Elon Musk’s failure is officially complete
At the end of Trump’s first 100 days in office, we’re coming up on something that shouldn’t really be a surprise to anyone paying close attention, but probably should. Elon Musk’s DOGE concept had a lot of appeal even to non-Trumpers, and if he carried it out in a way that was even remotely competent, probably could have helped maintain Trump’s approval rating as well as his own. Of course, that was never going to happen based on their personalities alone, but the danger was always there.
Most voters in the middle obviously want a government that runs more efficiently, so it’s actually difficult to argue against the purpose of DOGE, regardless of how specific you want to get, so we’re actually fortunate that Elon Musk’s a clown who could barely sell the idea to Trump. People only think of DOGE in terms of who’s losing their job – something likely to get worse in the days ahead now that there’s a massive lawsuit against it.
There’s a new bit of news, however, that might surprised both DOGE’s supporters and detractors: rather than cut government spending, something that the Office of Management and Budget largely did already, the Trump administration increased it – and increased it significantly – over $200 billion being spent in the beginning, and we’re only beginning to find out how much Musk’s cuts may have set us back. This will of course persuade no one in Trump’s camp, but it’s no longer about them. This by itself is a figure worth spreading around: Why is Musk still where he doesn’t belong and why is he still costing us money for a program we didn’t ask for? Let’s fire him for good and cut government spending.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making