Destruction of Government by Elon (DOGE)

War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.

— Official motto of the Big Brother government in George Orwell's 1984

Donald Trump has assigned Elon Musk a chilling task: To dismantle and destroy large parts of the federal government.

Musk wants us to call this project by a humorous and innocent-sounding name: the "Department of Government Efficiency." We're not going to do that.

First, Musk's project is not an official department of the federal government. So, it is not factual to call it one.

Second, since the goal of Musk's project is clearly destruction, it would be wrong to call label it as "efficiency." Efficiency is when you make something work better. Musk clearly seeks to eliminate, not improve, large parts of government.

Finally, Musk has named his project after a meme, DOGE, a crypto scam named for a Shiba Inu dog that went viral on social media. He's treating the whole thing as a joke. But the destruction of government is deadly serious, and there's no reason why everyone should automatically participate in Musk's juvenile antics.

Why are so many people – in politics and in the media – accepting this dishonest and silly frame?

Let's call this project what it really is: Destruction of Government by Elon, or a Destroying Our Government Experiment. The key: Call it anything but the Orwellian name Elon Musk has imposed.

Here's a simple lesson in political framing:

The Problem: 'Orwellian' language

Trump has deputized Musk to recommend $2 trillion in severe cuts to the public good. There's simply no way to do that without weakening the country and creating harmful consequences for the American people. Clearly, Musk's objective is to butcher the federal government. Destruction is the goal.

Yet, ever the propagandist, Musk has given the project a positively Orwellian name: The Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

Orwellian language uses bold lies to hide the truth. Often, it names things in a way that twists words and erases facts. As Orwell wrote in Politics and The English Language:

Political language ... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

For example, the George W. Bush administration described illegal torture as "enhanced interrogation techniques." Military leaders regularly describe the killing of innocent civilians as "collateral damage." The fossil fuel industry has tried to rebrand dirty, polluting coal as "clean coal." Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway infamously renamed lies as "alternative facts." You get the idea.

Musk's DOGE is part of this Orwellian tradition. His preferred name makes his project sound like a benign government agency with good intentions. It also falsely implies that his project will simply find cuts that make government more efficient. The name is a lie – a lie designed to confuse and mislead the public.

The Solution: Reframe

The first rule of framing: Never use the opposition's language. Remember: Their language imposes their framing. Instead, you must frame the issue from your perspective. This means using your words, not theirs.

Here's why I chose the frame of Destruction of Government by Elon:

First, this frame is true. It accurately – and directly – describes the situation.

Ok, that's pretty much it. When confronted with an Orwellian term that uses bureaucratic lingo and euphemisms to lie, always reframe them in the simplest and most accurate terms possible. Say exactly the thing they are trying to hide.

As Dr. George Lakoff wrote in The ALL NEW Don't Think of An Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate:

Orwellian language points to weakness—Orwellian weakness. When you hear Orwellian language, note where it is, because it is a guide to where they are vulnerable. They do not use it everywhere. It is very important to notice this and use their weakness to your advantage.

In addition, I use Musk's own acronym – DOGE – as the basis for my reframing. It's not always necessary to retain any of the opponent's frame. But in this case, since DOGE has become the widely used term, I wanted reframe its meaning and provide a memorable alternative.

Try it yourself! Reframing is fun, and it will be necessary in the coming political era as our wannabe authoritarian leaders distort and twist language to serve their purposes.

FrameLab on New Republic's The Daily Blast

I worked through this idea while preparing for an appearance on The New Republic's Daily Blast podcast with Greg Sargent. When Sargent asked me why tech authoritarians like Elon Musk want to destroy government, here's what I said:

These men are very wealthy and very powerful, but government is more wealthy and powerful. Elon Musk is a billionaire, but government is a trillionaire. Governments can fight wars; Elon Musk can’t. Government can put you behind bars for your crimes; Elon Musk can’t do that. Not yet, right? If they can destroy the power of the state, then that power will be in their hands. Right now, they see rules and laws as a threat. Supposedly, they’re libertarians, so that means you’d want to eliminate these regulations and laws for everybody and do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.

Listen to the conversation here (or wherever you get your podcasts):

Full transcript available at the New Republic.

Talking DOGE with George Lakoff

Dr. Lakoff and I taped a short episode of the FrameLab podcast yesterday. We talked through the framing of Destruction of Government by Elon. Click to listen:

FrameLab podcast on Apple

FrameLab podcast on YouTube

FrameLab podcast on Podbean

Transcript of FrameLab podcast Ep. 26:

Transcripts are lightly edited.

 Gil Duran: Hello and welcome to Frame Lab, the podcast about politics, language and your brain with me, Gil Duran, and Dr. George Lakoff. In this brief installment of the podcast, we discuss Elon Musk's plans to destroy government with $2 trillion in cuts to the federal budget and how to reframe destruction of government by Elon.

Gil Duran: Elon Musk has really succeeded in getting everyone to call his effort to destroy the American government “The Department of Government Efficiency. This is an Orwellian name…

George Lakoff: A primary example.

Gil Duran: A primary example of an Orwellian frame, which is, if people don't know, it's when you give something a name that means the opposite of what it says. So when Bush had the Clear Skies Act and it was helping to pollute the air. Or in George Orwell's 1984, the motto for Big Brother is “war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.” It's when you come up with this propaganda term to mislead and confuse people about what a thing does. And so by calling it DOGE or D-O-G-E … so there's two meanings to it, right?

DOGE is this crypto scam that he's been invested in for many years and he’s caused it to surge because he keeps talking about it and says he's investing in it, and he's applied this acronym to this project to slash government. And I think a better meaning of DOGE is Destruction of Government by Elon or the Destruction of Government Experiment.

George Lakoff: Hahaha.

Gil Duran: And every time you see a newspaper or anybody – a Democratic opponent of Elon Musk – using Department of Government Efficiency, they are helping Elon Musk. And not only that, they're helping him lie to the American people. And here's another part of that: He can't just create a department. Congress has to create a department of government. So by even calling it a department, you're lying. Right?

And so I think that here's a great example of how something gets framed in this Orwellian language and then everybody just falls in line and accepts it and repeats it and uses the given name.

So I want to officially propose that we call it the Destruction of Government by Elon or the Destruction of Government Experiment. What do you think of that, George? And what would you tell people about Orwellian language?

George Lakoff: Government means the use of governmental power for the benefit of most people, most ordinary people. And that's not what Elon means by government. Elon means the use of government to enrich him and other rich people. Now, those are two different goals and it would be nice to just say it. The point is that this is about Elon and fellow billionaires getting richer and richer.

Gil Duran: And it's about the long running Republican goal of privatization, privateering, turning government functions into sources of private control and profit. If you look at it, they're trying to privatize the military and basically make Silicon Valley the new capital of the military industrial complex. Obviously, Elon Musk is privatizing space travel with SpaceX, basically undermining NASA. He wants to take that job and that function and that revenue stream for himself. We're going to see them try to take down the Department of Education, harm public education because privatized education is a huge goal of the right wing.

George Lakoff: You bet. They already have this woman from wrestling [Linda McMahon] who's the head of the Department of Education. But the idea there is that this is about, for Elon and Republicans in general, it’s about making private profit. And for Democrats, it's about maximizing public good.

 Gil Duran: There's always been some degree to which private companies contract with the government for some part of what was the public duty or public work. But I think what we're looking at is an absolute realignment toward privateering and privatization, not to mention the elimination of all kinds of government jobs and personnel, which is a huge goal of Republicans also – to shrink government down to the size that it can be “drowned in a bathtub,” was the old saying. And, apparently, it's Vladimir Putin's bathtub we're going to drown it in. But the shrinking of government….

George Lakoff: Who said that? I’m trying to remember.

Gil Duran: What was his name? It's on the tip of my tongue … Grover Norquist said “we want a government that's small enough to drown in a bathtub.”

George Lakoff: Grover Norquist! Yes.

Gil Duran: The idea is they're going to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget. And there's no way to do that without making some deep, painful cuts to the public good and the public protection that the American people are really going to feel. So this is about destruction. This is not about efficiency, because the claim is that government is more efficient when it doesn't exist.

George Lakoff: Look, the thing about Musk is he's got a single fundamental lie. He's going to save [$2] trillion by “making government more efficient.” What he's really going to do is save by taking government away from helping people. And the point is: that's not efficiency. The idea of efficiency is that you're more efficient if you spend less money getting the same thing done. Now there's nothing necessarily wrong with that…The point is that that's not really what's going to happen.

Gil Duran: So you're saying that Musk says he's going to save $2 trillion in efficiency, and what he's really saying is he's going to take $2 trillion away from things that help and support and protect the American people. And so when people accept the framing of Department of Government Efficiency, they are hiding the fact that it's actually the Destruction of Government by Elon. And we hope people will think a little more carefully before they adopt these ridiculous terms and use them because they are basically adopting Orwellian language and effectively misinforming people. And helping Elon Musk to win, I'd say.

George Lakoff: So the question is, how do Democrats counter that? And one thing you just said: It's government by Elon.

Gil Duran: Well, start framing it. First of all, call it a different name. Don't call it the name that they give it. Don't accept the frame because it expresses the opposition's values. It contains the entire lie. And when you repeat that name, you're just repeating the lie every time. And the more you repeat the lie, the more it's real. And no matter what happens, people are going to start believing that this has something to do with rather than destruction.

George Lakoff: You got it. Department of Government by Elon, the world's richest man.

Gil Duran: Yeah, there are many variations and we challenge our listeners to find some of their own and let us know what they are. Well, George, that's all for today, and we'll talk soon.