Countering Musk's DOGE Theft

The importance of repetition

Countering Musk's DOGE Theft

This is a guest post from FrameLab contributor Jason Sattler. Jason is LOLGOP on BlueSky and pretty much any other social media platform. His writing has appeared in USA TODAY, Wired.com, the New York Daily News and Alternet.


What if a coup happened and nobody noticed?

That seems to be what's occurring as Elon Musk and his shock troops roll through the federal government, cutting off congressionally mandated funding for essential services, threatening the lives, in one instance, of an 86-year-old woman in need of dialysis.

Most Democratic leaders chose to stay quiet on the sidelines over the last few weeks. Meanwhile, the press is proving incapable or unwilling to describe what is happening to our country. The New York Times reported on “Elon Musk and His Allies Storm Into Washington and Race to Reshape It,” which couched the story in Musk's PR by noting that he is “reprising the playbook he used after buying Twitter in 2022.” The story failed to explain the utter lawlessness of approaching our representative government like it's a private company you've just purchased. It also failed to note that Musk destroyed some 80% of said company's value.

Compare that to Dartmouth political scientist Brendan Nyhan, who called Musk's actions “an attack on the Constitution as profound as the attempt to overturn the 2020 election.”

Politics is a battle for brains. Most of us on the Democratic side still live in the 18th-century mentality that all we have to do is present the facts, and reason will solve everything. Unfortunately, the opposite is true. Facts must be framed.

“If you believe in the eighteenth-century view of the mind, you will look and act wimpy,” Dr. Lakoff wrote in 2008. Is there a better way to describe how Democrats have mostly responded thus far to Musk's assault on democracy?

The Power of Modern Political Communication

Of course, all the destructive trends Dr. Lakoff identified back in 2008 have only worsened with:

  • The collapse of journalism
  • The rise of social media
  • Reality stars mesmerizing us 
  • A Constitutional crisis

Republicans today are even more opposed to multi-racial democracy than they were when George W. Bush was preparing to leave office peacefully. Yet they've become more effective at campaigning despite their continual record of failures. Why? Because they're led by a master salesman whose only true talent is “using your brain against you.”

The Importance of Repetition

Trump's success relies heavily on repetition. The more specific words are heard, the more certain brain circuits are activated and the stronger they become. This isn't just a communication strategy — it's brain programming at work.

The power of repetition extends beyond mere memorization. Each time a frame is activated, it strengthens the words and the entire conceptual structure they represent. When Trump repeats “winning,” he's not just emphasizing victory — he's reinforcing a worldview where everything is a zero-sum competition. Each repetition helps make this framework increasingly natural and automatic for listeners.

This mechanism becomes even more powerful in our current media environment. “The news,” as we knew it in the 20th century, just does not exist anymore. Tens of millions of people primarily get their messages from social media or from loved ones who get them through social media. Like our brains, social media is swayed by repetitions – reposts, shares, and views. Each share, retweet, and viral moment creates another repetition, another brain activation. Repetition matters.

Democrats often resist sheer repetition, viewing it as unsophisticated or manipulative. This resistance stems from that same 18th-century mindset that assumes voters simply need to hear the facts once to understand them. 

But our brains don't work that way. They're pattern-recognition machines that require repeated activation. When Democrats vary their message too much in pursuit of novelty or nuance, they undermine their own effectiveness, preventing any single frame from gaining the neural strength it needs to stick.

Framing the Democratic Response

Democrats face three immediate challenges:

  1. Grabbing the public's attention
  2. Hammering the right frame
  3. Repeating it over and over again

Data for Progress, a progressive polling firm, suggests that framing Musk's actions as "stealing from you" resonates strongly with voters. From Data for Progress:

Additionally, while saying DOGE will cut programs to “give tax breaks to giant corporations and billionaires like Musk” effectively decreases DOGE’s favorability, a message that combines “steal from you” and “give tax breaks” has an even greater negative impact on voters’ opinion on DOGE, particularly among Independents whose views on DOGE shifted 14 points more unfavorably on net with the combined message.

I believe the frame of “theft” can also unite us as a country against intruders who unjustly take our shared treasure and threaten our prosperity. The core message remains: the wealthiest man in the country is trying to steal what belongs to every American. He doesn't need anything, yet he's still pilfering from those who need it most.

The Urgency of Action

Stopping this assault on our nation has to be Democrats' top priority. While they lack control of all three branches of government, they have the complete freedom to make their case directly to the American people through:

  • Television, radio, newspapers
  • Social media
  • Podcasts and YouTube videos
  • The floor of the Senate
  • Community meetings

Fortunately, we are now seeing some House Democrats beginning to rise to meet the crisis.

They showed up at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) headquarters Monday morning after the Trump Administration announced the agency had been shut down. Indivisible held a rally on Tuesday at the Treasury Department to remind everyone that no one elected Elon Musk to do anything. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez got on Instagram Monday night for over an hour to frame this fight's life-or-death stakes and answer tough questions from constituents. 

Senator Elizabeth Warren clearly and vividly defined what Musk and his flunkies are up to, and deftly laid out personal risks to all Americans of this intrusion into essential government payment systems.

This is fantastic, but once is never enough. Whatever frame Democrats decide on, it must be obvious and repeated consistently. Yes, we are generally uncomfortable with purposely trying to change minds. But giving that up means surrendering much of our power. At this point, that would mean abandoning our country to a heist that Musk, Trump, and their allies will not stop until they have to.

The emergency of this moment could finally reveal to Democrats how important our words and frames are. This could liberate and empower them and the tens of millions of Americans who need them to stand up – right now.


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