I saw my friend Alex Lawson on Maddow Friday April 12, 2025. He said,
a missed check for some people is a death sentence, a missed check for some people is going to mean that they are out on the street. So we have to come together. And understand that when this catastrophic failure happens, and I believe it will, there’s no indication that they’re trying to fix things, just accelerate it. 73 Million people rely on Social Security. Imagine the chaos that will come when those checks don’t go out. Rachel, it is going to be a scenario that’s hard to imagine how catastrophic it will be.
Alex Lawson, ED Social Security Works on The Rachel Maddow Show, Friday April 12, 2025
I put the date of the warning in here, because it’s important. Here’s how America currently works:
Someone on the left says something bad is going to happen and we need to stop it before it happens. Nobody listens.
The thing happens. Then, the people who were warned, who also knew it would likely happen but didn’t want to stop the thing, say, “Nobody could have anticipated…”
We have an old saying over at Eschaton, Atrios’ place, “We were right, but nobody listens to the Dirty Funny Hippies.”
So while it’s great to be able to say, “I told you so.” We do need to prepare for the bad thing, and then when it happens, don’t accept the excuses, prepare for them, RUB THEM in their FACES, and make your demands.
5 Steps to Stop #DOGE and save #SocialSecurity
1) Act. Alex tells people to get their Social Security info on paper. DO it. It’s easy. Go to ssa.gov
2) Call the Constituent services person at your Representative’s office.
(I wrote about what to say to the Constituent Services person based on Alex Lawson’s advice here.) Someone who watched Maddow did! From the comments under her video.
@jeaniebop
My idiotic senator is Ted Cruz. I called and called his office and finally got in touch with a young woman who was like Karoline Leavett. She was extremely condescending and had no compassion. She just told me not to worry! ??
My response, “Thank you for making the call! You know how Rachel says that ‘push back works’? You are part of that push back. When a bunch of normal constituents people call, it’s noticed. But warnings from the normals never count enough, BUT when his constituents DIE because of missed checks, it’s HIS fault for not stopping DOGE. The deaths are on HIS hands, because HE had power to stop it, and didn’t.”
3) Demand all DOGE people be KICKED OUT, NOW.
You can talk about your concerns to the Constituent services person NOW, since DOGE has already screwed up the Social Security Administration website that you need to access to confirm your earned benefits. You might think, “What’s the point, they don’t care. They’ll never go against Musk.” However, I want people to say it politely to them NOW, so when the BIG f’up happens and you call them later to do their job to get your benefits, you have their info and a history of concern.
Also include a comment about what you want in your remedy. This is as much for YOU as for them. You should know that before DOGE, a WORKING system for Social Security payments existed with competent people in the government who knew and STILL know how to run it. So, BRING THEM BACK.
4) The people who were FIRED have to be reinstated to return the system to where it was before DOGE touched it.
Here’s the thing, in America the people Republicans listen to are CEOs of companies. Those companies will be destroyed if DOGE is not stopped. They need to demand that DOGE be KICKED OUT NOW. But those CEOs are afraid of saying it publicly. Our protests at Tesla, Hands Off rallies, calls to the Reps and requests to constituent services all give the CEOs and Republicans cover from Trump wrath. ‘It’s not me, it’s the SHAREHOLDERS and constituents who want DOGE out of Social Security computer systems.”
As my sign at the #HandsOff Rally in SF read, “DOGE Boys, HANDS OFF all computer systems.”
I say this about Social Security Administration but it applies to all the agencies where people who managed the computer systems were fired by DOGE. They have to be reinstated so they can return the system to where it was before they touched it.
This is important, because DOGE’s whole point was NOT to make the systems better, but to TAKE information FROM the systems, and then USE those computer systems to control the agencies.
(BTW, this control of the computer systems is the primary goal of Russ Vought, architect of Project 2025 and now head of the Office of Management and Budget.)
For those who want evidence, this has been confirmed in this new report in NPR April 15, 2025, A whistleblower’s disclosure details how DOGE may have taken sensitive labor data.
As Digby said
DOGE people are playing very fast and loose with all of our personal information and nobody knows exactly what they are up to except that they are intent upon getting to it and won’t take no for an answer.
And here is her question that I want to answer.
And apparently there’s nothing anyone can do to stop them.
I think that there ARE people that can stop them, but first the f’up has to destroy something so bad that Wall Street notices. Rohan Grey, was on The Majority Report explaining DOGE’s opaque takeover of the Bureau of Financial Services and what a botched system shift for the federal payment systems would look like. He also explained how systems can be modernized without the DOGE chaos THIS IS important point to make now.
5) Trump’s OTHER crony companies can NOT be allowed to “Fix” it. Because they will want to use AI and privatize, as Rep John Larson said.
Marcy Wheeler said it very clearly on the Nicole Sandler show “Elon Musk is a very easy target. The richest man in the world fked up Medicaid for everyone in the country.”
And even if Musk, “pulls back” from Washington, Lisa Graves pointed out on the Nicole Sandler show that DOGE will still be there. Also, the Silicon Valley, break-things-for-profit, approach to computer systems will remain, unless they are removed ENTIRELY.
For people with empathy, like you and I, people dying should be enough to get the DOGE boys removed, but sadly we will have to wait until a massive financial crisis–for people in power–accompanies the deaths. Only that will stop Musk & DOGE.
Later I’ll post some thoughts on how to help activists talk to the media about the financial and human costs of DOGE’s disastrous access to government computers.