Democrats need to concentrate on their message, not Musk | Andrew D. Hayes (2025)

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The Democratic Party has struggled to coordinate a cohesive response to the Trump administration’s aggressive, controversial and relentless executive actions since he took office. Their present plan is to demonize President Trump as a dictator who is wrecking the economy through tariffs and trade wars that will end with heated inflation and slowing economic growth, i.e. stagflation.

If the president’s theory and subsequent gamble on tariffs fails to bring back manufacturing jobs to America, then his endeavor to create a new “Golden Age” won’t be what he envisioned or promised.

And while the dictator moniker employed by Democrats appeals to its base and some Independents, it is not registering with the other half of the country.

Not yet. Not until the president defies a U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Not until he seriously tries to circumvent the 22nd Amendment to weasel his way into a third term.

The real sign that the Dems are in disarray is their panic mode over Elon Musk and DOGE. It is understandable that there is frustration and concern regarding mass firings of federal workers and the way in which it is being done.

But Musk doesn’t have hiring and firing authority. That is under the purview of the heads of the various executive agencies. He is a “special government employee” empowered to uncover information regarding questionable government spending and operations. He is limited to working 130 days in a year so the left’s frequent cry that he was not elected is irrelevant.

The only elected officials in the entire executive branch are the president and vice president.

One would think that the core mission of DOGE – to uncover waste, fraud and abuse – would be embraced by both political parties, at least to some degree. And remember, the other mission Musk and his team are tasked with is bringing the federal government’s automation systems current with today’s technological best practices.

Who can argue with that? Apparently, the Democrats can with their narrative of Musk’s perceived evilness. The man who founded SpaceX which just rescued the stranded astronauts from space, the largest shareholder of Tesla stock, an innovative American company whose mission is “to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.”

Musk was once the darling of the left before his support of candidate Trump and his involvement in DOGE. Now he is besmirched with the ridiculous Nazi salute hoax (more like a Roman legionnaire’s salute) and speculation of how his childhood in apartheid South Africa may have shaped his views.

So why is it so personal for liberals? It depends on what issue you are talking about. SpaceX is acceptable, Tesla, as much as they boycott it now, serves a noble cause in the fight against climate change. It’s when Musk and his team ferret out waste and abuse in some of the left’s favorite pork that things get personal.

Perhaps it’s the $59 million FEMA gave to NYC to house illegal immigrants in luxury hotels. Maybe it’s the $20 billion within the Environmental Protection Agency that the Biden administration reportedly knew they were wasting.

And, by the way, the opposition’s portrayal of the DOGE team as a bunch of youthful out of work gamers couldn’t be further from reality. As it turns out, that group includes senior business leaders and entrepreneurs from companies like Morgan Stanley, Cloud Software Groups and Main Street Health. Hardly a bunch of 20-something dark Web hackers.

What they are discovering should be applauded by those who want to make government efficient. It was revealed that the federal employee retirement system relies on 400 million paper documents stored in an underground limestone mine in use since the 1960s. DOGE plans to digitalize the system to bring it into the 21st century.

Then we learn there are hundreds of different IT systems at the Department of Health and Human Services that don’t integrate with each other. Or that the Small Business Administration granted nearly 5,600 loans totaling $300 million to children under the age of 11 during COVID. None of these facts have been disputed. And yet the Democrats are silent on the findings but not on demonizing Musk. And it is working.

Public opinion can be fickle. A recent NBC poll found that people approve of the effort to tackle government inefficiencies but question how it is being done. A simple question Democrats must answer: do they believe the United States can continue to incur $1.8 trillion in annual deficits without consequence? The answer is obvious, but then what did they ever do about it when they were in power?

Realistically, in addition to the proposed spending cuts, there should be no permanent extension of Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Everyone should feel some pain from this necessary belt-tightening. Also, the limit on income that is subject to Social Security tax should be increased dramatically to prevent that safety net from imploding.

President Trump’s actions on reining in government spending and tariff implementation is a huge gamble, and the American electorate is not known for having much patience.

Whether those swing voters who supported him in 2024 are having buyer’s remorse is unknown, but we will have an answer in the 2026 midterm elections.

Columnist Andrew D. Hayes of East Longmeadow writes twice a month.