But the headlines had already done their work.
“They didn’t need to win. They just needed the photo op.”
DOGE’s real success was narrative. It let Trump say he was “fixing” Washington while gutting the parts of government his voters hated. The parts that helped people unlike them. The parts with experts. The parts that fought disease, enforced the law, or taught science.
The deeper goal was structural. Strip the civil service. Gut the agencies. Hand keys to loyalists and allies. Make government small enough to be sold off in pieces, wrapped in slogans and SpaceX livery.
“This wasn’t about cutting the budget. It was about cutting the brakes.”
In April, a whistleblower from the Department of Education described her last day. She walked past two shuttered offices and a whiteboard that still read “Audit Prep, May 2024.” She wasn’t replaced. Her role—tracking fraudulent for-profit colleges—no longer existed.
“I just kept thinking: no one is stopping this.”
And even with Musk gone, no one has.