I think the contention with DOGE, which is even stronger from some traditional conservatives like Jonah Goldberg, than from liberals, is not that trimming the fat and auditing the government isn't a good thing, but that Elon's approach is half-baked and seems to be more akin to "break it and then figure it out" rather than coming in with a plan and systematically working through everything. Of course he's doing it this way because it worked at Twitter (or seems to have; the jury is still out on that one), but it shouldn't need said that the government isn't a private business and shouldn't be treated as one. I know many MAGAs preach that that is exactly what the gov needs, and it is fueling some arguments that a authoritarian is a good thing to do exactly what we need done.
Anyway, as to the riots or domestic terrorism or violent protests—whatever we want to call it—I think a lot of it goes back to a sense of powerlessness. All violent protests eventually lead back to this. JFK once made a great quote: "If you make peaceful evolution impossible, you make revolution inevitable." Historically, when a government doesn't listen to the people and makes them feel like they have no say in anything, well... violence results. Certainly I don't condone this Tesla thing. It's terrible. But I feel like I can kind of understand what is fueling it.
thanks for answering in a calm, intelligent, and concise manner. I love it when that can happen.
If you have an opinion on this I would like to know if you think there is an alternative way that they could trim the fat then? Because when I see such opposition to this I can't help but feel as though it is being opposed simply because the "other side" is going to be opposed to anything that the people on the right want to do just out of principal. I believe that some things could end up getting cut by accident during the purge, but in the meantime a lot of genuine waste will also get cut and that is very necessary.
Unfortunately, I feel even moreso that the cuts will be made to look detrimental by the left or even encouraged/ made to be disastrous even when it isn't just to score some political points, even if that means that people get hurt / die as a consequence.
The system as it exists now is very very broken and I'm of the viewpoint that some sort of radical change is very necessary. It's like something that Ron Paul said once about taxation and I'm paraphrasing here when he said "I don't mean that we need to fiddle with tax code a bit like we've done for 100 years, we need to throw it all out and start over."
I mentioned Jonah Goldberg previously. He is not only a very traditional conservative, he was at one time considered pretty far to the right of that, much more than more moderates like Mitt Romney. But now that the MAGAs have taken over the party, he is considered a RINO, as, increasingly are all of the steadfast conservatives. That also calls to mind Barry Goldwater, Mr Conservative himself, who was considered extreme even within the GOP for years, but by the time he retired he jokes to Pat Buchanan that he was now considered a liberal by many of the younger people who were pushing the party further to the right.
That's just to say that it's not just the left that is critical of Trump and Elon. Unless all the conservatives who remain very critical of him are now considered "left". The Democratic Party hasn't had a conservative wing in 50 years or more, it would be a strange thing if all the refugees from the GOP were to join them now. But I suppose strange days create strange and unexpected coalitions.
But we have at least two groups against what Trump is doing: classic Buckley conservatives and progressives. As time goes on, there might be other groups too. Some libertarians are also getting restless. Nick Gillespie, for example, has been relatively outspoken against Trump and Elon.
I don't really know how we can fix things. I mean, if I did I feel like I'd be making a lot more money than I am. But I do think there is some middle ground here between break it all and start over and between do nothing but pretend you did (or, give more tax cuts to the rich while pretending to fix everything).
I mean just for one example: the mass emails offering people a payout to quit. The government tried that in the 90s. The result is the best people quit (because they can easily get much better paying jobs in the private sector) and the worst stay, which is exactly the opposite of what you want. Well unless your goal is to demonize government and you actually want the talent level of employees to go down. That conspiracy theory aside, Elon is using an approach that has already been proven not to work. I think there has to be a much better way to get rid of redundant employees than use a method that will likely result in the best employees quitting. That does nothing to fix the problem, it just goes under the assumption that fewer is better, which isn't necessarily true.