DOGE staffer resigns over racist posts (opens in new tab)

If they hadn't already obviously ceded that title before 2025, they certainly did when over a thousand duly convicted violent partisan offenders were pardoned.

These weren't just random people, they were accomplices of the person who pardoned them.

We're in an autocratic United States now, where no crime, no matter how violent, committed by members of the regime will be prosecuted.

He is in a D+3 district that usually votes Democratic. That would usually moderate him. But see above about he would have to first survive a primary.

I've worked for both. I have seen massive waste in business, millions spent for no gain, staff employed to build a manager's empire, not to do anything that was actually needed and other terrible outcomes. Obviously that also happens in government too, although the bigger problem there was a whole bunch of lazy staff who were hard to fire.

But... A business can largely choose its market and optimise for that. A government cannot - it has to work for pretty much everyone. Business can choose to skirt the law or even break it. Government departments must comply with all law to the best of their ability.

Not saying there are no ways to improve government efficiency. But the people who think you just need a business approach (unless you just want to break it all) are deluded.

Government services should be efficient, but that should never happen at the cost of being independent from the people in office, transparent, auditable, secure, and accountable.

Do not mistake the Nazi's too. They were very efficient and highly organized. IBM played a great role in delivering the tech the Nazi's needed.

DOGE is a farce and I hate that I have to type the name of a joke from 2009 because Elon is a child and Trump is a crook.

I don't think “efficiency and technology integration” is. I think DOGE is because its being done by neo-Nazis and in support of a blatantly fascist administration and doing things that look a lot more like ideological censorship and corrupt self-dealing than efficiency and technical integration, including specifically targeting things in government that actually did efficiency and technical integration.

Blue team also required a bunch of thought-killing exercises and public signalling of things that are clearly inefficient and intellectually bankrupt and dishonest--this drove away a lot of smart people that actually wanted to get shit done, and made it easy for red team to point over and say "see, they're lying/delusional/woke?" as covering fire when red team pushed for their own odious agendas.

Blue team also not only failed to address issues but deliberately lied about them: the immigration crisis was pilloried when Trump wanted to build a wall, but once Biden took power a few weeks later suddenly _then_ the immigration crisis was a real policy concern. When people were complaining about the cost of food and goods, that was silly--but now that Trump's in power, suddenly we are told to care again. The attempted manufacturing of consent by the media on the left (and to be clear, red team does the same thing) is now too obvious not to be used against them.

Given all of this:

* Things aren't as bad as they're being made out to be, though they are serious.

* There is an entire industry relying on your fear and anxiety to exist, so practice good information hygiene.

* Maybe look beyond the obvious labels (woke, Nazi, marxist, fascist) to understand what's actually going on--don't be intellectually lazy.

* Revisit the things you think you know and why they're Good or not--and consider what others would think of them (for example, we can't both talk about how it's only a matter of years that "white" will be a minority in the US and that that's a good thing _and also_ claim that reactionary concerns about replacement are wholly unfounded).

Good luck to you.

What?

Vs ? what? a legal coup? or the other varietys like these agencies under scruteny fund worldwide?

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/07/elon-musk-asks-pentagon-for-...

After he did a $1 million lottery a day only for Registered Republicans, to bypass pay for registration laws, in a swing state during the election.. I'm guessing any leftovers of that will be lifted.

He won, but just.

Not that it matters. Serial violators of others' autonomy aren't know for coloring between the lines. Give them a femtometer and they take a light-year. And when you're a star, or president, they let you do it.

My understanding of troubles between people were that they were the historical norm. My country of birth, and all surrounding countries, have long interesting histories. Real ruins to match! Full of everyone and group vying for dominance with lots of periodic organized killing, at various scales, instigated by cultural waves and royal decree.

Every kind of group conflict over time. No reason to fixate and stew on any one. Certainly not any that “defined” the country. Just lots of mistakes.

No false pristine origin myth to wrap oneself up into! Dear Zeus no! What an odd idea!!

And the trend over hundreds of years clearly was one of steady improvement. Minus short term catastrophes.

So no need to continually revisit any particular mistake, or waste time downplaying one either.

When I arrived in the US, we didn’t have TV at my house. And we never did. So my sheltered historical interests continued to be global.

It’s quite remarkable how free my life was from any impact of US racism. I had heard of Martin Luther King. His memory was universally revered by my American family and wider circle. “Obviously” that little episode of slavery, contrasting with the thousands of years of interminable atrocities that were my context for judging such things, was well on its way out.

We had diverse neighbors, and everyone interacted. Lots of interesting adults taught me new things. I don’t remember anyone as being this or that, they were all just very different people, different looks, backgrounds, ideas. To me that is zen. Fun.

Somehow it took me quite a while to find out there were significant US people who were still quite racist. At age 10, I was confused by a conversation, and a friend told me there were still Americans with bad feelings about black people.

I tried to imagine what someone like that could be like? What would they look like? Why, most of all, why?!? No coherent form came to mind.

In the next few years I caught up on US history, or as we say everywhere else on the planet “current events”.

It was appalling to me that there were still small groups of white supremacists, operating mostly in the dark, That there were still people with quiet prejudices. But “obviously” those things were dying.

Today is absolutely unrecognizable. The level of self-reinforcing garbage just bewilders me.

Everything is argued from the most unworkable extreme. No DEI! (So no consideration for real talent in less easy to find places, or who might need a practical accommodation?) To DEI must be enforced, please sign on to our committees un-nuanced statement of diversity? (So no differences on quotas or approaches are ok?)

And the rest of us, including the diverse in question, left to muddle through all these moving barriers and the hate and depression they feed.

Total madness.

I feel like the US is in a tiny time pressure bottle, and a cultural pressure bottle too, isolated from healthy border contact with neighbors of comparable power. Cut off from most human history.

And the result is utter myopia.

Everyone (who talks loudly) thrashing around reacting to threats real, imagined and manufactured from paranoia or opportunism. In the process, making themselves credible threats to others.

I just feel lucky between my childhood elsewhere, lack of media, and early exposure to wider historical & geographic perspectives, that for a long time I was protected from the poison of US racism. I can tell you, it was a happier place to be.

I got to meet and know my adopted black cousin, along with other diverse people who were part of my amazing new large US family, without any thought of racism. For years.

I remember in my 30’s when I realized Prince was black! It was so ridiculous to just notice that I had to laugh. And then a whole bunch of other artists. Of course some artists struck me immediately as black for whatever reason. But I just didn’t think to classify people that way, for the longest time.