Guest Editorial: Trump Card Or Sisyphean Mission?

Lim Teck Ghee

As President Trump finalises his dream team to make the United States (US) great again, the most intriguing appointment is of Elon Musk and Vivek former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to lead a newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Despite its name, the department is not a government agency though it has been suggested that its main aim is to help business tycoons such as Musk dodge government regulations by leveraging their wealth to influence policy making. It is an advisory commission that, according to Trump, will work from outside government to offer the White House “advice and guidance” and partner with the Office of Management and Budget to “drive large-scale structural reform, and create an entrepreneurial approach to government never seen before”.

DOGE Role Model for the World?

DOGE is an undertaking which many countries in the world should be looking at closely not only for its impact in the US but also as a possible role model for their own governments. This applies to western allies of the US where disillusionment and distrust of government has become pronounced as evidenced by recent polls. It is also found in countries in the developing world where the rapid and unchecked growth of their bureaucracies - increasingly bloated, outdated, unaccountable and corrupt - has hindered rather than contributed to their socio-economic progress.

Trump explained that the surprise move was to shock government systems and to “pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies”.

According to Musk, if DOGE succeeds, it can trim up to US$2 trillion from the current US federal budget of US$6.4 trillion whilst Ramaswamy has touted that it could reduce the number of federal employees by as much as 75%.

Trump has also been vocal that it is to address “massive waste and fraud” in government spending. Less prominent in pronouncements on DOGE is that it is to drain the swamp and to battle the deep state that Trump and supporters see as the main reason for his inability to implement the policy reforms of his first term.

“Either the deep state destroys America, or we destroy the deep state,” the president-elect told supporters at his first rally of the 2024 election cycle.

This is easier said than done. Not only have previous attempts at trimming back the federal bureaucracy failed - the most recent during Reagan’s presidency - it can be expected that key forces within Congress, the federal bureaucracy and deep state actors - will fight to kill off attempts at downsizing the bureaucracy as this threatens their influence and power. 

Why DOGE Will Fail

The campaign to disparage and stymie DOGE has already begun in earnest with US mainstream media giants such as CNN and New York Times fully engaged in bad mouthing the proposed agency even before it has begun work. The most favoured line of attack for now is that the new agency is an attempt at revenge and retribution by Trump.

Mainstream media voices are being joined by those from the American left concerned that DOGE may be a tool for big business. A recent report in Jacobin, a leading socialist print and social media outlet described DOGE as “asinine and dystopian” and expressed the hope that its relationship with the Trump administration “flames out spectacularly” (https://jacobin.com/2024/11/musk-doge-trump-government-efficiency).

There may be a number of other possible outcomes, apart from flaming out, arising from this unprecedented attempt at institutional reform

The one with the highest possibility is that it will fade out - not spectacularly but probably with a whimper. Conceived as an advisory task force - a high-powered think tank at best according to Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office and now president of the centre-right American Action Forum - it has no evidence of bipartisan support or budget to get its plans going,     

DOGE is dependent on the persuasive power of Musk and Ramaswamy. Both are entrepreneurs without political experience to bring to the congressional jungle where their business prowess will not count for much. Meanwhile, their promoter, Trump, will have bigger battles on his hands so this particular “shock and awe” approach is likely to prove short-lived. 

A second is that while DOGE may bring about some closure of governmental agencies, the process of downsizing through encouraging early retirement and voluntary departure is much more difficult than in the private sector. There will be a thicket of legal and political challenges to overcome from progressive and conservative quarters that have constituents who are a part or supportive of the federal bureaucracy elite ensconced in Washington D.C.

As for draining the swamp and fighting the deep state, these too appear a losing battle. More likely is that even if the current Democrat swamp is drained, it will be a partial drainage and will be refilled with supporters from Trump's own swamp looking out for their own rather than America’s interests and well-being.

The deep state with its support groups embedded in the FBI, CIA, Defence and Justice departments and the military industrial complex will be the hardest obstacle for DOGE to overcome. The warning shots have already been fired at Trump. Expect these to continue with Musk and Ramaswamy as the latest targets.

Lim Teck Ghee

Lim Teck Ghee, ANU PhD graduate, is a Malaysian economic historian and policy analyst. He has a regular column, Another Take, in The Sun, a Malaysian daily and Oriental Daily; and is the author of Challenging the Status Quo in Malaysia, and Dark Forces Changing Malaysia (with Murray Hunter).

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