You're absolutely correct. I think Musk can take it further because he has access to internal data, whereas Data Republican (small r) is working with publicly available data.
BTW: It's amazing that Data Republican (small r)'s work hasn't been done previously. DRsr is not bringing any new data into the conversation, she's simply using her amazing mind to convert available data into useful information.
There is a problem that is a major issue for the Left right now. Long ago, the British Lord Acton observed, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." But as a lifelong student of history, I have often noticed something else that power can do: it makes people stupid! And this goes back so far that the ancient Greeks had a word for it--hubris. Throughout human history, powerful people have done stupid things, and ended up paying for it, sometimes with their lives. Right now, the Left is on the receiving end of the payback. My main concern is for the Trump and the rest of the Right to avoid the same effect long enough to get everything done, and then know when to stop.
I think the probability of Trump becoming stupid is not as great. He seems to have a specific plan that is guiding his decision-making, and this plan was developed before November 5. As such, he developed this plan of action before he had any chance to become drunk with power. He would probably find restraint by sticking to that plan.
Of course, I don't know that he has a plan because he's revealing it only by executing it; it's just how I read the tea leaves. Assuming he does have a plan, we have no guarantee that he will stick to it. That's why I say its lower probability, not a certainty.
The shock and awe techniques of Tump, Elon and their strategists fortunately were not only impressive but totally necessary, but mistakes will be made and need to recognized and course corrections made . And you are right, while the counterattacks to date have mostly been pathetic and often laughable and/or counterproductive, the vested interests that are losing their monetary support and the extreme liberals/Dems who are losing the power they so greatly cherish will not go quietly into the night. Fortunately the MSM have lost their credibility and the audiences of MSNBC and CNN have been decimated.So to date, the Trump team, alternative media obviously including Substack and Fox are the voices dominating the debate.
Glen excellent thinking and writing as always. I think in all major reorganisations l, like is happening in government, things go too far too fast and there has to be a retrenchment. Some people are hurt and if they are available some could be rehired. I have also have relatives who have lost jobs but I am not as conflicted. One will have more time to stay home with her young baby and the other has an MOS and can go active duty tomorrow. As far as the President exacting revenge, if holding people to account for violating the rights of others then let the revenge continue. We can’t lose sight of the fact that not only was President Trump attacked but people around him were prosecuted, debunked, disbarred and more. Those civil rights violations should not be ignored. If they go unpunished why not do them again next time they have the power.
I believe that the Biden administration followed the law in holding those in the prior administration accountable for breaking the law. In doing that, the Biden administration was scrupulous in maintaining the traditional independence of the Justice Department in the DOJ’s duty to decide how to enforce the law. Attorney General Merrick Garland, arguably one of the most meticulous and careful attorney generals in history in following established DOJ practices and the rule of law, actually went overboard in his efforts to avoid not only the actuality of political motives, but also even the appearance of such motives.
But in the end, the facts of the situation, the actions taken by individuals, dictated that grand juries indict the alleged violators of the law. Unfortunately, those accused were unwilling to let a court exonerate them in line with their assertions they did nothing wrong, and no federal trials were held. But the Biden Administration followed the law. No one’s rights were violated, no one was unfairly attacked, and there is nothing of that nature for which the previous administration needs to be held to account.
We need to weaponize the situation with two simple catch-phrases that will resonate with people:
WHERE DID THE MONEY GO?
-and-
WE KNOW WHERE THE MONEY WENT.
That will have the left in a catatonic state, terrified of being exposed. And the media will tread lightly, never knowing which politicians or entities can be wrecked with a single public statement from the WH.
And the great majority of the public, distrustful of government as it is, will eat it up. It will play perfectly at the mid-terms and beyond.
All of it. All of the grift via USAID and the various bureaucracies. All of the money flowing to the NGOs and "researchers" and circulating between Ukraine and Biden's 22 shell corporations, etc etc. All of the crony arrangements congresspeople have with outside entities.
And the beautiful thing is that they won't know what's been discovered and what hasn't -- they'll just have to assume the worst.
Great article. When you go into a fight expect to be hit. It's much much worse when you don't fight back. The Democrats are used to kicking us when we are down. Trump and Musk are fighting back. It's glorious! Americans don't lack courage. We just needed leadership.
Yes, these will be times that we will remember as being significant to us personally and to our nation. And as you note that generally means there will be much uncertainty and consternations. It's a great time to be an American, all in all.
I've voted Republican my whole life (I'm 64), and have been supportive of what DOGE is trying to do (even if part of the cost is my daughter's job, which leaves me conflicted, to say the least). But when I step back and observe -- what we're seeing is Trump settling scores, and he brings to that fight long history of personal nastiness. Is there anyone who, once entering Trumps inner circle, walks away totally unscathed? Combine that with Elon, who occupies a place on the spectrum which often comes at the cost of having little or no ability to feel empathy. So, we have the two most powerful men in the country (world?), one with a giant chip on his shoulder and looking to inflict a little payback on the system that tried to ruin him, the other the richest man in the world but utterly lacking in empathy, and both are operating with few if any guadrails, at the moment. So why does the idea of them bringing advanced machine learning into this mix leave me a little uneasy? I don't see any Cincinnatus's here -- job done so I give up power, go home and tend to the farm. What comes next with these two?
I believe that retribution is something that many, if not most of us, voted for. Not for wrongs committed against Donald Trump. For wrongs committed against America, especially our children. If President Trump can pocket a little payback as part of that, I'm okay with it.
I might agree with you but for this - "for wrongs committed against America" -- what wrongs, exactly? And by whom, specifically? I mean I TOTALLY agree with you that the list of wrongs is long. And equally long is the list of villains. And if they were limiting their focus to the deep state actors I'd be loudly cheering from the sidelines. But one of their first acts was to fire every probationary employee, in every agency. We're talking about a bunch of 23 -28 year olds making 60K a year -- many of them coming off stints in the military. These are not the deep state scalps that people want to think they are. They're the youngest, lowest paid but arguably most enthusiastic employees. Shouldn't you want to keep those?
And I'm all for the payback, in theory. In reality, however, we should be guided by an ageless maxim -- Be careful what we wish for.
What a time to be alive. This is Fourth Turning stuff unfolding every day.
Civil service protections are crazy, but probationary folks are not protected by those, so they can be fired easily. I personally think we need a federal hiring freeze for a couple of years, with a few exceptions. Wrongs against America? How about weaponizing the DOJ and FBI and ATF against normal citizens? Or eliminating border controls? Or crazy spending trying to drive the country into bankruptcy? Have you been asleep for the past few years?
Having been a part of that world, firing the probies gets rid of potential useful, new workers. The old, useless, deadweight have been around for 20 years just sit tight. Marine Corps saying: It is easy to be hard, it is hard to be smart.
While I agree with you, that's not what is going on. First step here is to downsize, and downsize quickly. The only way that can be done is to un-hire people who have been hired in the last few years. Pruning bad apples will come later. In order to fire someone with civil service protections, you have to inform them of what their deficiencies are and then give them an opportunity to cure those deficiencies. Then document again and again and again, and once you begin the process, it usually takes about two (2) years before they're finally gone.
I worked in a rust belt F100 industry for over 40 years. The first folks to go were always the last hired. After that it was generally performance based.
No, I have not been asleep, thanks for asking. I was responding to the comment "for wrongs committed against America" which is a bit broad, don't you think? You've listed a few, and they're good, but again - overlooking some important specifics, like how do you go after people who've been pardoned, like everyone associated with J6? I haven't seen anything about going after Comey, McCabe, Rosenstein, Stzrok, etc and all those who were the heart and soul of the Russia collusion hoax. I have high hopes for Patel, so we'll see what he comes up with. Anyone indicting Majorkas or any of his deputies yet for the border scandal? And spending the country into bankruptcy has been a bi-partisan effort for the better part of the last 40 years. It was GHB who launched a $6 trillion spending effort in Afghanistan and Iraq which yeilded to the US the benefit of ... exactly nothing except another $6 trillion in debt. Anyone talking to George about those missing WMDs?
Again -- I don't disagree with these things in principal, but who, exactly, are we going after? Where are the big scalps? Right now, all I'm seeing is a bunch of low level employees being fired because they're easy to fire. In a subsequent comment you say that you only see the administration going after people who have violated their oath. Really? Who, exactly? And what has been done other than revoking their security clearance?
Retribution is a justifiable punishment for wrongs perpetrated. What wrongs? The persecution and prosecution of pro-life protestors, the kangaroo trials of J6 protestors (and even people not even physically present), parents expressing their opinions at school boards, land owners and business owners harassed, persecuted and prosecuted by EPA, not to mention all the people bullied and ridiculed for incorrect opinions about gender, DEI, CRT, ESG. The list is long and the victim list longer. Many, if not most, of the new fed employees were (very) likely specifically attracted by the ability to be one of the ones doing the inflicting....
Don't forget the IRS. Friends of mine, major Republican donors, were caught up in serial audits where the IRS perp told them he knew they hadn't done anything wrong but what were they going to do about it. Seriously. The husband was slowing down preparing for retirement. The IRS said he was hiding income.
I agree -- in theory. But the reality on the ground? Everyone associated with J6 prosecutions have been given pardons. Who are we going after? Persecution of parents at school boards? Randi Weingarten still has her job and no one's going after Merrick Garland who signed off on targeting parents. And school boards are elected locally, so if we don't like our school boards, that's on us, not the feds. All this DEI, ESG, etc came out of an education system that has not been adequately targeted. Start removing the tax exempt status of endowment funds if you really want to punish the purveyors of CRT and DEI.
My point is that it all feels like we're just doing a lot of lashing out at everything in reach, and convincing ourselves that we're the good guys and we're targeting only the bad guys. The truth is more complicated
Mr. McNamara, how can one say "we're just doing a lot of lashing out at everything in reach", and then assert, "The truth is more complicated?" Does the latter statement include "your truth"? As to the job termination of provisional employees--who were added en masse in the waning months of the Biden administration--how was the government functioning before bloating the payroll? What was the crying need to inflate the hiring of so many twenty-somethings so late in Biden's term?
It is also important to recall that the Biden administration had as a specific goal in hiring as many new federal employees as possible to form a bulwark of progressives against a future Trump (or any other less than progressive administration). In addition to ensuring proper obeisance to DEI, climate change, social justice, et al, in the candidates, I have no doubt that political reliability was a wink & nod condition in being hired.
Everything is complicated - that's an excuse to not do what is needed. Assuming good intentions on the part of many of the government workers, NGOs and non-profits got us here. The data are showing they were relentless in wielding and expanding their power, by all means necessary (their own words).
We should start at the head: who gave the orders/directions/promulgated the agency policy? Next: who then was rewarded for vigorously enforcing those decision; not just following the letter of the order, but pushing the boundaries, going above and beyond?
I have no doubt that many, if not most, of even low-level government and NGO workers were fully on-board with everything their agencies were doing, and looked forward to their own current and future role in making it happen. The Tik Toks, Instagrams, articles, editorials and protests make it evident that the vast majority of the people involved were fully vested in what they were doing.
Will innocents be swept up? Maybe. Probably, but address those (I think few) as exceptions. Don't preserve the bad to preserve a (very) few instances of good.
That's a recipe for ultimate defeat, in my opinion.
Agreed. I just don't see much effort to get at the chiefs. A lot of foot soldiers are being sarificed and perhaps necessarily so. I could do with a lttile less of the chest thumping I'm reading over the firing of a bunch of 25 year olds, I hope as much effort is devoted to getting the chiefs and former chiefs -- Comey, Schiff, Weingarten, Fauci, Cuomo in NYC, Murphy in NJ, etc.
Funny -- When I look back at my original post, it was about a measure of concern over the two guys leading the charge, and whether adding AI to their arsenal is a good thing. The charge/fight needed to be made, to be sure, but whether victory is achieved remains to be seen. It's still VERY early, and in depressingly predictable fashion, it's the low-hanging fruit that's the first to go. The real fight is still ahead. My fear is that DJT proves to be more Colonel Kurtz than Cincinnatus. We should all be very careful about assigning too power in so few people. History tells us that never ends well.
I think some of the things that appear to be "just doing a lot of lashing out at everything" are actually intentionaly creating the fog of war and keep the enemy off balance while the plan for the destruction of the previously unaccountable Administrative State is executed.
Nice, neat, and tidy gathering of evidence to justify Trump's course of action would just be distorted out of existence by the Administrative State and it's friends in the MSM.
The deep state didn't become a monoculture by accident. I expect a large percentage of those probationary hires were selected for their ideology as much as their expertise. It makes sense to release the folks hired by the last administration. As the govt is rightsized many would have proved redundant. Where additional workers are needed we can hire based upon merit.
Exactly. We don't get 70% (or whatever it is) in swamp jobs as registered Democrats by accident. Sixty percent of Federal workers are registered Democrats while 70% of their donations go to Democrats.
Running up the debt to 36 trillion is a wrong against America. The course correction will not be painless but it is absolutely necessary. Losing a probationary job is painful but in the long view it will ensure a better future for them.
Let's not forget a whole platoon of FBI folks willing to falsely testify to get Trump. Let's not forget a Deep State that squandered American tax money all over the place. There's also the folks that ran Social Security and Medicare with, if not corruption, at least extreme malfeasance. There is a LOT of blame to spread around.
I could write a long list that would be similar to the grievances against King George III in the Declaration of Independence.
"He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance."
Sound familiar? EPA, OSHA, IRS...
And that's just the beginning. The main wrong is our leaders embracing Globalization to make themselves and their friends & family rich, paid for by the American worker and taxpayer over the last 50 years. The "elites" of the United States have sold out their countrymen for money and power, especially by disadvantaging the American worker with onerous regulations that make it impossible to cost effectively manufacture in the United States like we did prior to MFM/PNTR for China.
Patriotic leadership would have ended the economic relationship with China on June 4th, 1989 when the Tiananmen Square massacre occurred.
Mr. McNamara: I think I partially understand your position, but not completely. The replies to your posts list many "wrongs", but they don't connect those wrongs to specific actions by Trump and his officers. However, I think that everything that Trump et. al. has done has been to either (a) reduce spending and/or (b) prosecute (or at least contain) the bad actors. Could please provide examples of actions by Trump's team that do not at least partially achieve those goals? (Or explain any misunderstanding I might have.)
Thanks for mentioning Fourth Turning. It reminded me that I bought a book with that in the title a long time ago. I just found it and have moved it to the top of the "Books to Read" stack. If you read that book, do you recommend it?
Yes. It's not an easy read, but the framework it discusses makes much of what is happening now make sense. It's admittedly a little unnerving to think that the climax of the 4th turning is not yet upon us, as it usually involves a major conflict, but there's a curious optimism you can get from it when you realize that this has all happened before, in a manner of speaking, and we all survived it.
I haven't seen any payback on Trump's part yet. Payback would be going after people for no good reason other than you don't like their politics. What I see is going after people who have violated their oath to the Constitution.
Mr. McNamara, you make some important points in this post and the ones that follow, and your comments are, for the most part, written without excessive rancor or obloquy. But.....you make some assertions and generalizations that are weak. Case in point #1: You write that Elon "occupies a place on the spectrum which often comes at the cost of having little or no ability to feel empathy", and in the next sentence declare that Elon is "utterly lacking in empathy". That is quite a leap, akin to "John lives in a high-crime neighborhood" followed closely by "John is a hardened criminal".
Point #2: Then you discuss President Trump's "personal nastiness", having a "giant chip on his shoulder", and "looking to inflict payback". On what basis are your opinions/assertions based? How well do you trust your ability to (a) know what's in the President's heart and mind and (b) discriminate between marketing catchphrases/negotiating strategies and raw vengeance?
Yes, there have been humble, reluctant leaders such as Cincinnatus, but some situations require a Patton, a Churchill, or a Trump. Could Cincinnatus have cleaned the Augean stables?
Well, as for case #1 - mark it down to lack of editing. But I'm not making a doctoral thesis, just posting on a substack thread. The overall point is we have 2 men who are arguably the 2 most powerful men in the US, and maybe the world. One of them, Musk, is a genius. That level of genius often comes with a lack of empathy. Do I know this applies to Elon for certain? No. Of course not. I concede I should have made that clarification. My concern is that Elon is operating as though the US was like Tesla, or SpaceX -- things he created out of thin air and owns them completely. Making those companies successful (while remaking X and tweeting 50 times a day -- how this guy does all this is a mystery!) requires a unique level of single-mindedness -- ruthlessness in fact, which is a little scary in someone now making decisions regarding the US government. Just my opinion based on personal observations and being something of a political junkie since I first voted for Ronald Reagan -- I've seen quite a bit since then
As for point #2 -- I was born, raised in, and still live in the NYC metro area. I've observed DJT's career (celebrity) since his days of embarassing Ed Koch by fixing the Wollman skating rink in six months and under budget, while stiffing the bondholder of two Atlantic City Casinos. He has personally bragged about not paying contractors. His personal nastiness is one of his charms, depending on your point of view, and anyone who has observed him over the decades would agree. One doesn't need to be a clinical phsychologist to state that. Do I know his mind, exactly? No, of course not. Or at least, no more than the people who seem think he can do no wrong, and there are far too many of them right now.
So yeah, I'm just spit-balling here, like everyone else, and yes, I'm trying to do it without provoking a nasty spat with someone online. Life is too short for that. While I'm capable of giving as good as I get, I do try to be civil and I appreciate you pointing that out.
And I do think we can agree on one thing here. Your Augean Stables reference is as fictitious as my nod to Colonel Kurtz, and touche for that reply. But, DJT is certainly no Patton, or Churchill. We don't know what he is yet. It's still early. But as I said to someone else -- we should all be very careful of what we're wishing for here.
That was a long reply. Sorry about that. I think I'm done for the day!
I too am a life-long registered Republican. I think your diagnosis of the two men is correct. But Trump is doing more than settling scores. He is clearing the way for future accumulations of power. Getting the business community and the nation’s law firms to obey in advance, afraid to speak out against what they know is unlawful or wrong. Trump has not even tried to justify what he’s done to Perkins Coie. The firm is losing clients, who are afraid if they stay with Perkins Coie, they too will have security clearances revoked and government work stripped away. Anyone seen to have done something Trump does not like will be isolated, as if they had the plague. Thus does Trump further consolidate his power.
But what DOGE is doing is wrong. Short cutting the process by firing everyone and discovering what are essential government services to be rehired by seeing who screams the loudest. Those who don’t scream are waste and we’re well rid of them. This is a good way to harm millions of people in the process and to make tons of mistakes.
The model for downsizing government is Al Gore’s “Reinventing Government” project, which occupied 7 years of the Clinton administration, reduced government workers by 426,000, and slimmed government spending so successfully that Clinton’s term end with four consecutive years of budget surpluses, fiscal years 1998-2001. the first surpluses in decades. No drama. No upset. Studying each agency like McKinsey or Booz Allen would do to see where functions can be consolidated, streamlined, or eliminated without damaging government services needed to keep the public safe, healthy, and secure.
That is the professional way to make government more efficient. What DOGE is doing is the lazy man’s approach. Send out impersonal, identical bulk emails, without regard to the performance record or job being done, and then put your feet up wait for the complaints.
BTW, the head of the White House Office of Management & Budget in Bill Clinton’s second term and the man who helped engineer those four budget surpluses, was Republican John Kasich, who later served two terms as Governor of Ohio, and who was a Republican candidate for president in 2016. At the Republican Convention in July 2016, Paul Ryan and Reince Priebus should have engineered the disqualification of the Trump candidacy and the nomination of Kasich. Kasich could have easily beaten Hillary Clinton in 2016, and we’d all have been better off. I said so at the time, and was furious with Ryan and Priebus for not doing their jobs. For not saving the country from a rogue president, as the founders intended for them to do.
Kasich’s job as head of OMB is the one Project 2025’s Russell Vought has now.
In engineering work, we were aware: "perfect is the enemy of good". The same applies to a massive reorganization and re-staffing of government to achieve different results than what has evolved as a result of FDRs New Deal, and the fallout from WWII and the Cold War. Trump and his staff can and should attempt to minimize mistakes and suffering, but they can't eliminate either and still get the job done.
Bad as it is, I don't think vandalizing unoccupied cars constitutes domestic terrorism, at least according to 18 USC § 2331(5):
(5) the term “domestic terrorism” means activities that— (A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State; (B) appear to be intended— (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and (C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States
Andrew Branca at Law of Self Defense has covered the self defense legal implications of attacking occupied vehicles. At least some of the Tesla incidents may have constituted deadly force attacks, potentially justifying a deadly force response. Given the normal evolution of these lings of events, I suspect escalation of the attacks and responses before long. Prompt arrest, vigorous prosecution and harsh sentencing of the attackers would dampen the aggression, but, given the political bent of many local prosecutors and our current ineffectual court system, it is unlikely to happen at the local level.
Of course, firebombing and shooting up Tesla dealerships, based on political motives, seem to me pretty clear attacks intended to terrorize prospective purchasers, but IANAL
Elon has massive basis for attacks against funders of the groups that are organizing attacks on Tesla. (Ala SPLC attacks on the Klan back when still did some good in the world.)
And he has the money and attorneys to go after them. (Plus the incentive and he's shown himself to be very litigious.)
Bumpy. Bumpy for sure. People talk a great game about cutting spending and deficits. They love to channel Milton Friedman. That is, until they are confronted with having to act like Milton Friedman
Professor, that's what dataRepublican is doing.
You're absolutely correct. I think Musk can take it further because he has access to internal data, whereas Data Republican (small r) is working with publicly available data.
BTW: It's amazing that Data Republican (small r)'s work hasn't been done previously. DRsr is not bringing any new data into the conversation, she's simply using her amazing mind to convert available data into useful information.
Indeed Perfesser...
THIS IS WHAT WE VOTED FOR!
There is a problem that is a major issue for the Left right now. Long ago, the British Lord Acton observed, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." But as a lifelong student of history, I have often noticed something else that power can do: it makes people stupid! And this goes back so far that the ancient Greeks had a word for it--hubris. Throughout human history, powerful people have done stupid things, and ended up paying for it, sometimes with their lives. Right now, the Left is on the receiving end of the payback. My main concern is for the Trump and the rest of the Right to avoid the same effect long enough to get everything done, and then know when to stop.
I think the probability of Trump becoming stupid is not as great. He seems to have a specific plan that is guiding his decision-making, and this plan was developed before November 5. As such, he developed this plan of action before he had any chance to become drunk with power. He would probably find restraint by sticking to that plan.
Of course, I don't know that he has a plan because he's revealing it only by executing it; it's just how I read the tea leaves. Assuming he does have a plan, we have no guarantee that he will stick to it. That's why I say its lower probability, not a certainty.
The shock and awe techniques of Tump, Elon and their strategists fortunately were not only impressive but totally necessary, but mistakes will be made and need to recognized and course corrections made . And you are right, while the counterattacks to date have mostly been pathetic and often laughable and/or counterproductive, the vested interests that are losing their monetary support and the extreme liberals/Dems who are losing the power they so greatly cherish will not go quietly into the night. Fortunately the MSM have lost their credibility and the audiences of MSNBC and CNN have been decimated.So to date, the Trump team, alternative media obviously including Substack and Fox are the voices dominating the debate.
Glen excellent thinking and writing as always. I think in all major reorganisations l, like is happening in government, things go too far too fast and there has to be a retrenchment. Some people are hurt and if they are available some could be rehired. I have also have relatives who have lost jobs but I am not as conflicted. One will have more time to stay home with her young baby and the other has an MOS and can go active duty tomorrow. As far as the President exacting revenge, if holding people to account for violating the rights of others then let the revenge continue. We can’t lose sight of the fact that not only was President Trump attacked but people around him were prosecuted, debunked, disbarred and more. Those civil rights violations should not be ignored. If they go unpunished why not do them again next time they have the power.
I believe that the Biden administration followed the law in holding those in the prior administration accountable for breaking the law. In doing that, the Biden administration was scrupulous in maintaining the traditional independence of the Justice Department in the DOJ’s duty to decide how to enforce the law. Attorney General Merrick Garland, arguably one of the most meticulous and careful attorney generals in history in following established DOJ practices and the rule of law, actually went overboard in his efforts to avoid not only the actuality of political motives, but also even the appearance of such motives.
But in the end, the facts of the situation, the actions taken by individuals, dictated that grand juries indict the alleged violators of the law. Unfortunately, those accused were unwilling to let a court exonerate them in line with their assertions they did nothing wrong, and no federal trials were held. But the Biden Administration followed the law. No one’s rights were violated, no one was unfairly attacked, and there is nothing of that nature for which the previous administration needs to be held to account.
Making the former Gov. of the BOE, Mark Carny, Premier of Canada is the first shot of the globalists against DJT and the US.
We need to weaponize the situation with two simple catch-phrases that will resonate with people:
WHERE DID THE MONEY GO?
-and-
WE KNOW WHERE THE MONEY WENT.
That will have the left in a catatonic state, terrified of being exposed. And the media will tread lightly, never knowing which politicians or entities can be wrecked with a single public statement from the WH.
And the great majority of the public, distrustful of government as it is, will eat it up. It will play perfectly at the mid-terms and beyond.
Please clarify: What money?
All of it. All of the grift via USAID and the various bureaucracies. All of the money flowing to the NGOs and "researchers" and circulating between Ukraine and Biden's 22 shell corporations, etc etc. All of the crony arrangements congresspeople have with outside entities.
And the beautiful thing is that they won't know what's been discovered and what hasn't -- they'll just have to assume the worst.
Great article. When you go into a fight expect to be hit. It's much much worse when you don't fight back. The Democrats are used to kicking us when we are down. Trump and Musk are fighting back. It's glorious! Americans don't lack courage. We just needed leadership.
Glenn, a question. Trump did an executive order requiring a bond when filing a federal lawsuit. What effect is that having if any?
Yes, these will be times that we will remember as being significant to us personally and to our nation. And as you note that generally means there will be much uncertainty and consternations. It's a great time to be an American, all in all.
I've voted Republican my whole life (I'm 64), and have been supportive of what DOGE is trying to do (even if part of the cost is my daughter's job, which leaves me conflicted, to say the least). But when I step back and observe -- what we're seeing is Trump settling scores, and he brings to that fight long history of personal nastiness. Is there anyone who, once entering Trumps inner circle, walks away totally unscathed? Combine that with Elon, who occupies a place on the spectrum which often comes at the cost of having little or no ability to feel empathy. So, we have the two most powerful men in the country (world?), one with a giant chip on his shoulder and looking to inflict a little payback on the system that tried to ruin him, the other the richest man in the world but utterly lacking in empathy, and both are operating with few if any guadrails, at the moment. So why does the idea of them bringing advanced machine learning into this mix leave me a little uneasy? I don't see any Cincinnatus's here -- job done so I give up power, go home and tend to the farm. What comes next with these two?
I believe that retribution is something that many, if not most of us, voted for. Not for wrongs committed against Donald Trump. For wrongs committed against America, especially our children. If President Trump can pocket a little payback as part of that, I'm okay with it.
I might agree with you but for this - "for wrongs committed against America" -- what wrongs, exactly? And by whom, specifically? I mean I TOTALLY agree with you that the list of wrongs is long. And equally long is the list of villains. And if they were limiting their focus to the deep state actors I'd be loudly cheering from the sidelines. But one of their first acts was to fire every probationary employee, in every agency. We're talking about a bunch of 23 -28 year olds making 60K a year -- many of them coming off stints in the military. These are not the deep state scalps that people want to think they are. They're the youngest, lowest paid but arguably most enthusiastic employees. Shouldn't you want to keep those?
And I'm all for the payback, in theory. In reality, however, we should be guided by an ageless maxim -- Be careful what we wish for.
What a time to be alive. This is Fourth Turning stuff unfolding every day.
Civil service protections are crazy, but probationary folks are not protected by those, so they can be fired easily. I personally think we need a federal hiring freeze for a couple of years, with a few exceptions. Wrongs against America? How about weaponizing the DOJ and FBI and ATF against normal citizens? Or eliminating border controls? Or crazy spending trying to drive the country into bankruptcy? Have you been asleep for the past few years?
Having been a part of that world, firing the probies gets rid of potential useful, new workers. The old, useless, deadweight have been around for 20 years just sit tight. Marine Corps saying: It is easy to be hard, it is hard to be smart.
While I agree with you, that's not what is going on. First step here is to downsize, and downsize quickly. The only way that can be done is to un-hire people who have been hired in the last few years. Pruning bad apples will come later. In order to fire someone with civil service protections, you have to inform them of what their deficiencies are and then give them an opportunity to cure those deficiencies. Then document again and again and again, and once you begin the process, it usually takes about two (2) years before they're finally gone.
I worked in a rust belt F100 industry for over 40 years. The first folks to go were always the last hired. After that it was generally performance based.
No, I have not been asleep, thanks for asking. I was responding to the comment "for wrongs committed against America" which is a bit broad, don't you think? You've listed a few, and they're good, but again - overlooking some important specifics, like how do you go after people who've been pardoned, like everyone associated with J6? I haven't seen anything about going after Comey, McCabe, Rosenstein, Stzrok, etc and all those who were the heart and soul of the Russia collusion hoax. I have high hopes for Patel, so we'll see what he comes up with. Anyone indicting Majorkas or any of his deputies yet for the border scandal? And spending the country into bankruptcy has been a bi-partisan effort for the better part of the last 40 years. It was GHB who launched a $6 trillion spending effort in Afghanistan and Iraq which yeilded to the US the benefit of ... exactly nothing except another $6 trillion in debt. Anyone talking to George about those missing WMDs?
Again -- I don't disagree with these things in principal, but who, exactly, are we going after? Where are the big scalps? Right now, all I'm seeing is a bunch of low level employees being fired because they're easy to fire. In a subsequent comment you say that you only see the administration going after people who have violated their oath. Really? Who, exactly? And what has been done other than revoking their security clearance?
Proving misfeasance is quite different from proving malfeasance. Violating you oath is not criminal and usually only results in firing.
Retribution is a justifiable punishment for wrongs perpetrated. What wrongs? The persecution and prosecution of pro-life protestors, the kangaroo trials of J6 protestors (and even people not even physically present), parents expressing their opinions at school boards, land owners and business owners harassed, persecuted and prosecuted by EPA, not to mention all the people bullied and ridiculed for incorrect opinions about gender, DEI, CRT, ESG. The list is long and the victim list longer. Many, if not most, of the new fed employees were (very) likely specifically attracted by the ability to be one of the ones doing the inflicting....
Don't forget the IRS. Friends of mine, major Republican donors, were caught up in serial audits where the IRS perp told them he knew they hadn't done anything wrong but what were they going to do about it. Seriously. The husband was slowing down preparing for retirement. The IRS said he was hiding income.
I agree -- in theory. But the reality on the ground? Everyone associated with J6 prosecutions have been given pardons. Who are we going after? Persecution of parents at school boards? Randi Weingarten still has her job and no one's going after Merrick Garland who signed off on targeting parents. And school boards are elected locally, so if we don't like our school boards, that's on us, not the feds. All this DEI, ESG, etc came out of an education system that has not been adequately targeted. Start removing the tax exempt status of endowment funds if you really want to punish the purveyors of CRT and DEI.
My point is that it all feels like we're just doing a lot of lashing out at everything in reach, and convincing ourselves that we're the good guys and we're targeting only the bad guys. The truth is more complicated
Mr. McNamara, how can one say "we're just doing a lot of lashing out at everything in reach", and then assert, "The truth is more complicated?" Does the latter statement include "your truth"? As to the job termination of provisional employees--who were added en masse in the waning months of the Biden administration--how was the government functioning before bloating the payroll? What was the crying need to inflate the hiring of so many twenty-somethings so late in Biden's term?
It is also important to recall that the Biden administration had as a specific goal in hiring as many new federal employees as possible to form a bulwark of progressives against a future Trump (or any other less than progressive administration). In addition to ensuring proper obeisance to DEI, climate change, social justice, et al, in the candidates, I have no doubt that political reliability was a wink & nod condition in being hired.
Everything is complicated - that's an excuse to not do what is needed. Assuming good intentions on the part of many of the government workers, NGOs and non-profits got us here. The data are showing they were relentless in wielding and expanding their power, by all means necessary (their own words).
We should start at the head: who gave the orders/directions/promulgated the agency policy? Next: who then was rewarded for vigorously enforcing those decision; not just following the letter of the order, but pushing the boundaries, going above and beyond?
I have no doubt that many, if not most, of even low-level government and NGO workers were fully on-board with everything their agencies were doing, and looked forward to their own current and future role in making it happen. The Tik Toks, Instagrams, articles, editorials and protests make it evident that the vast majority of the people involved were fully vested in what they were doing.
Will innocents be swept up? Maybe. Probably, but address those (I think few) as exceptions. Don't preserve the bad to preserve a (very) few instances of good.
That's a recipe for ultimate defeat, in my opinion.
Agreed. I just don't see much effort to get at the chiefs. A lot of foot soldiers are being sarificed and perhaps necessarily so. I could do with a lttile less of the chest thumping I'm reading over the firing of a bunch of 25 year olds, I hope as much effort is devoted to getting the chiefs and former chiefs -- Comey, Schiff, Weingarten, Fauci, Cuomo in NYC, Murphy in NJ, etc.
Funny -- When I look back at my original post, it was about a measure of concern over the two guys leading the charge, and whether adding AI to their arsenal is a good thing. The charge/fight needed to be made, to be sure, but whether victory is achieved remains to be seen. It's still VERY early, and in depressingly predictable fashion, it's the low-hanging fruit that's the first to go. The real fight is still ahead. My fear is that DJT proves to be more Colonel Kurtz than Cincinnatus. We should all be very careful about assigning too power in so few people. History tells us that never ends well.
I think some of the things that appear to be "just doing a lot of lashing out at everything" are actually intentionaly creating the fog of war and keep the enemy off balance while the plan for the destruction of the previously unaccountable Administrative State is executed.
Nice, neat, and tidy gathering of evidence to justify Trump's course of action would just be distorted out of existence by the Administrative State and it's friends in the MSM.
The deep state didn't become a monoculture by accident. I expect a large percentage of those probationary hires were selected for their ideology as much as their expertise. It makes sense to release the folks hired by the last administration. As the govt is rightsized many would have proved redundant. Where additional workers are needed we can hire based upon merit.
Exactly. We don't get 70% (or whatever it is) in swamp jobs as registered Democrats by accident. Sixty percent of Federal workers are registered Democrats while 70% of their donations go to Democrats.
Running up the debt to 36 trillion is a wrong against America. The course correction will not be painless but it is absolutely necessary. Losing a probationary job is painful but in the long view it will ensure a better future for them.
Let's not forget a whole platoon of FBI folks willing to falsely testify to get Trump. Let's not forget a Deep State that squandered American tax money all over the place. There's also the folks that ran Social Security and Medicare with, if not corruption, at least extreme malfeasance. There is a LOT of blame to spread around.
"What wrongs exactly?"
I could write a long list that would be similar to the grievances against King George III in the Declaration of Independence.
"He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance."
Sound familiar? EPA, OSHA, IRS...
And that's just the beginning. The main wrong is our leaders embracing Globalization to make themselves and their friends & family rich, paid for by the American worker and taxpayer over the last 50 years. The "elites" of the United States have sold out their countrymen for money and power, especially by disadvantaging the American worker with onerous regulations that make it impossible to cost effectively manufacture in the United States like we did prior to MFM/PNTR for China.
Patriotic leadership would have ended the economic relationship with China on June 4th, 1989 when the Tiananmen Square massacre occurred.
Mr. McNamara: I think I partially understand your position, but not completely. The replies to your posts list many "wrongs", but they don't connect those wrongs to specific actions by Trump and his officers. However, I think that everything that Trump et. al. has done has been to either (a) reduce spending and/or (b) prosecute (or at least contain) the bad actors. Could please provide examples of actions by Trump's team that do not at least partially achieve those goals? (Or explain any misunderstanding I might have.)
Thanks for mentioning Fourth Turning. It reminded me that I bought a book with that in the title a long time ago. I just found it and have moved it to the top of the "Books to Read" stack. If you read that book, do you recommend it?
Yes. It's not an easy read, but the framework it discusses makes much of what is happening now make sense. It's admittedly a little unnerving to think that the climax of the 4th turning is not yet upon us, as it usually involves a major conflict, but there's a curious optimism you can get from it when you realize that this has all happened before, in a manner of speaking, and we all survived it.
Thanks again!
I haven't seen any payback on Trump's part yet. Payback would be going after people for no good reason other than you don't like their politics. What I see is going after people who have violated their oath to the Constitution.
Mr. McNamara, you make some important points in this post and the ones that follow, and your comments are, for the most part, written without excessive rancor or obloquy. But.....you make some assertions and generalizations that are weak. Case in point #1: You write that Elon "occupies a place on the spectrum which often comes at the cost of having little or no ability to feel empathy", and in the next sentence declare that Elon is "utterly lacking in empathy". That is quite a leap, akin to "John lives in a high-crime neighborhood" followed closely by "John is a hardened criminal".
Point #2: Then you discuss President Trump's "personal nastiness", having a "giant chip on his shoulder", and "looking to inflict payback". On what basis are your opinions/assertions based? How well do you trust your ability to (a) know what's in the President's heart and mind and (b) discriminate between marketing catchphrases/negotiating strategies and raw vengeance?
Yes, there have been humble, reluctant leaders such as Cincinnatus, but some situations require a Patton, a Churchill, or a Trump. Could Cincinnatus have cleaned the Augean stables?
Well, as for case #1 - mark it down to lack of editing. But I'm not making a doctoral thesis, just posting on a substack thread. The overall point is we have 2 men who are arguably the 2 most powerful men in the US, and maybe the world. One of them, Musk, is a genius. That level of genius often comes with a lack of empathy. Do I know this applies to Elon for certain? No. Of course not. I concede I should have made that clarification. My concern is that Elon is operating as though the US was like Tesla, or SpaceX -- things he created out of thin air and owns them completely. Making those companies successful (while remaking X and tweeting 50 times a day -- how this guy does all this is a mystery!) requires a unique level of single-mindedness -- ruthlessness in fact, which is a little scary in someone now making decisions regarding the US government. Just my opinion based on personal observations and being something of a political junkie since I first voted for Ronald Reagan -- I've seen quite a bit since then
As for point #2 -- I was born, raised in, and still live in the NYC metro area. I've observed DJT's career (celebrity) since his days of embarassing Ed Koch by fixing the Wollman skating rink in six months and under budget, while stiffing the bondholder of two Atlantic City Casinos. He has personally bragged about not paying contractors. His personal nastiness is one of his charms, depending on your point of view, and anyone who has observed him over the decades would agree. One doesn't need to be a clinical phsychologist to state that. Do I know his mind, exactly? No, of course not. Or at least, no more than the people who seem think he can do no wrong, and there are far too many of them right now.
So yeah, I'm just spit-balling here, like everyone else, and yes, I'm trying to do it without provoking a nasty spat with someone online. Life is too short for that. While I'm capable of giving as good as I get, I do try to be civil and I appreciate you pointing that out.
And I do think we can agree on one thing here. Your Augean Stables reference is as fictitious as my nod to Colonel Kurtz, and touche for that reply. But, DJT is certainly no Patton, or Churchill. We don't know what he is yet. It's still early. But as I said to someone else -- we should all be very careful of what we're wishing for here.
That was a long reply. Sorry about that. I think I'm done for the day!
I too am a life-long registered Republican. I think your diagnosis of the two men is correct. But Trump is doing more than settling scores. He is clearing the way for future accumulations of power. Getting the business community and the nation’s law firms to obey in advance, afraid to speak out against what they know is unlawful or wrong. Trump has not even tried to justify what he’s done to Perkins Coie. The firm is losing clients, who are afraid if they stay with Perkins Coie, they too will have security clearances revoked and government work stripped away. Anyone seen to have done something Trump does not like will be isolated, as if they had the plague. Thus does Trump further consolidate his power.
But what DOGE is doing is wrong. Short cutting the process by firing everyone and discovering what are essential government services to be rehired by seeing who screams the loudest. Those who don’t scream are waste and we’re well rid of them. This is a good way to harm millions of people in the process and to make tons of mistakes.
The model for downsizing government is Al Gore’s “Reinventing Government” project, which occupied 7 years of the Clinton administration, reduced government workers by 426,000, and slimmed government spending so successfully that Clinton’s term end with four consecutive years of budget surpluses, fiscal years 1998-2001. the first surpluses in decades. No drama. No upset. Studying each agency like McKinsey or Booz Allen would do to see where functions can be consolidated, streamlined, or eliminated without damaging government services needed to keep the public safe, healthy, and secure.
That is the professional way to make government more efficient. What DOGE is doing is the lazy man’s approach. Send out impersonal, identical bulk emails, without regard to the performance record or job being done, and then put your feet up wait for the complaints.
BTW, the head of the White House Office of Management & Budget in Bill Clinton’s second term and the man who helped engineer those four budget surpluses, was Republican John Kasich, who later served two terms as Governor of Ohio, and who was a Republican candidate for president in 2016. At the Republican Convention in July 2016, Paul Ryan and Reince Priebus should have engineered the disqualification of the Trump candidacy and the nomination of Kasich. Kasich could have easily beaten Hillary Clinton in 2016, and we’d all have been better off. I said so at the time, and was furious with Ryan and Priebus for not doing their jobs. For not saving the country from a rogue president, as the founders intended for them to do.
Kasich’s job as head of OMB is the one Project 2025’s Russell Vought has now.
In engineering work, we were aware: "perfect is the enemy of good". The same applies to a massive reorganization and re-staffing of government to achieve different results than what has evolved as a result of FDRs New Deal, and the fallout from WWII and the Cold War. Trump and his staff can and should attempt to minimize mistakes and suffering, but they can't eliminate either and still get the job done.
Bad as it is, I don't think vandalizing unoccupied cars constitutes domestic terrorism, at least according to 18 USC § 2331(5):
(5) the term “domestic terrorism” means activities that— (A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State; (B) appear to be intended— (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and (C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States
You could well be right, but if anyone is around those cars that are bombed, their lives are at risk. Whether or not that's enough, I hesitate to say.
Andrew Branca at Law of Self Defense has covered the self defense legal implications of attacking occupied vehicles. At least some of the Tesla incidents may have constituted deadly force attacks, potentially justifying a deadly force response. Given the normal evolution of these lings of events, I suspect escalation of the attacks and responses before long. Prompt arrest, vigorous prosecution and harsh sentencing of the attackers would dampen the aggression, but, given the political bent of many local prosecutors and our current ineffectual court system, it is unlikely to happen at the local level.
Of course, firebombing and shooting up Tesla dealerships, based on political motives, seem to me pretty clear attacks intended to terrorize prospective purchasers, but IANAL
Elon has massive basis for attacks against funders of the groups that are organizing attacks on Tesla. (Ala SPLC attacks on the Klan back when still did some good in the world.)
And he has the money and attorneys to go after them. (Plus the incentive and he's shown himself to be very litigious.)
All he needs to do is trace the funding flows.
Bumpy. Bumpy for sure. People talk a great game about cutting spending and deficits. They love to channel Milton Friedman. That is, until they are confronted with having to act like Milton Friedman
Elon should talk to Jay Valentine of Fractal Computing. He's already doing this, e.g. purging voter rolls in 20 states.