Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy do not care whether the stories they tell about agencies are true. They’re useful for whipping up hostility to government so that regulations can be cut and the rich can do what they want.

Summary

Billionaires like Marc Andreessen, Elon Musk, and Vivek Ramaswamy are spreading false claims to discredit the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), a federal agency protecting consumers from fraud and abuse.

Andreessen falsely accused the CFPB of politically motivated “debanking,” despite no evidence.

This rhetoric aligns with the “DOGE” project, led by Musk and Ramaswamy, which aims to slash government regulations and programs under the guise of efficiency.

Critics warn this effort will harm public services, benefit billionaires, and push privatization at the expense of ordinary Americans.

  • Allonzee@lemmy.world
    463·
    17 days ago

    Nothing new.

    Americans are easy marks. Not most of our faults, we’re poorly educated by design. Critical thinking is college level here.

    Few of us have any interest in being a society, any snake oil con man has to do is tell us we’ll be rich!.. Just fuck over our fellow humans first, lol, and we’ll come a running to that ballot box to literally destroy the very safetynet under our own feet. It’s quite pathetic to witness.

    Then we’ll spend decades kneeling in front of them waiting for golden showers of prosperity, when we’re not at one another’s throats out of the zero sum mindset this herp derp land of rugged individualism propagates.

    Our hyper individualist, disdain for the very concept of society is gallows hilarious. It’s like bragging that we’re conditioned to let one another drown. Yay? Got to hand it to the marketers on that one.

    • witten@lemmy.world
      7·
      17 days ago

      I agree with you. Quite a lot. And yet… Rugged individualism can also make a person want to think for themselves and not herp derp with the uneducated masses. I’m just saying American individualism can, uh, in certain cases make one more prone to collectivism.

      • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
        4·
        16 days ago

        I am the result of that type of backfiring, got fed right wing propaganda about rugged individualism and the founders as a kid. Turns out that that can backfire heavily into making someone who wants to be left alone, wants to tar and feather people, and thinks some type of collectivism is the best way towards that.

        Fun fact, my grandmother finds my politics annoying which makes sense given the fact she fed me the propaganda but doesnt generally argue my points since I have pointed out that she is the fucking base source of them. She copes and thinks its cause of school and not the fact that she held up violent revolutionaries and our bastard ancestors up on pedestals.

        • witten@lemmy.world
          1·
          16 days ago

          You reap what you sow, amirite? Even if sometimes you don’t know what you’re sowing.

          • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
            1·
            16 days ago

            Yep, dont really know what she expected though since our ancestors while bastards were historically progressive and the founders were violent revolutionaries including the weird internal infighting. I do wonder how many “conservative” men are like me and are just surrounded by idiots, ive met a few who completely dropped the act once I said some distinctly non conservative terms like syndicalism, armament of the masses, and bougie bastards so its certainly higher than one would probably expect.

            • witten@lemmy.world
              1·
              16 days ago

              That may be a real thing, but also we’re at this weird place where modern “conservativism” is getting morphed into a sort of semi-anti-authoritarian movement. It’s unfortunate though that the sentiment is getting co-opted by grifters rather than channeled into actual progress.

              • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
                1·
                16 days ago

                Yeah its making it weird, though I do know for a fact most of the reds in sheeps clothes ive found were lefties surrounded by idiots. But yeah a couple sub groups of conservatives seem to be going into a conserve against authority and corporations, which while a good first step in theory they are also wrapped up in false trad bullshit. I cant wait to read the sociological books on this era in a decade.

    • Saint_La_Croix_Crosse@midwest.social
      1·
      16 days ago

      The problem is that there is no alternative. The two parties are just this same process at two different speeds and slight amount of decorum. People forget that Jimmy Carter was our first neoliberal president and Clinton cemented this all being bipartisan and passed the things that were seen as too far right for Reagan (NAFTA, the crime bill, was going to SS privatization until Monica Lewinsky distracted from it…). Liberals hate Trump because he is being too crass and clumsy while doing this. Democrats would rather do the same thing more slowly and with more excuses and obfuscation.