Yuval Levin talks responds to reports that DOGE will be helmed by billionaire tech executives:
The case for the DOGE, as it is taking shape, is basically a case for elite expertise dressed up as a case against bureaucracy. And as such, it is remarkably unconcerned with the challenges of legitimacy that are so central to populism in our politics. It’s being structured as if we haven’t just lived through two decades of increasingly intense populist conspiracism about billionaires using their influence to pull the strings of American government. Without intending it, perhaps without quite seeing it, the DOGE is setting itself up to be the subject of endless conspiracies to come, on all sides of our politics.
....They might as well just call this thing the Trilateral Commission and start talking in hushed tones about a new world order.
Note that Yuval Levin is a conservative. Elon Musk is not making a lot of friends these days.
The idea that billionaires have increasingly used their wealth to pull strings in politics isn't a conspiracy theory, it is a fact. Cryptocurrencies, for example, wouldn't even exist without billionaires pulling the strings. They serve one legitimate purpose, facilitating crime.
no, they serve a second purpose: cryptocurrencies make their fabricators wealthy.
...as if we haven’t just lived through two decades of increasingly intense populist conspiracism about billionaires using their influence to pull the strings of American government.
In 1980, there were 13 billionaires in the US.
In 2025, there are 13 billionaires in the incoming Trump administration.
Gotta wonder where that nutty "conspiracism" comes from.
Social media are a curse. Not just because they eat the brains of the participants, but also because they provide the incentives and opportunities for misanthropic billionaires to eat their brains.
Social media haven't been a curse for me. I have really enjoyed my Facebook community. Yes, I've had to unfriend or block a few people over the years, but how is that any different from real life? Nobody eats your brain on FB unless you let them.
There were a couple years when I was blocked occasionally by moderators for what they said were violations of community standards but weren't. I set up my own blog as a result. In the event, I unfriended a couple of people I suspected of reporting me and the blocks stopped.
Good for you! I wish you were the center of the universe.
Seriously? You insult someone who posts about using social media in a positive way? Humans have the choice to do that and not be led around by algorithms then whine about it.
These aren't conspiracies. They just aren't.
Imagine being Yuval Levin and looking at a literal cabal of right-wing billionaires who are running a non-existent department with no Congressional imprimatur and are being quite open about the fact that they don't answer to anyone and there will be no oversight, and thinking "well, this is going to unfortunately provide fodder to conspiracists" rather than "holy hell, the conspiracists were right all the time."
Totally agree. Wealthy individuals and companies have been pulling the strings since the founding, more so as time passes. There are numerous examples all through history. Teapot Dome, Whiskey Ring, Credit Mobilier, all the water rights sales and dams... It's a huge list of rich people fleecing the American People and digitizing everything only made it bigger.
The way to lose that game is to not play at all. Our government is the biggest mark on the planet and the con is extensive.
It is a conspiracy. There have been a great many real conspiracies.
Ollie Northsaid, in possibly the only true statement the guy ever made, said words to the effect of I used to think the press was just a pack of jackals but I was wrong I now realize that they are a bunch of individual jackals.
And whose fault is that? No one forced Trump to cozy up to a bunch of tech bros. He doesn't need them, they need him but there was no reason to take them aboard. Now he's stuck with them.
i believe i read that steve bannon called elon musk evil. for once in his life, bannon is correct.
Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then.
Bannon is sore because Trump is listening to Elon and not to him. And Trump listens to Elon and not to Bannon because Elon is richer.
Didn't Trump shitcan Bannon like two months in last time around? Strange that all these weirdos in Trump's circle hate their fellows so much and yet can't seem to quit each other.
Seems to me that trump picks people who aren't capable of working well with others and goads them one way or another to go at each others' throats. He likes to see the spectacle of people destroying each other just to be closer to the magnificence of him. It fulfills all kinds of ego needs for him and I don't think he could do anything different if his life depended on it.
So basically a cross between "Team of Rivals" and "Game of Thrones"?
That's intentional. It's the entire casting process for reality TV.
+1
Bannon is way too unkempt looking, and also didn't give Il Duce almost $300 million like Elmo. The MAGA Nazi's infesting Trump's 2nd Reich are mostly clean cut and way wealthier than Bannon.
The ideological rift between the clingers who wish to profit and the billionaires who wish to profit might be the best show in town for the next couple of years.
Bannon called Musk evil because Musk likes H1B visas. It's like Hitler calling Mussolini evil because Mussolini didn't kill as many Jews.
Weirdly Bannon also slammed Musk for being a South African, the “most racist people on earth” as if Bannon thinks that’s a bad thing.
What expertise?
Indeed.
Bilderburgers!!!!
Not to be confused with hamburders.
"two decades of increasingly intense populist conspiracism about billionaires using their influence to pull the strings of American government"
This is mostly a figment of the media's imagination, if not just Levin's. There is always agitation on the left about the actual influence of big banking and finance and the lobbying influence of corporations, but there is no "conspiracism" in this and it has little to do with the rise of Trump and his "populism". Trump throws out a lot of fake promises about how he will raise taxes on the rich (that didn't last long) and how he will replace taxes with tariffs, but when in office he was standard Republican and probably will be again.
So really, there is nothing fundamentally new about the rich having major influence in a Republican administration. The white lower-income voters who vote Republican on racio-religious-sexist grounds will not regard this as a betrayal - it's what they have been voting for for decades, and this year too - Trump's alliance with some of these people has been no secret.
And Trumpies are not. They are just temporarily embarrassed billionaires* You haven’t heard MAGAts voice Levin’s complaint. They are fine with Musk because he’s rich, a bigot, a self-proclaimed expert on everything, and a fountain of malice and lies, just like The Fucking Moron.
*Steinbeck quote adjusted for inflation
Many people, especially the rich, equate wealth with intelligence. Wealth does one thing particularly well: Feed one's ego.
"When you're rich, they think you really know." - Tevye
"Oligarchs populate the social club for cutting government regulation and funding."
Duh.