The Democrats might be able to demonize Musk and DOGE, but they are not undercutting the underlying theme.
I am not 100% sure that DOGE is as popular as the overall sentiment here. I believe there are many liberals out there who like the idea of an agency in charge of looking for and cutting waste, but still hate that it is Musk and DOGE doing the cutting. I wouldn't be surprised to see many moderates with that same belief.
The attacks on Musk and DOGE have largely been personal and the attacks on what they are actually doing are mostly based on false allegations or false assumptions. I hear much ado about how they are cutting food for foreigners by going after USAID, when in fact they are cutting transgender clinics, DEI, and things completely unrelated to foreign aid. By USAID's own account, they only budget nine billion of the forty billion dollar budget to actual aid. Most of it is designed to be spent on other initiatives that are determined solely by what the USAID employees decide. If critics were "really" worried about foreign aid, then they would be applauding DOGE for rooting out the money that is spent on other priorities. Perhaps some of that money currently being used for transgender clinics or DEI initiatives could be used for food, housing, and medicine for the poor.
But as it is generally in politics, it is not about right or wrong or even what is real. It is about who can spin better. Democrats and liberals believe that they are winning the spin battle even if they cannot really justify their underlying argument "against" accountability. I think this argument plays okay right now, especially given the amount of headlines where Trump is supposedly losing in court. But once those decisions get reversed (which most will) and once the actual cuts start to get more highlighted (they certainly will) then it will be a harder message that this is about Musk being out of control, rather than this being about a government that is out of control.
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