With Trump and Musk steering the ship of state, expect the unexpected

Katherine Miller, The Budget Fight and Trump’s Nihilistic Style, NYTimes, Dec. 20, 24.

In view of the recent spat over funding the federal government precipitated by Elon Musk (the richest man in the world), the strange story of Pete Hegseth & the Pentagon, the GOP's remake as a worker's party, and Silicon Valley's MAGA tilt, the political world as we knew it is fading fast.

But the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency, from its nongovernmental nature to the sheer power of the resources Mr. Musk may possess and his own demonstrated ability to shape events, is one of those things that you couldn’t dream up a year ago. Through Mr. Musk, spending cuts have roared back as a Republican concern over the past couple of months in a way that was not at all a sure thing given the arc of Mr. Trump’s first term, his resistance to cutting entitlements and the broader goals of some of the national conservatives. DOGE seems like an unpredictable outside force that could be nothing or everything next year, as evidenced in a certain way by the events on Capitol Hill this week.

Unpredictability and ideological inconsistency were always part of the first Trump presidency, and a major and chaotic theme of the past decade overall, as we limp toward the end of another year of wild news events. One of the inescapable conclusions of the 2024 election and everything that has transpired is that, generally, it’d be foolish and ignorant to say that systems couldn’t be run better or rethought, or that the public does not want significant changes to American institutions. But one of the most disorienting, uneasy aspects of this transition is knowing that drastic change is coming — and that the people, mechanisms and big-picture decisions can change from one day to the next.

Even the unexpected can be more unexpected than we think.

There's more at the link.