"#DOGE did NOT reduce spending – at all. But it did reduce federal employment; 271,000 people lost their jobs in the federal government"

#StartMakingSense talks w/ #SashaAbramsky, author of #AmericanCarnage: How #Trump, #Musk and DOGE butchered the US Government

https://www.thenation.com/podcast/archive/sms-012026/

#USpol #USpolitics #DOGEbags #SiliconValleyRight #austerity #tech #BigTech #TechBros #books @bookstodon

"Because conservative Christianity is so tightly woven into the state’s political culture, #Musk and his fellow California exiles find themselves confronting a new ideological fusion, a blend of neoliberal economic policies and Christian-nationalist cultural ambition, rooted in the state’s long history of resource extraction and at ease with racism and misogyny."

https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-texan-ideology-turner
#tech #BigTech #USpol #SiliconValleyRight #Texas #techMigration #techFutures

"Where Trump’s first administration was defined by a generally symbiotic but tenuous relationship with #BigTech, the second would be, from the jump, a rancid union of #SiliconValley ideology and fascist impulse. [...]

"In many ways, the shameless about-face comes as the culmination of the #tech world’s open embrace of self-advancing cynicism in recent years."

https://thebaffler.com/latest/e-pluribus-uh-oh-kim
#USpol #AI #SiliconValleyRight #technoauthoritarianism #techFutures

"The #AI boom has helped accelerate #SiliconValley’s lurch into authoritarianism. AI has been crucial in the operations of President Trump’s deportation machine and has further emboldened foreign dictatorships to harass and track dissidents abroad."

https://www.thenation.com/article/world/elon-musk-ai-saudi-funding/
#USpol #tech #BigTech #Musk #ElonMusk #surveillance #SiliconValleyRight #stateRepression #MBS #SaudiArabia #Grok #Twitter #socialMedia

#SpeakingOutOfPlace welcomes #QuinnSlobodian to discuss his book #HayeksBastards: Race, Gold, IQ, and the #Capitalism of the Far Right.

"We take a deep dive into the genesis of a weird and powerful merging of two seemingly different groups - the #FarRight and #neoliberals"

https://speakingoutofplace.com/2025/08/21/neoliberals-meet-maga-a-conversation-with-quinn-slobodian-on-hayeks-bastards-race-gold-iq-and-the-capitalism-of-the-far-right/

#neoliberalism #MontPelerinSociety #NewRight #racialistRight #USpol #USpolitics #UShistory #MAGA #inequality #SiliconValleyRight #politicalTheory #books @histodons @bookstodon

"#ElonMusk may have resigned from the Department of Government Efficiency, but few believe he’s stepping away from power. In under a year, #DOGE brought #SiliconValley-style disruption to Washington, consolidating federal data and dismantling oversight. Now, #Musk is expected to channel what he gained into a private #AI venture – with public systems still in reach."

guest: @MattBinder

https://omny.fm/shows/the-take/what-did-elon-musk-get-from-doge-and-what-s-next
#USpol #SiliconValleyRight #DOGEbags #cronyCapitalism #MoveFastAndLootThings #tech

"The reason why we ended up calling it 'end times #fascism' is because I think it gets at the narrative structure of all of these movements, and it is the same narrative structure as the rapture."

#NaomiKlein on #Trump 2.0 and "End Times Fascism"

https://youtu.be/Pw7nMKN7Bfc
#USpol #USpolitics #politicalTheory #Trumpism #neofascism #SiliconValleyRight #oligarchy #FarRight #NewRight

"Mr. #Musk’s grandfather was also a flamboyant leader of the political movement known as #technocracy.

"Leading #technocrats proposed replacing democratically elected officials and civil servants — indeed, all of government — with an army of scientists and engineers under what they called a #technate. Some also wanted to annex Canada and Mexico."

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/04/opinion/elon-musk-doge-technocracy.html?unlocked_article_code=1.AE8.DkY0.xuUNqvaLaS8R&smid=url-share
#USpol #technosolutionism #oligarchy #TechBros #techOligarchs #FarRight #SiliconValleyRight #ElonMusk #JoshuaHaldeman

'In #SiliconValley, companies are instructed to “move fast and break things.” #Musk’s own companies often take this a step further: They have few employees devoted to things like compliance or communication and often take massive, possibly existential risks. This is what Musk wants the federal government to look like.'

https://newrepublic.com/article/194044/elon-musk-doge-fraud-report

https://www.npr.org/2025/04/15/nx-s1-5355896/doge-nlrb-elon-musk-spacex-security
#USpol #NLRB #DOGE #DOGEbags #MAGA #SiliconValleyRight #DanielBerulis #whistleblowers #dataBreaches