Elon Musk's DOGE: A Deep Dive into Dysfunction and Dismay

A Bird's Eye View of Chaos

A colossal typo in the original title aside, let's dive headfirst into the swirling vortex of Elon Musk's latest venture: the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Musk, the self-proclaimed co-president with Trump (a claim as dubious as DOGE's efficacy), seems intent on disrupting not just Twitter timelines, but the entire fabric of American governance.

Like John D. MacDonald's villain in Pale Grey for Guilt, Musk evokes a distinct sense of unease. His antics demand attention, a sentiment echoed in the exasperated sigh of many: "This Musk dude. It's really too much."

DOGEbags Unleashed: A New Breed of Bureaucrat

What to call the inexperienced engineers populating DOGE? "Young and inexperienced" feels far too polite. "DOGE kids" lacks the necessary sting. Hence, a new term is coined: DOGEbag (soft "g," like the cryptocurrency; hard "g," like the bag of leftovers left to rot). Feel free to propagate. After all, where are the audit reports to back up their claims of fraud eradication?

Trump's Executive Order: A Recipe for Disaster

Trump's executive order on DOGE's "Workforce Optimization Initiative" mandates a nonsensical hiring ratio of one employee for every four departures across all agencies. This approach unfairly penalizes lean agencies like Social Security while allowing bloated ones like the Pentagon to remain just that: bloated.

More alarmingly, DOGE "Team Leads" wield undue influence over hiring decisions, effectively becoming agency heads. This parallel power structure eerily mirrors the Bolshevik consolidation of power in the Soviet Union circa 1936. History, it seems, rhymes, even if it doesn't repeat.

This decision, devoid of any publicly available performance data, appears entirely political, likely pre-ordained by the shadowy forces behind DOGE.

Elon's Meme Mania: Quantity over Quality

Despite juggling six companies and a (self-proclaimed) presidency, Elon is a posting machine. The quality, however, often leaves much to be desired. Take, for instance, the saga of DOGE's website.

DOGE's Website: A Masterclass in Transparency (of Nothing)

Elon boasts of DOGE's "maximally transparent" website. The reality? Initially, a blank page. Later, a butchered imitation of official government websites, lacking the American flag and the "Here's how you know" link. Details, as Peter Wrinberger of Bell Labs wisely noted, count.

The original doge.gov, formatted like a coin scam, raises further questions. Who was in charge? And why does everything DOGE touches seem to turn into a farce?

Technical Incompetence: SQL and Social Security Numbers

Elon's grasp of basic technical concepts appears shaky. His pronouncements on SQL and Social Security number deduplication reveal a fundamental misunderstanding of both. Deduplication, as any database expert will tell you, doesn't work the way he thinks it does. Furthermore, SSN keys can and do duplicate, and using them as primary keys is fraught with security and privacy risks.

DOGEbags Breaking Things: A Danger to National Security

DOGE's reckless disregard for established protocols poses a significant threat. Granting a 25-year-old former SpaceX engineer "read/write" privileges to a sensitive federal payments database is not a "mistake," it's negligence. Bruce Schneier and Davi Ottenheimer, writing in Foreign Policy, warn that DOGE is "hacking America."

From nearly breaking the mortgage market to triggering a constitutional crisis, DOGE's exploits paint a bleak picture of governance by meme.

A Constitutional Crisis in the Making

Reaganaut Alan Charles Raul highlights DOGE's unconstitutionality, emphasizing that Congress, not an unelected tech bro, controls spending and legislation.

Talking Points Memo aptly describes DOGE as a "parallel overlaying of authority" over the entire U.S. government, with Elon Musk operating as an independent actor whose actions the President simply rubber-stamps.