid that opposing Musk is political suicide in a country that thinks billionaires are just underdogs with good lawyers.
And the press? It lurches between sycophancy and suspicion, unsure whether to cover Musk as a CEO, a statesman, or a very expensive hallucination.
Public Opinion: From Awe to Outrage
But outside the Beltway, among the citizens whose Social Security files were “restructured” by DOGE’s experimental AI, faith is fading. Federal employees purged for inefficiency (read: not sufficiently Musk-friendly) are speaking out. Privacy advocates are howling. Even veterans of the tech world—some of whom once fawned over Elon—now warn that DOGE is a rehearsal for a privatized dystopia.
What once looked like disruption now feels like a desecration.
And still, the gears turn.
The DOGEfather’s Retirement Party
Musk, ever the performance artist, recently announced he’s “stepping back” from political donations, saying, “I think I’ve done enough.” This is precisely what the arsonist says after tossing his last match into the dry brush: “I think I’ve done enough.” Or what the bank robber mutters while tiptoeing past the vault cameras. “Enough,” in this gospel, isn’t a measure of effort—it’s the precise moment when scrutiny begins to outweigh reward.
Enough for what? For whom?
If DOGE were a movie, it’d be Ocean’s Eleven—but everyone’s wearing a badge, and the vault is filled with civil liberties.
Conclusion: The Empire Has a Feedback Loop
DOGE didn’t fix the government. It replaced it with a beta app that crashes every time you ask for help. It lives in the legal gray. Until we build guardrails, not just speed bumps, it will continue unchecked.
Here’s the deal: If you see a department issuing policies from someone’s Tesla dashboard, please call your representative. If your Medicare plan changes because a meme account posted a new “efficiency mandate,” yell louder. And if your senator says DOGE is “disrupting for good,” ask who’s getting the contract.
Because satire aside, this is real—and it’s ruling by footnote.
~Dunneagin~
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