Summary
Musk’s DOGE team is conducting opaque “one-way interviews” with civil servants, raising concerns over transparency and accountability significantly.
Federal workers report being interrogated about their roles and colleagues’ performance, while Musk’s aides refuse to reveal their full names.
Under the DOGE banner, Musk’s team now controls vital agencies including USAID and the Office of Personnel Management.
Civil servants are resorting to encrypted messaging to track Musk’s rapid and opaque government takeover.
Americans losing control of their government in the movies: … epic battle for freedom and outwitting overwhelming forces … heroes appearing out of the most unlikely places
Americans losing control of their government in real life: … (shrugs) … meh, can’t get that bad … can it?
Americans loosing control in real life: it’s more than a thousand miles away and would take at least 15 hours of continuous driving to get there. I can’t afford to skip work, and they’ve gotten worse since the time they beat and shot rubber bullets at peaceful protestors in a park for a photoshoot, so they might actually just shoot us and I don’t want to die. If I’m arrested it will ruin my life: I may never be able to get a job that pays enough, or provides healthcare. Given how many voted for and presumably want this, I’ve lost faith in my fellow citizens and neighbors ability to even see the problem, to say nothing of doing anything. Nothing like this has ever happened in our countries history, so we don’t have any framework for a nationwide protest, when it should happen, how we know it’s happening or even what we do. Do I middle school dance this thing and go awkwardly throw a Molotov cocktail at a Denny’s to break the ice and get everyone out there?
I want to say we’re scared, and we don’t know what we should do, or even what we can do. But the reality is, I don’t know how big that “we” actually is, because so very many of us are also worried that we’re deeply in the minority, and have no faith that our neighbors would stand with us if we tried to do anything.
To add: we legitimately need a French guide to what to do in times like this. They seem to light it up every few years over stuff like “cost of college rose to $50 a semester” or “retirement age rose to still younger than the US age, and still with actual benefits”.
I feel like it has to be a very “American” solution, annoyingly. Like, reconfigure your W4 to the minimum amount of withholding without getting in legal trouble. Pay the bare minimum on student loans and miss payments for a few months if you don’t mind the credit ding. Buy nothing except your bare minimum to survive/provide for your family. Create an action hedge fund where everyone tosses in $20 that is crowd-sourced to start shorting stocks that affect the oligarchs the most and its entire mission is to fuck up the stock market. Stop using mainstream social medias so the oligarchs have a harder time mass-surveilling, stop paying for monthly entertainment services, find the cheapest cell phone plan you can find, use your old phone a bit longer and don’t buy a new one. Avoid buying any new “consumer goods” that aren’t completely necessary. Find ways to carpool and reduce the amount of fuel you’re using. Cancel Amazon Prime. Cancel subscriptions to sub-par media like Washington Post and NY Times.
Oh, and that money saved? Save it, save it all, kill outstanding debts, they hate it when debts are paid off. Pay off the student loan, the mortgage, the credit card. Or just save a pile of fuck you money so when things do get darker, you at least have enough money to float for a few months without a job.
Basically, collectively reduce our “economic footprint” with some fun horse bet manipulation of their precious stock market while saving up for a nationwide strike. You’re still shopping at your local stores and supporting local workers. Day to day doesn’t change too much, you just have a little less. However that works out for each individual.
Unfortunately, this approach takes coordination on a large level, but it would also collectively impact citizens’ direct lives the least to avoid the, “lost my job and my insurance went away with it and I now need $3000 a month for medications,” problem, while affecting the oligarchs’ precious stocks from multiple attack vectors.
I am already doing like, 50% of your suggestions, just to survive.
That is probably the most annoying part about this now-reality. Everything getting so expensive has really been a more defensive move than offensive.
