Mr. Doge goes to Washington
There is a new government department in town. His name is Doge, Mr. Doge.
Mr. Doge is here to drain the swamp, to root out all the fraud, corruption and inefficient bureaucracy. Over the ages, there have been many “Mr. Doges” in many places. We could probably put them into three buckets:
Some don’t manage to change that much after all
Some really do crack down on "tigers and flies" - though primarily on the ones that are not loyal to the great leader. That’s how anti-corruption tends to work in autocracies.
Some manage to make real inroads, and set up a culture and institutions that are more efficient and less prone to corruption.
Let’s explore this through a little fictional thought experiment.
Mr. Doge goes to Moscow
Mr. Doge: Look at how corrupt the opposition-supporting oligarch is. Shady privatization deals with politicians, tax evasion. Scandalous! Time to stand up for the little guy, the national debt, the taxpayer, and democracy!
Alexei Navalny: Sir, I’d also like to report some corruption.
Mr. Doge: Please Mr. Navalny go ahead.
Alexei Navalny: So, the government contracts handed out to create Olympic infrastructure seem to have been billions above what such infrastructure has cost in other host countries, and they seem to have been awarded to friends of a leading public servant. That same public servant also seems to have a massive secret summer palace, which seems a bit sus when you have an official salary of 120k per year, no?
Mr. Doge: Oops, you're dead now.
Mr. Doge goes to Singapore
Lee Kuan Yew: We will start my presidency by launching an exclusive LeeKuanYewCoin to commemorate my presidency. I am gonna own all the supply and sell it to fans, speculators, and foreign governments! Oh, and of course, we’re not gonna launch it on the main blockchain for meme coins, we’re gonna launch it on a competitor chain owned by my donor buddies.
Mr. Doge: 1) What?
Lee Kuan Yew: Just kidding. The cornerstone of my ethos is that leaders must set a personal example of integrity. I believe in zero tolerance towards corruption, full transparency, and it is absolutely central that no one, however powerful or close to me, is immune if found corrupt. We will wear white to symbolize this. I will broaden the definition of corruption and give the independent Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) expanded legal powers to go after public and private corruption. We will also tighten rules to ensure open, merit-based awarding of government contracts and establish an independent Public Service Commission tasked with upholding meritocratic appointment and promotion criteria to prevent nepotism in the bureaucracy. We will pay public leaders competitively, but we will have zero tolerance for any deviation from serving the public interest.
Mr. Doge: That sounds great. I hope you will remain steadfast in opposing all corruption no matter how close it is to political power.
Lee Kuan Yew: My resolve to protect integrity is iron. Ask my friend Teh Cheang Wan.
Mr. Doge goes to Washington
Mr. Doge: I’m here to restore democracy to the US. I’ve found so much waste, corruption and fraud in the government, and we will go after it aggressively. People are finally gonna get what they voted for.
Friendly observer: Wait, when did the US population vote to abolish AIDS relief, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, disaster response, cancer research, and the Department of Education?
Mr. Doge: Very funny. My co-volunteer billionaire buddy would say direct democracy is a “horror show”. This is not Switzerland.
Friendly observer: So, people are finally gonna get who they voted for?
Mr. Doge: Strictly speaking, I have not been elected. However, I am by far the biggest donor of the elected president. So, I do have the mandate of the American people.
Friendly observer: Right, venal office, oval office, potayto, potahto. Let’s focus on the mandate. DOGE is a renaming of the US Digital Service, a small bureau that was created under a previous administration to assist government departments with the legal mandate to “modernize federal technology and software to maximize efficiency and productivity” with the explicit limitation of not impacting the authority of any other agency or executive department. Other democratic countries like the Netherlands have similar offices. How come no-one else has interpreted that as a sweeping mandate for control over all other government agencies?
Mr. Doge: When you're a centibillionaire controlling the biggest news platform, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab 'em by the PC.
Friendly observer: Right, but legal details aside aren’t there some potential conflicts of interest here?
Mr. Doge: You don’t get it if you think I’m in this for the money. Besides we are the most transparent government agency ever, no one has ever seen so much transparency.
Friendly observer: Will that transparency include your team members, your secret plans, CDC data or Presidential tax returns? Anyway, let’s focus on fighting the corrupt, unelected bureaucrats. I presume you are helping to get the TRUST act against politicians trading on insider info passed and you will strengthen the role and independence of watchdogs to probe for misconduct by bureaucrats?
Mr. Doge: Not really my cup of tea. The new administration has actually fired independent watchdogs in federal agencies, disbanded the Task Force KleptoCapture, which went against Russian oligarchs, and suspended the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). This key anti-bribery law was an excessive barrier to American commerce.
Friendly observer: Hmm, so if the administration is removing institutional safeguards, it must all the more lead by example and ensure that no matter whether your name is Duncan Hunter, Chris Collins, Andy Ogles, Jeff Fortenberry or Eric Adams all investigations of corruption of public officials will be pursued, right?
Mr. Doge: Look, over there, a shrimp on a treadmill!1
Friendly observer: I see. I guess there is no point in highlighting that it would be a bit unusual in democracies to hand out de facto foreign policy responsibility for a region meritocratically, to the most competent family member, who then founds an investment firm that collects nearly 100 million USD in management fees for managing public assets from a country in this region?
Mr. Doge: Look, these things don’t matter in the grand scheme of things. The US is in a federal debt crisis. We need to move fast and break things, if we don’t manage to massively reduce federal spending we will go broke. The US has an ineffective debt ceiling, which has already been raised 78 times since 1960.
Friendly observer: But there are countries like Switzerland with effective, democratically legitimized and constitutionally protected debt brakes using debt-to-GDP ratio and economic cycles rather than an absolute number. Traditional pro-small-government think tanks in the US like Heritage and Cato know this. Also, how does this concern for fiscal responsibility add up with the President wanting to permanently abolish the debt ceiling and his plans for trillions of USD in debt-financed tax breaks?
Mr. Doge: Look, over there, condoms for Hamas!
Doge is in, woke is out
I would love to see a prediction challenge for the future US ranking in the Corruption Perceptions Index, US national debt, and US freedom of speech and press. I’m very happy to be proven wrong, but as of today, I’m not very optimistic that Mr. Doge will significantly reduce government waste, fraud, and corruption.
I think Noah Smith has nailed it quite well in “What I think DOGE is really up to”. The “de-wokeification” of institutions is a much more plausible driver. Call it “de-baathification”, call it “Truth Social and reconciliation”.
However, the degree to which this is an ideological recalibration of individuals within the system vs. a structural recalibration of the system to a more centralized, more autocratic rule seems important. To express this in analogies to the French revolution - is this more 9 Thermidor or more 18 Brumaire?
Call me old fashioned, but I still believe in the separation of powers, constitutions, and citizens with rights and duties - not "hobbits" ruled by a monarch.
a) 2011 wants its jokes back. b) Shrimp lives matter.
"Grab 'em by the PC" is an all-time line.
Making friends left and right I see. Thanks for this write-up!