The Emperor's New DOGE

Weaving a New Social Fabric

There's a meme going around that Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is like the girlfriend who takes her boyfriend's phone into the bathroom and learns all his secrets. It captures something essential about the current moment in American governance, where exposure and efficiency have become watchwords for institutional reform.

In Donald Trump’s first term, comparisons to “The Emperor's New Clothes” were common. He was regularly depicted as naked. Now, armed with DOGE, Trump’s second term begins where Hans Christian Andersen's story ends, accusing the administrative state of parading around clad in grift and ideology. Trump and Musk have positioned themselves as truth-tellers, like the little boy in the tale, calling out inefficiency and corruption for the world to see.

When a nation invests in a shared fabric of conventions and courtesies, “invisibility” can be more powerful than visible displays of power. For Andersen, the truth to be understood was the quiet, collective accord that enabled everyone to treat their ruler with respect, even when he looked foolish. The kingdom was thriving because the emperor's preoccupation with how he looked created work for tailors, merchants, and craftsmen. The “rogue weavers” who created the invisible clothes were grifters, yes, but until the little boy spoke, the social fabric was strong enough to withstand the grift.

The truth-teller disrupts everything, for better or worse.

Trump's message on the campaign trail was that the current social fabric is a bad social fabric. Or as the Make America Great Again platform put it, we are “a Nation in SERIOUS DECLINE.” The left likes to claim that it wove a strong social fabric, made up of generally accepted—if sometimes absurd—courtesies around diversity, tolerance, and multicultural respect. Americans might not have always lived up to these ideals, but the point has been to maintain an outward show of support for them. This has meant inclusive language, celebration of diversity, and a swift denunciation of overt xenophobia, racism, or sexism. The left likes to claim that this social fabric is warm and welcoming, comforting everyone.

Except people increasingly didn't like the smothering ritual of enforced courtesies. MAGA offered a different set, all deliberately visible. The social fabric Trump offered — the new vibe as Tyler Cowen put it — was more masculine, less self-accusing, more “traditional,” more religious, with more American flags, eagles, and camouflage, with far fewer rules about what one can and cannot say. He promised an America clothed in “Common Sense,” replacing what he viewed as false institutional clothing—diversity requirements, environmental regulations, current immigration policies—with more “legitimate” garments: border walls, energy infrastructure, and manufacturing capacity. America would be re-clothed in “the American Spirit.”

Under this new vision, explicit appeals to patriotism, “America First,” and “traditional values” are the strongest threads of the tapestry. There’s an overt requirement for colorblindness—to not see difference. The new courtesy is that you don't have to offer token homage to tolerance or diversity. Politeness is ignoring individual identity in favor of national unity, strong borders, and economic populism. As long as you fly the American flag high and say you want the best for the country, you're above accusations of prejudice. The social fabric is red, white, and blue.

Of course, by positioning himself as the person who can create new institutional garments, Trump has put himself in the position of the rogue weavers. The difference, he claims, is that the new garments will be substantial and visible to all. Yet this promise of visibility and transparency requires its own set of collective beliefs—about what constitutes “common sense,” about which institutional structures are legitimate, and about how authority should be clothed.

This tension between visible and invisible authority will matter for DOGE to have any success. When seeking access to sensitive systems that process trillions in payments and contain millions of Americans' personal data, DOGE encountered significant resistance. These digital “clothes”—the complex frameworks of modern governance—cannot simply be stripped away. Americans like privacy. Americans still need a strong defense, post offices, parks, schools, roads, safe air travel, and electricity. What will clothe the governance of these institutions in the years ahead? What does efficiency look like? What is it wearing?

In the picture books of Andersen’s tale, we see the ceremonial canopy carried over the emperor during his procession. It remains visible even when the boy cries out about the nakedness, serving as a constant reminder of institutional legitimacy. While Musk breaks all the rules, Trump is assiduous about the visible symbols of authority around him—the American flag, also Air Force One, military salutes, various trappings of office, and cultural institutions like the Kennedy Center. He is a very formal fellow.

DOGE’s reform agenda faces a delicate challenge: distinguishing between unnecessary bureaucratic “clothes” that can be eliminated and essential ceremonial “canopies” that maintain legitimacy. Federal agencies may adapt to DOGE’s interventions while maintaining essential operations. While there may be dramatic restructuring, the fundamental architecture of American governance will likely endure. By publicly stripping away what it deems inefficient or ideological programs, DOGE will likely reinforce executive authority through the various acts of institutional exposure.

So what happens to the many ceremonies, customs, and small moments of polite pretense that promote stability with a certain kind of efficiency? The intangible realm of assumptions, courtesies, and silent agreements—more delicate than silk and, in some ways, more crucial than laws on paper—is what holds people together. There is a social solidarity built from everyday small acts of “not seeing” or “not saying” too bluntly. It’s what allows people to work together without killing each other. Polite illusions can sometimes be kinder, or at least more orderly, than a blunt confrontation with inconvenient truths. Nobody really wants to work with that little boy in the room. The left might still be in power if it had understood this lesson.

The ultimate test of DOGE will be whether it can weave new, more durable frameworks of governmental authority that include these courtesies. It may not be so easy to replace what the administration sees as corrupt institutional garments with something more “efficient.” DOGE assumes that laying bare ideological grift will lead to greater efficiency and productivity. But in stripping away the invisible social fabric of the administrative state, it must consider what new arrangements—visible or invisible—will maintain the essential functions of American governance. Will a visible tapestry of patriotic fervor provide sufficient social cohesion? Or might we discover that invisible courtesies, however imperfect, serve purposes that even the most efficient visible structures cannot replace?

I suspect that federal agencies may adapt to DOGE’s interventions while maintaining essential operations. While there may be dramatic restructurings, the fundamental architecture of the present governance will likely endure. Even the Department of Education's “Dear Colleague” letter, while challenging certain programs, does not attempt to dismantle the fundamental American narrative of pluralism and opportunity.