The Political Gift Of DOGE
Democrats flipped a Pennsylvania state senate seat with one weird trick: Hammer DOGE.
Not even a nationwide propaganda campaign designed to normalize Elon Musk’s government-destroying DOGE forces could keep the tech bro invaders from becoming deeply unpopular.
Both right-wing media and many mainstream outlets have worked tirelessly to characterize Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency as nothing more than a good-faith cost-cutting group dedicated to finding and eliminating waste inside the United States government. Musk’s DOGE project – the single most anti-constitutional phenomenon in the nation’s history, a coup by any other name – has been pitched to the American public as a humble little crew of do-gooders committed to a more efficient federal bureaucracy. I nearly swerved off the road last week when the local news radio station described DOGE as a cost-saving agency. I may have blacked out; it's hard to say.
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Americans aren’t buying it. Recent polling from Working Families Power shows 44 percent of respondents hold an unfavorable view of DOGE, while 34 percent have a favorable view (and since elected Democrats seem to be so interested in what is popular: Federal employees have a whopping +30 net favorability rating). Only one in five respondents had a “very favorable” view of the fake government department that has wreaked havoc on the US and put teenage hackers – at least one with links to neo-nazi views – in charge of deciding what is and what is not in the country’s best interest.
Nearly six in ten respondents to a recent Fox News poll said they disapproved of Musk’s work with DOGE. This doesn’t seem nearly lopsided enough – the moneyman for the international fascist movement should have much lower approval ratings – until you realize just how thoroughly mainstream outlets have failed in informing Americans of Musk’s hacking of the federal government. Most Americans oppose Musk’s destructive efforts without being told the full story, or his hideous end goal: Putting his AI system in charge of the United States.
Denny Carter
That Musk’s DOGE boys have recruited guys with guns to invade federal agencies and eliminated any and all government programs that threaten Musk’s sprawling business empire is rarely mentioned in media coverage of Musk’s unhostile takeover of the U.S. government. That these hackers are downloading reams of your personal information and potentially using that invaluable data for nefarious purposes has not been properly conveyed to American voters. National media has handled the many crimes of DOGE with kid gloves, largely failing to tell viewers and readers and listeners how wildly unconstitutional their actions have been as Musk’s make-believe department acts as an extension of the executive branch to zero out the power of the legislative branch.
The Working Families Power polling data has a damning tidbit about how media outlets have covered Musk’s overthrow of the government: Only 63 percent of respondents said they are aware of DOGE’s mass firings of federal workers.
The insights of Musk’s DOGE boys as they make indiscriminate (and highly illegal) cuts to every part of our government are uniformly inane. DOGE representative Sam Corcos, a special adviser to the U.S. Treasury Department, wondered why the tax collection agency for a nation of 340 million people needed more IT workers than a midsized bank. Meanwhile, Trump cabinet members have begged the administration to reinstate federal workers after the DOGE invaders – with absolutely no oversight and zero transparency – fired employees who make modern life run in the United States. The destructive DOGE hackers are moving fast and breaking things and striving to accomplish the ultimate goal of Musk and his nihilist movement of techno-fasicsts: Replace the government with artificial intelligence that reflects their backward worldview and eliminates democratic self governance in the United States.
If DOGE’s mission was explained to American voters in these existential terms, I suspect the public’s opinion of this malignant technological coup would be far more negative. I would hope so, anyway.
Denny Carter
That Americans’ feelings on Musk’s DOGE have curdled is no longer a question. In fact, those feelings have manifested into a serious political problem for Republicans. Pennsylvania Democrats on March 25 won an open state senate seat in a district that voted for Trump by 15 percentage points in November. Democrats also won a Pennsylvania state house seat by 29 percentage points in a district won last fall by Kamala Harris by 16 points.
Flipping the state senate seat to Democratic control wasn’t the culmination of complex, popularist messaging by Democrat James Malone. With thousands of working people in the district fretting about the unelected, red-pilled billionaire running roughshod through the government, Malone made Musk the centerpiece of his campaign. Musk, Malone told voters, was slashing benefits for military veterans, children, Americans with disabilities, and seniors all to make way for a massive tax cut that would benefit him and his fellow oligarchs as they consolidate their power.
It worked beautifully for Malone and Pennsylvania’s Democrats, who now have a slim legislative majority.
The Musk factor was very real last week when I made calls for the campaign of Judge Susan Crawford, a candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court who would help undo Republicans’ egregiously anti-democracy gerrymandering efforts that have – by design – left the state government unresponsive to voters’ demands. Almost everyone to whom I spoke mentioned Musk – the primary funder of Crawford’s right-wing opponent, Brad Schimel – as a primary motivation for getting out and voting for Crawford. Musk’s latest attempt to buy an election infuriated many of the Wisconsinites I talked to about the April 1 Supreme Court election.
“It’s all so disgusting,” said one voter who said she had voted for Republicans and Democratic candidates over the years, but felt she had “no choice” but to back Democrats after Trump’s return to power. Her voice quaked as she spoke. “We need to fight what Musk is doing. It can’t go on like this.”
Stop your goddamn dooming for one hour and volunteer for Crawford's campaign. A win against Musk would go a long way in piercing his invulnerability.
Another Wisconsin voter cut me off midstream while I prattled on about Musk shoveling hundreds of millions into a state Supreme Court election that could cost Republicans their highly illegitimate House majority (I once read an analysis saying the Democrats' 35-seat House majority following the 2018 midterms would have been upwards of 50 seats if state-level Republicans hadn't thoroughly fucked electoral maps over the previous eight years). The voter, an older man who spoke in a low baritone, told me not to worry. He would cast an early vote and try to convince his neighbors to do the same. We agreed, after a couple minutes on the phone, that a win against a Musk-backed candidate was badly needed by those who would very much like to salvage democracy for their kids and grandkids.
If elected Democrats are as obsessed with polling as they seem to be, every Democrat needs to fully understand just how unpopular Musk’s DOGE has become in three short months. DOGE is a political gift to Democrats and anyone else who opposes the fanatical dismantling of constitutional self governance in the US. Follow the lead of Pennsylvania Democrats who stood up and said no, this DOGE takeover will not stand and must be stopped. Stop being such losers and accept the electoral gift Musk has given you.
Follow Denny Carter on BlueSky at @dennycarter.bsky.social.
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