Have you been reading the news about the federal government recently? Or have you lost interest because of recent absurd headlines such as “Trump Gaza Number One?”
The current American political climate is devolving into degeneracy with meme culture at the forefront. It is necessary for all federal funding to be scrutinized and accounted for to make sure the needs of the people are being met efficiently and equitably. However, slashing funding by cutting departments and middle-class jobs is cutting a need of the American people at the root.
That is not to say government agencies and departments should be absolved of all accusations of unnecessary spending, but the approach DOGE has taken to eliminate spending seems like it could be attempting to save the money of the American people by taking away opportunities for middle-class citizens to make money. Quickly disposing of departments that have been around for years is also not the most attractive political strategy.
The conflicts of interest Elon Musk is currently engaged in should be of concern to the public, but it is worth noting that they are not particularly unprecedented. One staff member referenced Dick Cheney and Halliburton post 9/11, LBJ making various investments in military-industrial complex during Vietnam, Hunter Biden and Burisma or Jared Kushner and his familiar Saudi Arabian dealings as similar situations of corruption and oligarchy.
Potentially the most frightening part is how seemingly unserious this appears to people in legitimate positions of power. Massive amounts of money are being dealt with and the department heading many of these decisions was named after a shiba-inu dog from 4chan, an online messaging board.
For context, DOGE is a new organization created by Elon Musk to root out government inefficiencies and make subsequent funding cuts to those agencies and initiatives.
So far, DOGE has its targets set on agencies such as the Department of Defence, Social Security Administration and the National Institute of Health, to name a few. DOGE has begun to lay off thousands of federal workers, including Veterans Affairs, the Department of Agriculture which oversees food stamps, and ironically with recent tragedies, the Federal Aviation Administration. Musk has his eyes set on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which has worried the millions of Americans who are currently on those programs.
For some, the apparent lack of genuine seriousness when dealing with some topics is unimportant, for others it’s disheartening and at worst it is petrifying.
One staff member noted that despite the importance of auditing and monitoring government spending to reduce corruption, the current motive of DOGE and allies appears targeted toward gaining brownie points in the culture war more than it does at actual government inefficiencies. Additionally, the firings of different agencies seemingly for the purpose of replacing them with loyalists should be concerning to those on the side of the loyalists and against.
The changes to federal government and rise of a business oligarch should be treated with extreme sensitivity and taken very seriously. As ordinary people, we understand and even condone using humor to cope with unprecedented times. However, our leaders need to stop treating politics like a joke.
It diminishes the fact that these policies will have immediate and long-term effects on our lives. It’s tempting to feel helpless, but knowledge and action still matter. Students, workers and everyday people will be the ones to bear the brunt of these changes unless we resist. The question is: How much are we willing to lose before we take that seriously?
