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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 10, 2025

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No putting people on admin leave is crucial. It is what happens when you think a business is doing crazy shit because you don’t want those people to continue to do crazy shit.

I do not understand what you are saying here. How is putting them on leave now, vs in 60 days, "crucial"? They have been doing that "crazy shit" for decades.

(And, again, judges have blocked all his big moves here, as was entirely predictable, so he hasn't even actually stopped them.)

You're doing the thing I mentioned in the above comment where you come up with post-hoc justifications for things Trump/Musk have done that are smarter than what they're actually doing.

From Musk on twitter: "We spent the weekend feeding USAID to the wood chipper." "USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die.". Trump on TruthSocial: "USAID IS DRIVING THE RADICAL LEFT CRAZY ... CLOSE IT DOWN!"

If you say that, and then fire all the employees, I can reasonably conclude they're not planning to spend the money on different kinds of foreign aid. If they were planning to do that, they could just Tweet/Truth it. Instead of that. They aren't.

I agree that Musk and Trump could be effectively accomplishing their goals and improving the government on net if they did different things than they are currently doing.

I also still consider it entirely possible Musk, who is very smart and capable, will realize the current approach isn't accomplishing as much as he thinks and do something else. But he hasn't done that yet.

Really? You don’t understand why you’d want to put an employee who is adverse to you and your plans on admin leave?

Re judges yes it is entirely predictable that the libs would forum shop and get cracked judges to issue TROs. But hopefully most wind down in a few days (and Trump is starting to win some).

Finally killing the current iteration of USAID is not incompatible with spending on foreign aide. Right no the admin thinks USAID is a front to funnel mo ey to lefty causes because it is. Killing that doesn’t mean “and therefore we will keep the funds.”