Wednesday Morning Rant

During the first Trump administration, there were certain universal and unquestionable truths espoused by the American press. Among them was the constant refrain of the first Trump administration: whistle-blowers are heroes. Not so much anymore. Ever since January 20, there has been nothing more hated than a whistle-blower.

Under the grinding of Trump's steam roller, whistle-blowers are now evidence not of brave #RESISTANCE, but of the unrelenting horror of new American fascism. The reversal has been extremely rapid, and extremely complete. The American press is fully consistent and unified to a fairly unusual degree in its opposition to the new era of whistle-blowers that, despite being less than a month old, has already caused seismic disruption in Washington.

Donald Trump has, in an historic first, designated an entire department committed to "whistle-blowing." It's called DOGE and its mission is ostensibly saving taxpayers money and whipping the government into something approaching fiscal sanity. That may be its mission - and it may even work - but that will not be its real value or its real effect. In essence, DOGE is not a fiscal department but an ethics department. The money DOGE saves is a bonus, a cherry on top. Its true value is in exposure. It has become clear in astoundingly short order that so far, every penny it has saved has been not a penny wasted, but a penny stolen.

Musk and his skunkworks aren't rooting out waste, but rooting out corruption. What they are exposing is unthinkable to many, and unspeakable (at least, not in public) for those doing what DOGE is now exposing. DOGE aren't fiscal disciplinarians, they're whistle-blowers. They're whistle-blowers, and therefore the demonic enemy of the political establishment and its symbiotic partners in the press. If someone walks up to you and says, "hey, just so you know, Mr. Jones is stealing from you and you might want to do something about that," you don't get angry at the person who told you, you get angry at Mr. Jones.

Yet the rage is all directed at Musk and DOGE. Not at the wrongdoers, but at the men exposing the wrongdoers - and their wrongdoing - to the pubic. If you become enraged at the messenger telling you that you're being robbed, it can mean only one of two things: you are either irrational and probably stupid, or you know about it already and are profiting from it. The former is possible. The latter is far more likely. These people aren't astonished to learn about Mr. Jones' theft, they're enraged that they won't get their cut. Their ricebowls - ricebowls made of looted taxpayer money - are at risk of being rightly and righteously shattered.

So the days of the heroic whistle-blower are at an end. Whistle-blowers are now evil. The playthings of a wicked billionaire disrupting their highly profitable games of theft and sundry other corruption.

When the whistle-blowers at DOGE demand and receive sweeping access to government systems, it is decried. Those who once shrieked about how nothing can be considered beyond the pale in the pursuit of truth now shriek that it is absurdly unfair for there to be even a notion of government accountability. When agency officials - like the recent one at SSA - resign rather than face scrutiny, it is evidence of Trump and Musk being monsters, not agency officials who are either corrupt or willfully incompetent and who would rather run than face scrutiny. DOGE notwithstanding, this aversion to sunlight is now on full display. As Senator King (I-ME) put it when discussing RFK Jr's confirmation : "If this were a secret ballot, this man wouldn't get 20 votes." "If only we weren't subject to scrutiny and the will of the people, we'd behave differently" is not the strong message that Senator King and the department heads fleeing DOGE's searchlight seem to think it is.

America's enemies within have only ever had once principle, which is the will to power. When celebrating "whistle-blowers' who lied and made up their allegations helped that ambition, whistle-blowers were celebrated. When demanding that their internal enemies be subjected to the corrupt gaze of a Press complex that spread lies about them, scrutiny - "speaking truth to power," they call it - was a near-holy virtue. When the hated enemy had so much as a single secret real or imagined (usually imagined - Trump has always been big on transparency), secrets were the death signal of the nation.

Now that the Washington is in the initial, early, fledgling steps of possible reversal, all of those great "principles" espoused by the ruling class for years are similarly reversing. All that was once virtuous is now evil. All that was once celebrated is decried. The reversal in the press and among those who are the public - and even some of the private - face of government is nearly total, and we have DOGE to thank for it.

Don't get too caught up in the dollars and cents. DOGE's fiscal mission is tremendously important but its effect on the balance sheet is, in my opinion, secondary. DOGE's true value is not its end, but the means to its end: exposure. DOGE's true value is the imposition of transparency. When sunlight floods in, the cockroaches scramble back toward the shadows.

So keep shining lights, DOGE, and keep laughing while doing it.

posted by Joe Mannix at 11:00 AM

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