This sort of thing is happening across the federal government. There is no rhyme or reason. DOGE has been given an unrealistic target for cuts and they're desperately cutting whatever they can get their hands on. If you look at the federal budget it's nearly impossible for DOGE to hit their stated goals without touching benefits like medicare and social security (which are off limits so far) so the only option is deep, deep cuts into the narrow slice of the federal budget that excludes those protected categories.
There is no rhyme or reason to what gets cut, other than someone under pressure to hit KPIs (dollars cut) was desperately searching for things that looked easy to cancel.
This is happening everywhere the federal government touches. Most people aren't aware of it until they come around and pull the rug on something that intersects with your own life.
Even my die-hard Republican distant relatives are suddenly shocked because programs they benefited from are being cut. They thought they voted for something different.
Like what exactly? I mean the guy ran on cutting the budget by 2 trillion. In his last term he gave tax breaks yo the rich. Where did they think the cuts were coming from?
He ran very hard on raising tarrifs. Which demonstrably raise prices (thats literally their goal.) But now people claim "I didn't vote for this."
In truth they voted for him because he was the Republican on offer and they're die-hard Republican. The Republican party has made no secret of its agenda for decades.
I get it, people are good at cognitive dissonance. But this is the place for blunt truth. They voted for this. I'm not letting Republicans got off the hook here. They voted for this.
Just like to my Republican friends who are upset that CVE is cut. You voted for this. The general public benefit from CVE even though they dont know it exists. Just like you benefitted from dozens of other programs you didn't know existed, but have also been cut.
That's the problem with cuts. They ultimately end up hurting everyone.
Now clearly there's some fat that could be trimmed. Companies do it all the time. Done well its good. Swinging a hatchet in a crowded elevator does not seem like "Done well".
> In truth they voted for him because he was the Republican on offer and they're die-hard Republican. The Republican party has made no secret of its agenda for decades.
This is actually simply not true. The Republican party before the Tea Party looked nothing at all like this. Trump won the presidency last year riding a wave of distinctly not-your-typical-Republican lower class voters. As he rose the old guard Republican establishment formed the anti-Trump wing of the party until they were forced out one by one.
To put some numbers to this: Bush won the upper income brackets by 5+ points in 2000, with a lead that widened as you went up the income ladder. Trump lost the equivalent brackets in 2024 by 5+ points, a 10 point swing away from what Bush won them by. The lower brackets are even more stark, with a whopping 18-point swing towards Trump in the $30k-$50k bracket (inflation adjusted to $15k-$30k).
These numbers show that Trump is not a Republican in the George W Bush sense and he's certainly not a Republican in the Ronald Reagan sense. He's a populist and won on a populist agenda by putting together a coalition of rabid social conservatives (who probably really did go Bush in 2000) and poor people (who largely did not).
You are ignoring that trump rode to power explicitly by enabling the shittest of Republicans that already exist. To try and let republicans off the hook for supporting him, especially a 2nd time? Is hilarious
There are extremely superficial similarities here, but they're just that: extremely superficial. Along the same axis but in totally different orders of magnitude, and orders of magnitude make a difference.
Obamacare and communism are along the same axis too, but the Republicans who claimed they were the same thing were obviously wrong.
I'm upvoting you because you make a coherent argument, and votes here should be for that, not whether I agree with you or not.
I would agree he's not George Bush, much less Ronald Reagan. Nevertheless those who voted for Bush and Reagan also voted for Trump.
This has been "decades" in the making in the sense that since Obama was elected (in 2008), Republicans have embraced racism at the heart of their populist message. That swing rightward was made palatable to center republicans with a woman democratic candidate in 2016 (one not terribly well liked in democratic circles) and a black woman candidate in 2024.
While racism, and misogyny gather a bunch of votes, long-term distrust of institutions is sown, and fostered. Republican policy becomes protecting white guys, and especially old, rich, white guys.
Reagan was popular and competent, and worked for the good of America. Today's president is nothing like him, but wins because a bunch of people "vote Republican".
> Today's president is nothing like him, but wins because a bunch of people "vote Republican".
There's a component of that, but it's not the primary cause. A lot of former Republicans stopped voting Republican with Trump, including a lot of old rich white guys, and a lot of the current Republican voters didn't vote for Bush. He wins because of the new wave of voters that counterbalanced the flight of the educated core of the Republican establishment.
Populism is not an agenda it's a style. Also the majority of poor people voted Democrat, the majority of people with low education levels voted for Trump (which is not the same thing as dumb, although voting for Trump is dumb regardless of PhD or lack of HS diploma). There's overlap between low levels of education and income but if you define class by income then low income people mostly voted Dem
When someone hands you a pencil, you don't wonder what variety of tree the wood came from, or what paint chemistry was used for the coating. It's a pencil. You might have broad opinions on whether the one in your hand is comfortable to use, and sharp - but you leave the details to the pencil makers.
About 70% of the population engage with politics the same way: Leave the details to the people who do this stuff for a living.
Do they expect to be disappointed? Sure, but everyone who engages with politics expects to be disappointed.
This pencil was proudly advertised as being comprised of the remains of all that was decent in humanity. The fact that it wrote in blood was gleefully touted and cheered.
This is exactly the attitude Putin tries to encourage in his population. If enough people don't pay attention or don't think what they do matters, it's easier to subjugate a population.
If people in the US aren't starting to notice what Musk/Trump are doing it will bode very poorly for the future of the US.
You are a pencil company director. A CEO candidate promised to cut expenses by 30% by eliminating waste. People who do this stuff for a living countered wood and graphite exceed 70% of your expenses. The CEO candidate proposed to increase graphite spending. Do you wonder what the CEO would do if hired?
Something different like gay people, women, immigrants all suffering while they laugh. Who's laughing now? From an outsiders perspective, I sincerely hope that Republicans get to feel a fraction of what these usually marginalised groups feel every day.
You'd think that lessons would incite learning but that has never seemed to be the case throughout history.
Remember, DOGE has nothing to do with money or "efficiency". It's a pure ideological dismantling of the Federal government aimed at eliminating oversight, regulations, assistance and entitlements as envisioned by ultra-conservatives for decades.
This isn't speculation or hyperbole, it's specifically laid out in their published plans: By hobbling or outright eliminating federal agencies responsible for executing the laws passed by Congress, the administration can circumvent the democratic process and impose their extreme vision of limited government on the country, regardless of popular support.
The U.S. system of government relies on established norms as much as it does law. Conservatives realized that they can ignore precedent with impunity if they had an executive willing to do so. They then spelled out exactly how, and are now enacting that plan.
Then SCOTUS's decisions last summer turbo boosted their agenda. The ruling that only Congress can hold the President legally accountable essentially means executive power is unchecked if the legislature is unwilling or unable to Impeach and convict. The President can now confidently ignore the law and judicial orders with a veneer of legality. And this is what he's doing.
(The fact that all this just so happens to benefit Russia after their decade long campaign to destabilize their opponents in the West is a topic for speculation.)
DOGE is about permanently altering how our country works modeled on the right wing worldview, plain and simple. Since that's their overall goal, they're not concerned where they swing the wrecking ball - it's all going to get destroyed eventually.
> The U.S. system of government relies on established norms as much as it does law.
And it's also happily breaking the law. The Executive doesn't legally have the power to allocate resources (or not), not to mention the power to arbitrarily suspend due process.
> This sort of thing is happening across the federal government. There is no rhyme or reason. DOGE has been given an unrealistic target for cuts and they're desperately cutting whatever they can get their hands on
You make it sound like poor DOGE employees are being forced to do this on this kind of schedule, which definitely isn't the impression I got. They're all a bunch of incompetent overconfident weirdos who think they know better and what to do. Is there any pressure to do anything quickly?
And the US federal budget is quite easy to trim. E.g. remove an aircraft carrier from the planned construction pipeline and you've saved $15 billion with no actual ramifications.
I'd say that the rhyme and reason are quite clear [0]. They published a playbook, and they are implementing it at a record pace.
> The NSC [National Security Council] staff will need to consolidate the functions of both the NSC and the Homeland Security Council (HSC), incorporate the recently established Office of the National Cyber Director, and evaluate the required regional and functional directorates.
> Given the aforementioned prerequisites, the NSC should be properly resourced with sufficient policy professionals, and the NSA should prioritize staffing the vast majority of NSC directorates with aligned political appointees and trusted career officials. - Project 2025, pg 52.
> ... History shows that an unsupervised NSC staff can stray from its statutory role and adversely affect a President and his policies. Moreover, while the NSC should be fully incorporated into the White House, it should also be allowed to do its job without the impediment of dually hatted staff that report to other offices. - Project 2025, pg 53.
The goal is to build up a political organisation to use as a weapon, and to scrap the rest - as a legal excuse to say that the political appointments will be necessary.
They have to find some gumbah to head the security dept,because the best one they had,left in a hurry. Heard he went to Denmark. ( I am really really kidding )
The ryme is Humpty Dumpty, had a great fall. Now China and Russian security forces step up their relentless attacks. Let's hope the white house falls first.
> Even my die-hard Republican distant relatives are suddenly shocked because programs they benefited from are being cut. They thought they voted for something different.
Out of curiosity, which programs? And is this enough to change their opinion about Trump, or do they still think it'll be worth it?
They are breaking down the federal government intentionally. DOGE was never going to hit their goals, they were impossible to hit. The goals were just cover to take full control over anything they can get their hands on.
> Even my die-hard Republican distant relatives are suddenly shocked because programs they benefited from are being cut. They thought they voted for something different.
They voted for others to be hurt and to lose benefits, not their “in group.” Surprise surprise, they are considered the waste by those they voted for.
> DOGE has been about fighting corruption and reducing wasteful spending
It absolutely staggers me that anyone can still say this with a straight face. I will ask this, though: as part of the DOGE fight against corruption and wasteful spending how many of Elon Musk's government contracts and subsidies have been cut?
Also ~12K IRS workers (7x per head ROI) and inspectors general (who actually get results and are fully accountable) have been cut. And our already bloated military budget is increasing to $1 trillion without an eye being batted. DOGE is theatre.
"A system’s function or purpose is not necessarily spoken, written, or expressed explicitly, except through the operation of the system. The best way to deduce the system’s purpose is to watch for a while to see how the system behaves. Purposes are deduced from behavior, not from rhetoric or stated goals.” —- Donella Meadows
> "A system’s function or purpose is not necessarily spoken, written, or expressed explicitly, except through the operation of the system. The best way to deduce the system’s purpose is to watch for a while to see how the system behaves. Purposes are deduced from behavior, not from rhetoric or stated goals.” —- Donella Meadows
I hate Trump as much as the next guy, but let's not take things out of context, he clearly seems to mean it in a "I want everyone" sense here, rather than just the poorly educated specifically.
His statements were of inclusion into a set of suckers, he was only cheering of the relative sizes of those that vote for him. I understand what you are saying, and this isn't it.
I see at least three obvious reasons for the cuts:
1. Politically-motivated "purge the weak" Nazi stuff - Cutting Medicare, cutting Medicaid, cutting Social Security, cutting education, cutting anything that benefits people who are old, poor, queer, female, etc.
2. Privatization - NWS and NOAA are wonderful public services, and they'd rather profit from the data they produce. This is why taxes in the US are such a bitch to file, tax companies oppose any policy change that would make the paperwork easier for filers.
3. They might actually be Russian assets. Tearing down institutions that took generations to build makes space in the world for Russia to exert more influence. You can tell this is working because Europe is now wanting to re-arm.
It makes me sad. If I had a billion dollars I would still want to live in a better country. These guys only want a better world for themselves, and making everyone else into a permanent servant underclass only plays into that.
There is no rhyme or reason to what gets cut, other than someone under pressure to hit KPIs (dollars cut) was desperately searching for things that looked easy to cancel.
This is happening everywhere the federal government touches. Most people aren't aware of it until they come around and pull the rug on something that intersects with your own life.
Even my die-hard Republican distant relatives are suddenly shocked because programs they benefited from are being cut. They thought they voted for something different.