Look Past Elon Musk’s Chaos. There’s Something More Sinister at Work.

Last updated: February 12, 2025 10:03 am

3 Min Read

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Opinion | Look Past Elon Musk’s Chaos. There’s Something More Sinister at Work.

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Tressie McMillan Cottom

Feb. 12, 2025

Credit… Ioulex for The New York Times Whatever you choose to call it, Elon Musk has captured the inner workings of the U.S. government on President Trump’s behalf. His operatives reportedly infiltrated the General Services Administration, gained access to the nation’s system for issuing payments like tax refunds, locked workers out of computer systems at the Office of Personnel Management and strong-armed U.S.A.I.D. into halting humanitarian work across the globe. They have vowed to slash essential research budgets and have put the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in their sights.

Republican voters signed up for “The Trump Show: Politics Edition.” Musk is producing and distributing that show, one chaotic bite at a time.

In response to a brutal week for democracy, the Democratic leadership in Congress held a news conference. Chuck Schumer led those gathered in a chant, “We will win,” hands held high with Maxine Waters. Elizabeth Warren did a nice job of explaining what the payments mean to regular people. They framed the takeover of the Treasury Department’s payment system as an unprecedented overreach of power.

But the minority party cannot just chant. It has to act on what isn’t debatable: Trump has deputized a questionably legal extragovernmental actor. His mission is not just to dismantle the federal government, but to demoralize it.

So far, Musk’s DOGE gang has outmaneuvered the Democrats and produced a governmental soap opera that confuses some Americans but feeds their fans what they want. Storming anodyne cubicles as if they’re Waterloo creates chaos and it satisfies fans’ desire to vicariously storm the seat of world power. In Musk, Trump has found something important for his stylistic approach to authoritarianism. He needs a muckraker who can create content for our media environment.

I could not help but feel that the Democrats’ response, staged for 20th-century media with a lectern, microphones and standing outside in the cold, could not compete with the emotional power of content. And that could have disastrous consequences. DOGE is a democracy wrecking machine. It is targeting the government’s plumbing, the infrastructure that makes the state reliable and legitimate for millions of Americans.

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