Let me count the ways
First, put up or shut up. (Musk will do neither.)
The hypocrisy dials at the West Wing propaganda office are turned up to 11. Donald Trump, our first convicted-felon president, and his Muskovite DOGEes mean to screw Americans while promising to root out corruption and improve “efficiency” they have yet to properly define or document. Look Elon Musk and Trump in the eyes. Have you ever seen men more trustworthy?
What was it Michael Douglas said in Black Rain (1989)? “I usually get kissed before I get fucked.”
Here’s just some of what Musk-Trump’s torching government agencies will cost you without kissing you first.
Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum could cost consumers “an extra $8 billion per year.” That’s just for warm-ups.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that Musk-Trump means to close returned to consumers over $21 billion in corporate rip-offs, junk fees, overdraft fees, and credit card late fees over its dozen-year history. It’s a net money-maker for taxpayers, returning far more than it costs. Trump is killing it off to satisfy his billionaire pals.
“Wall Street and now Big Tech don’t hate the CFPB because it’s an ineffective waste of money. They hate it because this relatively small agency punches way above its weight,” Helaine Olen writes, having “proven time and time again the government can be effective on behalf of the welfare of the people. No wonder oligarchs hate it.”
Trump’s shutting down USAID not only weakens U.S. influence worldwide. American farmers who supply food aid are out $2.1 billion in food aid the government purchases from them for the program. Thousands of American jobs will be lost, over 11,000 tracked so far, impacting over 40 states.
And the Muskovites are coming for programs millions of Americans rely on: Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. “Trump claims Elon Musk’s DOGE ‘geniuses’ have found ‘very fraudulent stuff’” declares Forbes. Anything Musk tells Trump, the con-man-in-chief believes:
Speaking en route to the Super Bowl, Trump explained: “The whole country looks like it’s a fraud. It’s fraud, waste, abuse. What Elon and his group of geniuses have found is unbelievable—and that’s just in USAID.
[…]
“Yesterday, I was told that there are currently over $100B/year of entitlements payments to individuals with no [Social Security number] or even a temporary ID number,” Musk posted on Saturday.
“If accurate, this is extremely suspicious,” Musk added, “if accurate” covering a multitude of fuck-ups by people who don’t really know what they’re looking at. With not “even a temporary ID number” sounding suspiciously like the effort by North Carolina Republicans to throw out 60,000+ votes based on data entry errors in the voter registration file.
This may turn into an ongoing series.
American carnage wasn’t a description. It was a vengeful promise.