John Skiles SkinnerSome outlets are reporting that DOGE "doesn't exist" anymore. But the fine print on that overturns the whole story: DOGE is just dropping its tarnished brand, not the chainsaw. 🧵
OMB director Russell Vought is still mass-firing and defunding the federal services that protect us from scams, like the CFPB, and the services that protect our health. Children are dying of preventable disease:
There was a power struggle within DOGE and some of the particular people no longer have official roles in government. But that's pretty meaningless.
Case in point: Musk's right-hand man Steve Davis acted as the de facto head of DOGE long after being fired, purging anyone not loyal to him.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/11/21/doge-elon-musk-succession-00641110
Musk appointee Josh Gruenbaum is still in charge of the Federal Acquisition Service, writing sweetheart contracts to AI companies, sending your tax $ to billionaires.
Joe Gebbia is still making propaganda .gov websites; his "National Design Studio" is a DOGE rebrand.
45 DOGE employees remain in government as of October. And that's just the official ones -- not counting Musk's appointees without DOGE in their title, nor the people like Davis or Musk himself who exert power without an official title at all.
A constant churn of purging and back-stabbing within the ranks of the fascists is to be expected. Even violence. Hell, until I read that Politico article I almost forgot that Musk had a literal black eye on the day he was forced out.
Professionalized civil service was created to prevent exactly this type of violence, after the assassination of James A. Garfield. These safeguards are being removed.
Just because some of the fascists get purged does not mean any part fascism is over. Chaos is to be expected.
I'll admit I enjoyed the textbook irony of DOGE people being interrogated and fired in exactly the same way they interrogated and fired me and my colleagues.
And, I do feel a sense of pride in how thoroughly federal workers crushed the DOGE brand by accurately and loudly describing what DOGE was doing to government services.
It's good to force a rebrand! Like, Philip Morris can become Altria but they can't get a whole new generation to smoke like the 1950s.
But let's remember: those now-discarded DOGE kids stumbled so that Vought could run. Now he's working with proven systems for starving and wrecking government capacity, against a government with a weakened immune system. The damage is going to be generational.
Elle O. Vee Eee@skiles I cant imagine the mess those systems are in now.
Paco Hope