"Each of Trump's proposed appointments is a surprise," writes Timothy Snyder on Substack. "It is comforting to think that he is simply a vengeful old man, lashing out this way and that. This is unlikely. He and Musk and Putin have been talking for years. And the whole idea of his campaign was that this time he had a plan."
Viewed through this lens, the "shock" nominations of Gaetz, Hegseth, Gabbard and Kennedy are all part of a larger plan of "engineered regime change and deliberate state destruction."
Part of the plan involves Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy heading DOGE, aka the Department of Government Efficiency, which Snyder describes as "a black hole named after a cryptocurrency" that's designed to create a state of "engineered helplessness."
Some have joked at the notion that it takes two people to run an efficiency department.
Some have noted, as Snyder does, that the department is itself redundant because "there are already oversight instruments in government."
Others say DOGE is doomed because: a) past attempts by Republican presidents to slash spending and eliminate bureaucracy have all failed; and b) the Trump-imposed deadline of July 4, 2026 will make it impossible for this new department to complete its work.
But Snyder thinks DOGE is deadly serious, calling it "an agency of destruction, run by people who believe that government should exist for the wealthy or not at all."
How f**ked are we?
As far as Trump's cabinet nominees, their ability to destroy America from within is now in the hands of Senator John Thune.
Mitch McConnell's replacement needs to have enough of a spine to insist on a regular hearing process, not the recess appointments that Trump (and Musk and Putin) will be pushing.
Given that Senate Republicans have failed us at every opportunity to stand up to Trump, including forgiving his proven crimes against America following two impeachments, hope (though not a strategy) is all we have left.
When it comes to Musk and Ramaswamy, two bomb throwers whose newly invented roles require no Senate confirmation, we should be worried about what they're planning.
The Danger of DOGE
The first question to ask is: Why would Musk, the world's richest man, currently on the fast-track to become the world's first trillionaire, and Ramaswamy, a rising MAGA star who could have likely strolled into one of the party's open Senate seats, volunteer to waste the next year and a half doing thankless, unpopular work on a project that's doomed to fail?
Answer: They don't want to do the job themselves. They're already seeking "super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week" doing "unglamorous cost-cutting" for no money.
Second question: What other motivations beyond "unglamorous cost-cutting" might these two, super-rich, anti-woke, tech fascist revolutionaries be concealing?
Answer: DOGE is the Trojan Horse that opens the door to the new AI-powered authoritarian state.
I'd never heard of Ali Alkhatib before I was shown these tweets, but he seems to know his stuff and I think he might be onto something.
We shouldn't be surprised if Elon Musk—who last week told us we needed paper ballots because voting machines couldn't be trusted—to replace, for example, the 80,000+ employees at IRS with a new AI-powered solution.
Trump and Musk would tell poor Americans how much they'd saved on salaries. They won't mention the billions or trillions forever lost to wealthy tax frauds like, for example, Donald Trump and Elon Musk.
"Eliminating waste" at the IRS would be just a small part of the $2 trillion (30% of federal spending) Musk is promising to cut.
If successful, the results would be devastating and hugely unpopular—shredding the social safety net and demanding levels of austerity not asked of Americans since World War II.
But even if Musk doesn't succeed in cutting federal spending by $2 trillion, we can expect him to sell his tech-driven DOGE "accomplishments" hard to crypto bros and impressionable young men.
Move Fast and Break America
If Musk is known for one thing in business, it's his lack of concern for who gets hurt when he "moves fast and breaks things."
Like Trump, Elon has propelled himself upwards, leaving long chemtrails of broken promises behind him.
@alex_falcone Elon Musk. Is it a scam? Yep.
♬ original sound - Alex Falcone - Alex Falcone
As a salesman, Musk's one product is "concepts of a plan" that will lead us to a magical technological future. Meanwhile, he demonstrates zero desire to solve problems by working with actual humans. That's why, on an issue like climate change, colonizing Mars is now the solution, not saving Planet Earth.
In Musk's world, artificial intelligence is a necessity, emotional intelligence is not. He's most comfortable talking to psychopaths and oligarchs. And deploying robots and machines—and algorithms—when he wants things done.
As Justin Hendrix noted in a recent Tech Policy Press podcast, Musk's vision "seems less about empowering individuals and more about creating structures for control."
Hendrix's guest, Greg Epstein, humanist chaplain at Harvard and MIT—and author of the new book Tech Agnostic—describes Musk as "the high priest of X." In that role, he's like the leader of a megachurch, with a platform that allows him to not only reach a huge audience, but also coordinate their activities.
Elon Will Be Selling DOGE to the Masses
Like Trump's first term in office—and like MAGA itself—DOGE doesn't have to succeed in the real world in order for it to be a popular success.
In the short term, Musk and Ramaswamy will be celebrated by their fans simply for breaking things and promoting new tech "efficiencies." It won't matter if, when push comes to shove, everybody screams and not much spending gets cut.
Musk and Ramaswamy have 18 months to install the technologies that will centralize much of the workings of a new authoritarian state.
Which is how they—and Trump—will ultimately define success.
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P.S. This really is the time to get off X once and for all. Please find me on Bluesky and these other places.
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