Democrats wilt before the power of DOGE

The White House’s DOGE effort has already gone farther than even the most ambitious reformers expected to see in their lifetimes, and there’s no sign that the dust of President Donald Trump’s first four weeks in office will be settling any time soon.

Democrats’ initial shock and confusion haven’t really subsided yet, but something new has already emerged: genuine confusion over just how much to fight or how much to join. DOGE leader Elon Musk’s rooting out of waste, fraud, and partisanship seems to be polling pretty well. And he hasn’t even really started on the Internal Revenue Service yet.

‘Democrats should be scared to death.’

It’s remarkable to see. While the polls aren’t uniform in their findings, evidence of approval is stacking up fast.

Rasmussen Report polls released last week found that of 1,196 likely voters polled between Feb. 9 and 10, 50% rate Trump "good" or "excellent," compared to 37% who give him poor marks. The same poll found that 52% approve of Musk, and even more (55%) approve of him leading the DOGE.

A Feb. 7-9 Trafalgar Group poll of 1,321 registered voters found that 54% approve of the president, and while only 49% approve of Musk’s work at the DOGE, that number is still beating those who disapprove by five points.

A Feb. 11 Axios focus group with research firms Engagious and Sago found that of the 11 swing voters (people who voted for President Joe Biden in 2020 and Trump in '24), all approved of the current president’s opening weeks in office, and eight of the 11 think Musk is doing good work on top.

The focus group's moderator told Axios, “The prospect of a looming constitutional crisis is completely inconceivable to them," and that while the White House "should be ecstatic" about his findings, "Democrats should be scared to death."

And they are. During a Tuesday episode of “Pod Save America,” a podcast hosted by former staffers for President Barack Obama, the hosts sounded the alarm. “They hit the ground running in a serious way,” said Jon Lovett, former speechwriter for Sen. Hillary Clinton, Sen. John Kerry, and President Obama.

“It's, like, genuinely impressive — impressive in a dark and sinister way, but it's nonetheless impressive,” Lovett continued. “And if you’re turning on the news every day and hearing about all these different things Trump is doing and all the different criticisms coming out of it, you may not like all of it, but, like, in comparison with how people felt about Joe Biden being basically absent, I imagine for a lot of people it’s a welcome change.”

“I've seen the messaging memos,” Obama’s former chief speechwriter, Jon Favreau, replied, “and it's like, you know, the young people, Gen Z, they like DOGE and what Elon is doing because ... they see government as sclerotic and inefficient, and they like the move-fast-and-break-things ethos and they want to get stuff done and they like the results.”

“Yes, of course, we want that,” Favreau said. “We all know that government is slow; we all know the government can be inefficient; we all know the bureaucracy can be bloated; we all worked in the f**king White House. We tried to reorganize the government; we tried to find efficiency. It's hard to do!”

“Honestly,” Lovett replied, “some of this is pretty annoying, because it’s some of the stuff we should’ve done. We didn’t know you could do some of this.”

Meanwhile, in the capital, things aren’t looking much better. One of Friday’s Capitol Hill news items was on how the “moderate” New Democrat caucus is worried about all the progressives suddenly trying to join up.

“Since the November election,” Punchbowl reports, “at least 10 members have applied to join New Dems, including at least three” from the Democrats’ far-left Congressional Progressive Caucus.

“Technically, there wouldn’t be an issue with progressives joining,” one member said, “but if they’re doing it because it’s the political zeitgeist at the time, then it’s a problem.”

It’s a problem for far more than the “New Dems.” It’s a problem for the party, one they’ve not even begun to grapple with.

Blaze News original: 5 times Democrats ignored courts — but no 'constitutional crisis' cries back then

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