So right here we’re, again to the period of waking as much as headlines that set off audible “ughs” and a want to behave out being violently sick. On Wednesday morning, this was the information that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy had been appointed by the president-elect, Donald Trump, to run one thing referred to as the Division of Authorities Effectivity, a newly created physique tasked with slicing again federal paperwork and given the larky acronym Doge. (Musk has been a longtime promoter of the cryptocurrency, Dogecoin, so there’s an awesome conflict-of-interest gag straight out the gate.)
On X, Musk duly posted a picture of himself in gangster pose, with digitally volumised hair alongside the lettering D.O.G.E, the message of which was clear: slicing $2tn from the federal price range, a determine touted by Musk earlier than the election, was going to be not solely satisfying, however enjoyable!
Fairly aside from the truth that Musk could now be nominally in control of authorities businesses with oversight of his corporations – the Environmental Safety Company, for instance, has had run-ins with Musk over threats to wildlife close to the SpaceX launch pad – it opens up a future by which the richest man on the earth will get his lolz not from incontinent tweeting, however from the side-splitting process of slashing 75% of the federal workforce.
That is the determine that Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur who ran in opposition to Trump within the 2023 Republican main, has floated as fascinating, alongside together with his suggestion to shutter the Division of Training, the Inside Income Service and the FBI. And to be honest, Musk has had current expertise with this sort of effectivity when he fired 6,000 folks at Twitter after shopping for the corporate in 2022, one of many actions that, by some calculations, wiped 80% from its worth.
If giant numbers of People voted for Trump within the electoral equal of looting – roughly: all the things’s shit so let’s burn the place down – they’re in with likelihood of seeing that nihilism come residence to roost. In his official assertion, Trump likened Musk’s new division to the Manhattan Challenge, the US nuclear programme that produced the world’s first atomic bomb and an analogy that made no sense past the broad define of blowing-things-up.
“Doge will soon begin crowdsourcing examples of government waste, fraud & abuse,” tweeted Ramaswamy, and you’ll think about what’s going to observe: the mockery and destruction of any programme not personally attention-grabbing to those extraordinarily restricted males, and the promotion of programmes that personally favour them.
This might be dangerous for social programmes supporting these on public help. Will probably be dangerous for the surroundings. It can virtually actually be dangerous for the humanities. When, in response to Trump’s announcement, Ramaswamy tweeted: “We will not go gently”, it was in reference, I believe, to the closing strains of the 1996 motion film Independence Day, fairly than to Dylan Thomas.
That the Musk/Ramaswamy announcement was solely essentially the most eye-catching of Trump’s appointments this week factors to a different situation together with his management, which is the sheer reaction-fatigue we’re prone to expertise as we enter this thrilling new period. In regular circumstances, the appointment as head of homeland safety of Kristi Noem, the governor of South Dakota informally referred to as “dog lady” for admitting in her e book earlier this yr to capturing her personal canine, can be dominating headlines. As would the nomination for secretary of defence of “Pete Hegseth”, a former infantry captain who served in Afghanistan however is healthier referred to as a Fox Information host and writer of the e book The Conflict on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Males Who Maintain Us Free. (Hegseth, who seems to be like a baby’s drawing of Mr Unbelievable, is an enthusiastic defender of US troopers accused of battle crimes and, if confirmed by the Senate, might be in control of 1.3 million active-duty troops.)
However it’s Musk, a person with no expertise in authorities, little interest in public service, and an obvious narcissism equal to Trump’s that can certainly see the lads fall out earlier than lengthy, who grabbed all of the headlines. Like Trump, Musk wins by doing issues that set off the endorphin rush of witnessing cruelty to others. And proper on cue, there was Liz Truss, euphoric, reposting Trump’s assertion about Musk’s appointment with the comment, “what is needed in Britain” – a bit of toadying that received her a repost by Musk. Actually, we reside in horrible instances.
