Example Image
Civitas Outlook
Topic
Politics
Published on
Feb 27, 2025
Contributors
Joel Kotkin
Photo from Unsplash

DOGE Is Waging a Class War on America’s New Clerisy

Contributors
Joel Kotkin
Joel Kotkin
Senior Research Fellow
Joel Kotkin
Summary
Elon Musk’s department represents a significant challenge to the entitled, well-paid and self-serving bureaucracy.
Summary
Elon Musk’s department represents a significant challenge to the entitled, well-paid and self-serving bureaucracy.
Listen to this article

The ever-mounting hysteria over Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) seems to largely be coming from that large sector of Americans who work for, or in other ways feed from, Washington’s seemingly bottomless trough. As government employment and spending have cascaded in recent years, this has created not so much a ‘deep state’, as the right-wing paranoids suspect, but a huge and expanding protected class of people who are anxious to defend their livelihoods.

Most anti-DOGE jeremiads avoid questions of class or self-interest. Predictable Democratic allies, like the Atlantic, accuse Musk of presiding over a ‘reign of ineptitude’ and waging war on defenseless civil servants. Some suggest that this reflects a deep-seated desire by GOP neanderthals to remove objective ‘empiricists’ from Washington – presumably the same ‘experts’ who led the nation into mounting debt, high inflation, increasing class divisions and a chronic inability to get things built at reasonable cost.

Many have resorted to the tired, old ‘fascist’ meme. Anne Applebaum sees Musk’s disruption of the federal bureaucracy as nothing less than the arrival of authoritarian ‘regime change’. As if auditing the bureaucracy is now the first step towards totalitarianism. Even some populist conservatives have warned that the fallout from DOGE’s cuts will ultimately harm vulnerable working-class people the most.

Continue reading at Spiked

10:13
1x
10:13
More articles

Painting the Revolution

Politics
Jul 11, 2025

How Big, Bad, or Beautiful?

Politics
Jul 10, 2025
View all

Join the newsletter

Receive new publications, news, and updates from the Civitas Institute.

Sign up
More on

Politics

Liberal Democracy Reexamined: Leo Strauss on Alexis de Tocqueville

This article explores Leo Strauss’s thoughts on Alexis de Tocqueville in his 1954 “Natural Right” course transcript.

Raúl Rodríguez
Politics
Feb 25, 2025
Long Distance Migration as a Two-Step Sorting Process: The Resettlement of Californians in Texas

Here we press the question of whether the well-documented stream of migrants relocating from California to Texas has been sufficient to alter the political complexion of the destination state.

James Gimpel, Daron Shaw
Politics
Feb 6, 2025
Who's That Knocking? A Study of the Strategic Choices Facing Large-Scale Grassroots Canvassing Efforts

Although there is a consensus that personalized forms of campaign outreach are more likely to be effective at either mobilizing or even persuading voters, there remains uncertainty about how campaigns should implement get-out-the-vote (GOTV) programs, especially at a truly expansive scale.

Grant Ferguson, James Gimpel, Mark Owens, Daron Shaw
Politics
Dec 13, 2024
National Poll from Civitas Institute: Trump Victory Driven by Voters Who Reject Status Quo

The poll asked 1,200 Americans an array of questions about how things are going in America.

Daron Shaw
Politics
Dec 11, 2024

The Three Whiskey Happy Hour

Steven Hayward brings you the Power Line Blog's perspective on the week's big headlines.

View all
** items
Waning American Pride Threatens the Republic

Political polarisation has reached fever pitch, with each side increasingly viewing the other not as opponents but as enemies.

Joel Kotkin
Politics
Jul 7, 2025
New York’s Surging New Leftist Tide Is a Chilling Warning to the West

The rise in support for Zohran Mamdani illustrates how an alliance of immigrants and the young urban precariat is taking on capitalism.

Joel Kotkin
Politics
Jun 24, 2025
Trump’s Iran Ceasefire Depends on American Oil

Trump has found his own formula — based largely on America’s tech savvy and energy abundance — to intimidate enemies and control friends.

Joel Kotkin
Politics
Jun 24, 2025
Trump Should Win His Court Battle with Newsom over Riot Response

The Constitution and the laws are on the president’s side.

John Yoo, Robert Delahunty
Politics
Jun 19, 2025

Wall Street Journal: Donald Trump Takes On the Conservative Judiciary

Politics
Jun 2, 2025
1:05

Trump’s Drug Pricing Plan: Consequences for Innovation and Patient Access

Politics
May 13, 2025
1:05

John Yoo: The DOJ Is Being ‘Tricky’ but They May Be Right

Politics
Mar 18, 2025
1:05

John Yoo: How Will Trump Try to ‘Redirect’ the Justice Department Toward ‘Public Order and Safety’?

Politics
Mar 14, 2025
1:05

John Yoo: Musk’s Audits Are Part of Alexander Hamilton’s ‘Energetic Executive’

Politics
Feb 10, 2025
1:05
No items found.
No items found.
Painting the Revolution

Trumbull makes the story of America’s independence about more than the men who secured it.

William Anthony Hay
Politics
Jul 11, 2025
How Big, Bad, or Beautiful?

A classical liberal critique of the new tax law.

Richard Epstein
Politics
Jul 10, 2025
McDougall's Wiser View of American History

Walter McDougall's wise view of America calls us to rediscover what our founders’ writings and deeds have to tell us about liberty.

Brian Smith
Politics
Jul 9, 2025
The Current Battleline of the DEI Wars

There must be an ongoing effort to identify the flaws in identity-based preferences, in addition to the heretofore successful effort to name a set of bad ideas and then target them.

Tal Fortgang
Politics
Jul 7, 2025
No items found.