The real reason Donald Trump and Elon Musk are doing what they’re doing to the federal government
President Theodore Roosevelt created the storied west wing of the White House and William Howard Taft added the “yellow oval room,” which was later co-opted as an office under Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and rechristened “the Oval Office.” The second president to occupy the Oval Office (referred to by White House cognoscenti as simply “the Oval”) was Harry S Truman. Thus, the west wing and its Oval Office are very much ensemble creations by Republicans and Democrats.
Few Presidents had a greater sense of history than Harry S Truman. Unlike Woodrow Wilson, Truman was not a professional historian. He dropped out of community college after a year, but he was and remained a prodigious reader of history, and he remembered virtually everything he read.
Shortly after Vice President Truman became President Truman, due to the death of FDR, a friend of his had a sign made specifically for him by the youths at the Federal Reformatory at El Reno, Oklahoma. Truman liked it so much, and above all, he embraced its message, that he placed it facing outward on the Resolute Desk. The side he placed outward to visitors said, “The Buck Stops Here.” On the reverse side it said, “I’m From Missouri.”
Those twin messages of responsibility and skepticism were personal bulwarks of the Truman presidency. Moreover, Truman was so scrupulously honest that, while president, he refused to use White House resources for unofficial business. Truman once bought a postage stamp to mail a personal letter.
In his final message to the American people, Truman said, “The President — whoever he is — has to decide. He can’t pass the buck to anybody. No one else can do the deciding for him. That’s his job.” For better or worse, Harry S Truman owned everything he did as President. He alone took full responsibility. The buck stopped with him.
Though their names only differ by a couple of letters, it’s hard to find a starker contrast between President Truman and Trump. President Truman understood the sacred responsibility history handed him. He understood his place in that history. He understood the presidency and its powers and limitations. He understood its moral restrictions and obligations.
Trump, on the other hand, understands nothing. Trump has the dimmest comprehension of American history of any president — by a country mile. Trump isn’t merely an ignoramus when it comes to history (and practically everything else), he isn’t even curious about it.
One thing Trump could have on his desk is an almost identical sign to Truman’s, different by shifting a single letter. Where Truman’s read said “The Buck Stops Here,” Trump’s would read, “The Bucks Stop Here.”
The MAGA toad-god sits atop a bureaucracy that oversees the largest fortune in human history — assets of almost 270 trillion dollars. I believe, with Elon Musk’s help and the spineless cooperation of Congress, Trump intends to steal as much of it as he possibly can. It is Trump, not Musk, who will become the world’s first true trillionaire, if he has his way. Trump wants to be richer and more powerful and more dominant on the world stage than Vladimir Putin, a man for whom Trump has virtually unlimited admiration.
The paradox of such great wealth is, once acquired, how does Trump go about bragging about it? Nothing would please him more than to boast about how he’s a genius for being a trillionaire to the victims he stole the money from. How would he do it? I suspect Trump would find a way, and many of the losers and suckers who support him will cheer the bastard who stole their money and ruined their economy.
I think that’s what DOGE is really about. I think DOGE is going to find a way to get their hands on the huge tranche of cash the federal government oversees. Some of it will go to Musk, but most of it will go to Trump.
Do I think they will be able to pull it off? I do not. But neither do I discount the possibility. We don’t merely live in “interesting times,” we live in astonishing times. I think it’s folly to insist that something won’t happen, when just about everything has. But for Trump to rip off the federal government to that degree will require a level of ingenuity that he does not possess. I’m just worried about who’s going to help him. That’s why we need a humongous blue tsunami in 2026. Let’s make it so.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.