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Welcome to New Washington
Correction: The Department of Government Efficiency did not rename itself the Office of Government Efficiency, as a post here claimed. It does not use the web address “oge.gov”. That address belongs to the Office of Government Ethics, which was not working yesterday, as the post below states. It is now, and it contains the news release concerning the dismissal of the head of the OGE, David Huitema. Had the site been working, I wouldn’t have published the error. Sorry. A corrected version follows.
This morning (i.e., Tuesday, February 11) I tried to confirm news reports that the White House had dismissed the director of the US Office of Government Ethics. That was at 05:00 EST, not the busiest time in Washington) and my browser told me to go away. “This site can’t be reached,” it said, “www.oge.gov took too long to respond.”
Has Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency struck again?
News reports on Monday that President Trump had fired David Huitema. And on Friday he dismissed the head of the Office of Special Counsel, US Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger, whose office enforces federal whistleblower laws. No need then, in New Washington, for ethics, for whistleblowing?
My little posts on How to govern [not like that] can’t possibly keep up with the avalanche of news from New Washington, so I won’t try. Instead read the news and the many attempts to interpret them elsewhere.
On Substack, Heather Cox Richardson captures multiple news stories every day and shows the pattern she detects between them. Letters from an American, she calls them. The one for yesterday, February 10, starts by summarising a Washington Post story of farmers who had signed contracts with the Department of Agriculture to improve infrastructure. They started to build fences, plant different crops, and install renewable energy systems with the promise the government financial assistance. Cut.
These cuts to spending – some say unconstitutional cuts – are hurting people most in states that voted for Trump, Richardson notes. Who’s sorry now?
Try reading other voices, ones less critical of the Trump administration’s agenda. I’ve subscribed to Compact, a site with some good writers and original thinkers. I’ll read it, for a while at least.
Some of those sorts of voices say that Trump’s musings on Gaza at least attempt to break free from the shackles that make conflict intractable. Why not at least look at the possibility that the US might just own the strip, and Trump might just turn it into the Riviera of the Middle East.
Trump’s statement sounds like an MBA student working on a particularly tricky case study. In business schools, you’re urged to look past all the obvious – and failed – solutions. Think laterally. Isn’t that what Trump did? But business school is merely game-playing, with no money – or lives – at stake. (NB: As an undergrad, Trump attended the Wharton School at Penn.)
So, listen to a range of voices. Weigh those views appropriately. Having tried to do that, I retain the view that we’re learning …
I’ll keep trying.