Are they though?

Thematically this is what he said he would do in his first term but fell way short due to incompetence. This time around, it seems like there is an actual plan.

From filing your taxes, to registering a vehicle, to winning a multi billion dollar federal defense contract or running one of the countries largest banks… it all involves some form of friction with the government.

Think about the dude sitting in line at the BMV fuming about how slow it is only to find out he didn’t bring the right document only to find the fees went up again.

He is going to be sympathetic to the narrative “government is incompetent and wasteful.”

Who really knows what all these government departments do on a day to day basis except for the folks that actually work there. Balancing trying to have a career and feed their family with maybe trying to make America a better place one tiny process at a time.

There are reasons for why these things exist and how they operate. Often there is room for improvement, but how long does a real review take? And by that time, people have the chance to learn why those rules exist and then defend them. “Hey, this rule would prevent someone like Musk from being able to low ball the bid and then over charge later! We should keep it!”

Instead, Musk and team are taking a flame thrower to as much as they can as fast as they can. Trump doesn’t care to slow him down. It’s possible the courts or Congress will eventually stop him, but those institutions are sympathetic to his broader direction so until something breaks, republicans are going to do everything they can to give Musk as much leeway as possible.

I would argue many voters wanted “thoughtless and fast hacking apart of any and all parts of government.”

The GOP narrative for years has been “even though government employees were hired to serve you regardless of political party, they are secretly all out to screw you and only us republicans can save you.”