(Small point of order: Musk is both head of DOGE and not head of DOGE, depending on who you ask and what’s legally more convenient at the time. They’re really running up the scoreboard on the secrecy thing.)
Or maybe we should look to a neutral party. FBI director Kash Patel is not himself a member of DOGE, and he literally published a whole book about the deep state just two years ago. “It is worthwhile to be very clear who we are talking about,” Patel writes in Government Gangsters, and yes that is the actual name of the current FBI director’s recent book, “because the Deep State likes to operate in the shadows using arcane bureaucracy, opaque legal minutia, hidden levers of power, and insider political gamesmanship largely unfamiliar to the American public.”
Concerning. Also? DOGE. The agency has subsumed the most arcane corners of US bureaucracy to launch its incursions. To justify its firing spree it has attempted to draw legal distinctions so opaque, so minute, that it was recently reprimanded in court. It used an exemption intended to help onboard disabled workers faster to install SpaceX employees at the Federal Aviation Administration before anyone knew it was happening.
The only thing missing is gamesmanship, because DOGE is the kind of guy that plays Jenga with a hammer.
Or if you need a more precise definition, let history be a guide. The term “deep state” has its roots not in drive-time talk radio but in 1970s Turkey, where a bunch of unelected officials seized power within political structures.
“It is a phrase that generally refers to a kind of shadow or parallel system of government in which unofficial or publicly unacknowledged individuals play important roles in defining and implementing state policy,” writes historian Ryan Gingeras in Last Rites for a ‘Pure Bandit’: Clandestine Service, Historiography, and the Origins of the Turkish ‘Deep State’. In Turkey, those shadows were cast primarily by military figures, not juvenile technocrats, but you get the point.
There are signs, at least, that people are beginning to see DOGE for what it is. Republicans have faced loud protests in town halls, even in deep red districts. It’s gotten so bad that GOP House members have been told to stop meeting with constituents in person. The Supreme Court has handed the agency its first major defeat at that level of the judiciary. Improperly fired workers are starting to return to their jobs.
“Deep state is limited,” writes Patel. “It depends on a lot of people either having no idea what’s going on or being led to believe that what the Deep State is doing is actually good. When those people stop listening, the Deep State starts to lose control.”
The impacts of DOGE’s cuts are increasingly impossible to ignore, or to confuse with any greater good. Whether DOGE loses control will depend, though, on if anyone in power can see that it’s the very thing they’ve warned against. Or if they can bring themselves to care.
The Chatroom
What would actual DOGE transparency look like?
Leave a comment on the site or send your thoughts to mail@wired.com.
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What Else We’re Reading
🔗 How Elon Musk Muscled His Way Into the FAA: Great details here about DOGE’s increasing influence at the FAA, an agency rife with potential conflicts of interest for Elon Musk. (Bloomberg)
🔗 Draft of Trump Executive Order Aims to Eliminate Education Department: Can a president shut down a cabinet-level department on a whim? Most legal experts say otherwise, but it appears we’ll find out for sure soon. (The Wall Street Journal)
🔗 Fact-checking Trump’s address to Congress: Are facts still a thing? Are we still doing facts? Let’s assume yes, at least a little while longer. (CNN)
The Download
Check out this week’s special episode of our Uncanny Valley podcast: DOGE’s $1 Federal Spending Limit Is Straight Out of the Twitter Playbook. WIRED’s director of business and industry Zoë Schiffer joined global editorial director Katie Drummond to dig into all things DOGE. Listen now.
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