On Monday, Ursula Perano and Ben Mause reported that congressional Republicans are starting to realize that Musk is going to drag them all down. They’ve tied themselves to the idea of cutting government waste “But the tech billionaire’s latest move to drastically slash the federal workforce in the name of reducing government spending is wearing thin on lawmakers… Musk, who’s amassed massive power in Trump’s second administration despite having not been elected nor worked in government nor confirmed to any appointment, posted on Twitter that workers who did not oblige would soon be looking for work elsewhere… DOGE has made a substantial impact on the workforce, and many Republicans have lauded the work. Sen. Bernie Moreno, for one, insisted that federal workers ‘are cheering it on, honestly’ and that ‘the people who are being identified are people who aren’t doing a good job’ or ‘didn’t have much of a meaningful impact.’”
Even before getting to Democrats’ reaction, there are “some Republicans [less clueless than Moreno who] stressed the need for a level of decorum with workers— including Senate GOP Leader John Thune. ‘All employees need to be treated in a respectful and dignified way,’ Thune told reporters on Monday… Senators aren’t the only members acknowledging DOGE’s ‘act now, think later’ approach has its limitations. While Musk is a fan favorite of House Republicans, some can’t help but admit the road has been rough.”
The next day, Dan Pfeiffer focussed on how Democrats need to message on the mess Musk and Trump are making. “[V]oters,” he wrote, “are furious about the chaotic, clumsy, and counter-productive cuts from Elon Musk’s DOGE Commission. Voters find themselves disillusioned as townhalls in Georgia and across the country reveal the so-called populist they elected to cut prices is instead cutting their services, their government aid, and laying off their friends and neighbors. Some Republican members of Congress are complaining publicly; and many more are privately expressing their concerns to the White House… clear evidence of a grassroots backlash to Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s assault on our government. Democrats must define Trump’s presidency, push back on the cuts, and regain political momentum.”
People fear that the world’s richest man and his squad of inexperienced tech goons are rummaging around in the government and shutting down entire agencies and programs just cuz. The chaos and incompetence is palpable. There is legitimate concern about job loss in the parts of the country (i.e. most of the country) that have significant federal government employment.
Democrats need to channel and communicate this dissatisfaction… In 2017, Republicans eventually stopped having townhalls to avoid facing their own constituents. That outcome is possible again. In that event, Democrats should hold and livestream their own townhalls. Democratic presidential hopefuls (of which there are many) should go to places where the DOGE cuts are most impactful like Atlanta, Georgia, Birmingham, Alabama, and the Research Triangle in North Carolina and hold townhalls. They should be real townhalls. Open invitation. Don’t pack the crowd with supporters. Prepare for uncomfortable conversations and protestors. The drama will draw coverage and conversation. Lean into the risk.
The idea of shrinking the government is broadly popular, but cutting specific programs, aid, and services is traditionally unpopular… On paper, voters like the idea of paring back the federal government. But it has long been axiomatic that Americans are ideologically conservative but operationally liberal. Which is a fancier way of saying they don’t like cutbacks when it’s their asses on the line.
Trump will pay for DOGE if we can be specific in our critique— talk about the individual services being cut, the people losing their jobs, and the opportunity cost of cutting back on research. If this is an argument about the size of government or a reflexive defense of institutions or protocols, we lose. If it’s about what Trump, Musk, and their enablers in Congress are taking from people, we win.
Data for Progress polled specific programs that could be targeted by DOGE. These polls can help guide your conversations with friends and family.
…The most persuasive messages focused on cuts to HeadStart and healthcare for women and girls:
States have been unable to access federal payment systems, even for pre-approved expenses. HeadStart programs and childcare centers around the country cannot pay their staff or provide meals for children. Many are closing their doors. When children can’t go to school, parents can’t work.
The order specifically cuts off medicines, low-cost vaccines, prenatal care, and essential healthcare for more than 90 million women and children at home and worldwide.
…Share as many stories and clips as possible on social media. Send them to your friends and family. Don’t assume anyone is following this closely.
Elon Musk is not running for office. He will not be on the ballot when we try to take back Congress in 2026. Trump loves that Musk is taking the brunt of the criticism from the DOGE cuts. But nonetheless, Democrats should use Musk in their messaging. He is an attention magnet… I am personally exhausted by Musk. But he cannot be ignored. A message only works if people hear it. Talking about Musk solves that problem. I hope to see this photo in a lot of ads next year:
Musk and Trump keep talking about our deficit and the need to save money. That is not why these cuts are happening. Musk is taking his chainsaw to our government for two reasons. First, Trump and Musk hate the government. They view it as an impediment to making more money. They don’t want to follow the rules or be held accountable. If they can decimate the government, the country is theirs. They certainly don’t care about the people who will be hurt. The second reason is just as pernicious. The cuts will fund a massive tax cut for corporations and billionaires like Trump and Musk. Data for Progress found the following message to be very effective:
Putting the world’s richest man, who also happens to be a giant attention magnet, in charge of making unpopular cuts was a big mistake. Trump is leading with his chin. And Democrats are about to land an uppercut.
Chris Murphy has the same instincts. This week he wrote an op-ed for Fox News about Trump’s betrayal of working people, Donald Trump claimed he would help American workers. Now, he’s betraying them. Everything Trump has done since inauguration has been about enriching himself, corporations and his billionaire cronies. Musk’s been allowed to run roughshod over our government while Trump screws the American people.
Murphy reminded the Fox audience that “In 2024, candidate Donald Trump ran for president as someone who cared about the average worker in America. But during his first month in office, he has fallen head over heels for the billionaire class and forgotten the people who elected him. Right from the start, President Trump handed our government over to the richest man on the planet, Elon Musk, and gave him access to all our most sensitive, personal data so that Musk can use that exclusive access to make himself even richer. Even worse, Trump and Musk have launched a dizzying series of assaults on low- and middle-income workers, making clear that this billionaire takeover of our government will leave American workers even more powerless than they were before. And it’s not just Musk— Trump has surrounded himself with a band of billionaires who could not be more out of touch with the everyday experience of most Americans. The federal minimum wage has been the same since 2009: $7.25. Sixty-two percent of Americans support raising the minimum wage to $15 because they agree if you work a full-time job, you shouldn’t be living at or below the poverty level. You know who doesn’t agree? Trump and his billionaire cabinet. His newly confirmed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent— net worth $521 million— made it clear during his confirmation hearing that he believes workers don’t deserve a raise in the embarrassingly low national wage floor.”
It only took one week for Trump to set his sights on destroying labor unions, where many workers join together to bargain for higher wages and better working conditions. Trump’s first target was the agency responsible for protecting workers’ rights, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
The NLRB conducts union elections, investigates allegations of unfair labor practices, and protects workers from being exploited by their employers, all of which enrages billionaires like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Musk. The NLRB can’t operate with less than three of its five members. So, what did Trump do? He paralyzed it by firing NLRB member Gwynne Wilcox, who had another three years left in her term. With just two members left, the board has been rendered completely toothless and unable to order parties to pay remedies or recognize a union.
But it’s certainly not surprising, with Musk in charge. Musk has always hated workers. He made that point very clear, outright declaring "I disagree with the idea of unions," and he’s successfully fought tooth and nail to block Tesla workers from ever forming one.
Tesla is the only major U.S. car manufacturer whose workers aren’t represented by a union, and they are worse off because of it. Tesla employees make about 30% less than workers at GM and Ford, who are unionized through the UAW. And before Trump killed the NLRB, Musk’s companies were the subject of 24 investigations for alleged labor violations. Now he has free rein to mistreat his workers.
We know what comes next because Trump has spent the first month in office executing a radical plan to hand government over to the billionaires. It’s called Project 2025, and this anti-worker, pro-corporate plan previews what’s ahead.
Project 2025 outlined an end to all project labor agreement requirements, which protect good-paying union jobs, and a repeal of Davis-Bacon, which assures that construction jobs using taxpayer dollars pay a living wage to construction workers.
Even worse, Project 2025 calls for limiting when workers receive overtime pay to only when they work more than 80 hours in two weeks. If you work 60 hours one week and 20 the next week, you won’t get the overtime pay you earned in the first week.
Trump and Musk have also spent their first weeks in office relentlessly demonizing federal workers. These are the people who inspect our food to make sure it’s safe, provide medical care to veterans, administer Social Security payments and process passports. Four out of five federal workers live and work outside the D.C. area. Before he was confirmed, Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russ Vought said, "We want to put [federal workers] in trauma."
The greatest insult to workers will be the giant tax and spending bill that Trump and congressional Republicans are pushing through Congress. It cuts taxes for billionaires, millionaires and corporations, and to pay for those tax giveaways, Republicans are going to gut the programs that help minimum-wage workers and their families, like Medicaid.
Medicaid pays for most nursing home beds in the country, where the parents of hard-working Americans spend their final days. Those nursing home beds will disappear, and working families will face bankruptcy, having to shoulder all the cost of expensive acute care for their loved one.
All of these attacks on workers happening at the same time, aren’t a big coincidence. Trump has decided to empower the ruling class— the billionaires, the big corporate CEOs, the financial firm titans— and gut protections and services for everyone else.
Musk doesn’t care about helping working people because his priority is using his newly purchased power to make money off his control of government. He used his role at the White House to get a meeting with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi so he could talk about opening a Tesla factory in India and shipping jobs overseas.
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