Latest news with #Blitzkrieg
AllAfrica
16-07-2025
- Politics
- AllAfrica
Thucydides trap averted: China speed, dodgy data and the Houthis
You may say I'm a dreamer But I'm not the only one I hope someday you'll join us And the world will be as one John Lennon Humanity may have lucked out. China speed, dodgy data and the Houthis may just have derailed the 21st Century Thucydides trap. Meme: imgflip While Athens and Sparta careened unstoppably towards the Peloponnesian war, each powerless to arrest rising tensions, today's Sparta should consider itself lucky: It cannot win the 21st Century Peloponnesian War and, as such, will not press for one. The most consequential military development of the past few years – and there have been legion – is empirical proof that expeditionary navies are obsolete. China proved it in the South China Sea. Ukraine proved it in the Black Sea. And the Houthis (the Houthis!) proved it in the Red Sea. Like the Blitzkrieg field-tested during the Spanish Civil War and Azerbaijan's drone warfare against Armenia, recent littoral challenges against expeditionary navies will prove more consequential in a completely different theater. But in a good way – more to preclude future conflict than as a field test for future tactics. Contrary to popular belief, China does not covet the South China Sea for mere scraps like oil, natural gas or fish. China is more than happy to negotiate with other claimants to exploit South China Sea resources. What China wants in the South China Sea are airstrips, missile sites, naval bases and electronic listening posts, extending the southern maritime security perimeter. What China really wants in the South China Sea is a theater, far away from anything of real value (Taiwan, for example), to demonstrate US Naval impotence for all of Asia to witness. China's Nine-Dash Line. Source: Facebook China does not make a move unless strategic advantage has been established and escalation dominance is assured. China started large-scale island building in the South China Sea's Spratly Islands in late 2013. This was a declaration of two things: that China was going to take its 9- (now 10-) dashed line claims seriously, and that the PLA Rocket Force's anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs) had been thoroughly tested and were deployed and operational. Without a missile shield providing escalation dominance, the US Navy could have stopped island construction with the mere presence of a carrier strike group (CSG). In 1996, before China could threaten American aircraft carriers, President Clinton sent two US Navy CSG into the Taiwan Strait as the PLA was conducting missile tests to sway Taiwan's presidential election. Out-flexed by the US Navy CSGs, China's intimidation tactics failed with President Lee Teng-hui, the despised 'separatist,' handily winning reelection. China developed ASBMs to prevent the US Navy from besting the PLA in future showdowns. Given the PLA Rocket Force's missile umbrella over the South China Sea in the 2010's, China was able to construct and militarize seven artificial islands unchallenged. On April 22, 2022, Ukrainian fighters launched two R-360 Neptune cruise missiles at the Moskva cruiser, Russia's Black Sea fleet flagship. It was the largest Russian ship to sink since WWII. The Moskva carried S-300F missiles which provided long-range air defense for the Black Sea fleet then bombarding Ukrainian positions. Ukrainian fighters have subsequently sunk or damaged additional Russian ships and a submarine with a combination of missiles and naval drones. Russia has since relocated its Black Sea fleet east, from Sevastopol to Novorossiysk, largely taking it out of the fight. In 2024, with the PLA Navy having grown from 255 to 400 ships over the past decade while the US Navy shrank from over 300 to 299 ships, China began aggressively enforcing its claim on an atoll occupied by a purposely shipwrecked Filipino vessel. China Coast Guard (CCG) ships harassed Filipino boats supplying the handful of marines stationed on the crumbling wreck. The world saw dramatic footage of large China Coast Guard cutters water hosing and ramming small Filipino supply boats. In one incident, Chinese Coast Guard personnel boarded a Philippine supply boat and engaged in melee combat using handheld weapons. A Filipino soldier lost a thumb. The US Navy's response was to redeploy the carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt and its escorts from East Asia to the Middle East. This left the Western pacific without a CSG at the height of South China Sea tensions involving a US treaty ally. Thus it was revealed that 1) the US Navy was spread very thin and 2) the US Navy was not going to be maneuvered into a showdown with China's brand-new navy and rocket force by the Philippines. In May of this year, President Trump reached an unsatisfying ceasefire agreement with the Houthis after intensive bombing operations proved ineffective and were marred by mishaps. US Navy operations against the Houthis have resulted in the loss of three F/A-18 fighters (one to 'friendly fire' and two to 'accidents'), more than a dozen MQ-9 Reaper drones and more than $1 billion worth of ammunition. The ceasefire fell well short of President Trump's promise to 'completely annihilate' the Houthis. The Yemeni fighters have only agreed to refrain from attacking US Navy ships. They have continued their operations against Israeli-connected shipping. The ceasefire neutered the US Navy in the Red Sea. They could be there. Or they could not be there. It doesn't make a shred of difference. That the Houthis fought the US Navy to a draw can only be seen as a humiliating defeat by Asia. Compare Japan (and South Korea/Taiwan/Australia) to the Instagram model who just watched her bodybuilder boyfriend get beat up by a skinny migrant worker. According to press leaks, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby pressed Japan and Australia to clarify their intentions in a Taiwan contingency. Leaking Colby's demand shuts down Washington's pressure tactics by airing them to domestic political opprobrium in those countries. The leak was unsurprising given the US Navy's less-than-stellar performances in the Red Sea and the South China Sea, demonstrating Japan's and Australia's lack of confidence in US resolve and capabilities. Why would anyone commit to defend Taiwan if the US itself refuses to do so? Why would Japan and Australia commit to helping a navy that hung the Philippines out to dry only to get humiliated by the Houthis? China's anti-ship missiles and drones are likely to be more effective than those used by the Houthis. What we are witnessing is the US attempting to do hegemony on the cheap. Alliances in this situation are structurally brittle. Alliance partners want to free ride while a fading hegemon tries to buck-pass. When the hegemon has not demonstrated the resolve and cannot demonstrate the capability to shoulder all the costs, there is not much incentive for the hangers-on to help lighten the load. And without commitments from alliance partners to enter the fray, US resolve to go it alone is diminished as well. The Thucydides trap theorizes that war is likely when a rising power challenges a dominant established power. The fear inspired by a rising power causes the dominant power to attempt to suppress the challenger, resulting in ever-increasing tensions and an inevitable path to war. With this backdrop, many Western media reports on China begin with the stock phrase, 'China, the world's second largest economy .…' While this bit of data-delusion has hamstrung efforts to contain China, it could very well prove to have been a great boon for humanity, short-circuiting the Thucydides trap with its every utterance. Vaclav Havel said China's economic rise was so fast that 'we had not yet had time to be astonished.' Calling China the world's second largest economy is a media tick that the West has yet to abandon. Any proper accounting of China's productive and consumptive powers results in an economy twice the size of the US (see here). Taking liberties with the UN System of National Accounts, China has flown under the radar, delaying the moment of proper Western astonishment. China is no longer the rising power but the established power. All efforts to contain China from tech sanctions to trade wars to media slander have been ineffectual if not counterproductive. China's manufacturing sector is twice that of the US in exchange rate terms and three times that of the US in purchasing power parity terms. On most indices (i.e. top journals, citations, patents), China's scientific and technological output is well above if not multiples of the US and increasing exponentially. China's human capital pipeline is a juggernaut, producing 6-8 times the STEM graduates as the US. Ancient Greece was not dealing with an Athens suddenly twice Sparta's size. The Peloponnesian War could very well have been averted if Athens rose so quickly that Sparta 'had not yet had time to be astonished' and we would never have heard of Thucydides because his 'History of the Peloponnesian Peace' would have been a tedious snoozefest. Over the past few weeks, modern Sparta appears to be coming apart at the seams. Japan angrily denounced American efforts to dictate its defense budget. South Korea elected a China-leaning president. Spain's intelligence agency awarded its communications contract to Huawei. The French Parliament produced a report pushing the EU to realign with China. Brazil will explore building a transcontinental railroad with China. When nations realize that expeditionary navies are obsolete and their breath catches up to China's astonishing growth, the speed of the realignment will be just as astonishing. It will resemble nothing short of a rout. This should benefit everyone involved, from put upon Europeans to the bonsai-ed Japan and South Korea (see here) to LGBTQIAS2S+-ed Taiwan (see here) to Legalist Qin-esque PRC able to finally relax into its Confucian Tang-esque form. Most of all, it will benefit the United States of America, which can finally come home, circle wagons, lick wounds, plant trees and recover from eight decades of shouldering the costs of hegemony.
Daily Mirror
24-06-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mirror
Israel PM is 'biggest loser' in broken ceasefire after Trump's f-bomb outburst
A furious Donald Trump used expletive language in a warning to Iran and Israel after the two countries broke ceasefire terms on Tuesday morning - hours into the deal being agreed An expert has warned Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu is the "biggest loser" in the broken Iran ceasefire, after Donald Trump's expletive outburst. An enraged Trump issued a warning to Iran and Israel after the two countries broke ceasefire terms on Tuesday morning. He also declared he was "not happy" with Israel. "I didn't like the fact that Israel unloaded right after we made the deal," the US president said to reporters at the White House. "They didn't have to unload. We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the f**k they're doing." Iran has accused Israel of having carried out strikes on the country after the ceasefire came into effect. It claims Israel struck Iran in three stages up until 9am local time (about 5:30am UK time), according to Iran's Khatam al-Anbiya central military headquarters said, the country's state TV said. An Israeli strike Monday on Iran's city of Karaj near Tehran killed seven members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, including two generals with the paramilitary force, the state-run IRNA news agency reported. Defence Minister Israel Katz had said in a statement that the IDF would "respond forcefully to Iran's violation of the ceasefire with intense strikes against regime targets in the heart of Tehran." Trump, who was departing for the NATO summit at The Hague, said he was "not happy with" with Israel for violating the ceasefire. Anthony Glees, an academic in security and defence and a lecturer at the University of Buckingham, believes Benjamin Netanyahu will be the "biggest loser" following the broken ceasefire. He told The Mirror: "Ceasefires are often broken, it can take time to get the orders to stop firing out to the military, not least for a country that's had its communications severely degraded. "Of course, the question is whether what we're seeing in the past couple of hours is more than a hiccup and whether Iran and or Netanyahu will decide to challenge Trump's surprise declaration of a ceasefire - so surprising we're told it took his own officials by complete surprise. "However, what we can say right now is that the winners here at the moment are the ayatollahs. Not Trump and certainly not Netanyahu who will be spitting blood right now, both literally and metaphorically. He has not got what he's wanted for so many years, an end to the ayatollahs. "Netanyahu is the big loser at this point, this morning and will be hoping the ceasefire breaks down and he can carry on. At the same time, Israel wanted a Blitzkrieg war against the regime in Teheran. The thing they most fear is a re-run of the 1980s Iran-Iraq war which went on for 8 years. There are 9 million Israelis but 90 million Iranians. A war of attrition would be won by Iran."
The Advertiser
10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Advertiser
Lost 1976 Motörhead album set for release
Motörhead's lost 1976 album The Manticore Tapes is finally set to be released. The record, set to drop on June 27, features the classic lineup of the late Lemmy Kilmister, Fast Eddie Clarke, and Phil "Philthy Animal" Taylor. It's named after Emerson, Lake and Palmer's famous Manticore Studio in Fulham, where the album was made. The unreleased songs will be available as an LP and CD, with alternate takes, instrumentals and early recordings of songs from their self-titled debut album and their 1979 album On Parole. Fans can get their hands on a deluxe edition boasting a second disc with the live set Blitzkrieg on Birmingham '77, as well as a previously unreleased 7-inch containing two live performances. The tapes were restored by Motörhead collaborator Cameron Webb at Maple Studios in California and mastered by Andrew Alekel at Bolskine House in Los Angeles. The lost album is part of Motörhead's 50th anniversary celebrations. Late frontman Lemmy Kilmister is set to receive a statue in his hometown of Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent as part of the milestone celebrations and to mark the 10th anniversary of his passing on December 28, 2015, aged 70. Motörhead's lost 1976 album The Manticore Tapes is finally set to be released. The record, set to drop on June 27, features the classic lineup of the late Lemmy Kilmister, Fast Eddie Clarke, and Phil "Philthy Animal" Taylor. It's named after Emerson, Lake and Palmer's famous Manticore Studio in Fulham, where the album was made. The unreleased songs will be available as an LP and CD, with alternate takes, instrumentals and early recordings of songs from their self-titled debut album and their 1979 album On Parole. Fans can get their hands on a deluxe edition boasting a second disc with the live set Blitzkrieg on Birmingham '77, as well as a previously unreleased 7-inch containing two live performances. The tapes were restored by Motörhead collaborator Cameron Webb at Maple Studios in California and mastered by Andrew Alekel at Bolskine House in Los Angeles. The lost album is part of Motörhead's 50th anniversary celebrations. Late frontman Lemmy Kilmister is set to receive a statue in his hometown of Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent as part of the milestone celebrations and to mark the 10th anniversary of his passing on December 28, 2015, aged 70. Motörhead's lost 1976 album The Manticore Tapes is finally set to be released. The record, set to drop on June 27, features the classic lineup of the late Lemmy Kilmister, Fast Eddie Clarke, and Phil "Philthy Animal" Taylor. It's named after Emerson, Lake and Palmer's famous Manticore Studio in Fulham, where the album was made. The unreleased songs will be available as an LP and CD, with alternate takes, instrumentals and early recordings of songs from their self-titled debut album and their 1979 album On Parole. Fans can get their hands on a deluxe edition boasting a second disc with the live set Blitzkrieg on Birmingham '77, as well as a previously unreleased 7-inch containing two live performances. The tapes were restored by Motörhead collaborator Cameron Webb at Maple Studios in California and mastered by Andrew Alekel at Bolskine House in Los Angeles. The lost album is part of Motörhead's 50th anniversary celebrations. Late frontman Lemmy Kilmister is set to receive a statue in his hometown of Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent as part of the milestone celebrations and to mark the 10th anniversary of his passing on December 28, 2015, aged 70. Motörhead's lost 1976 album The Manticore Tapes is finally set to be released. The record, set to drop on June 27, features the classic lineup of the late Lemmy Kilmister, Fast Eddie Clarke, and Phil "Philthy Animal" Taylor. It's named after Emerson, Lake and Palmer's famous Manticore Studio in Fulham, where the album was made. The unreleased songs will be available as an LP and CD, with alternate takes, instrumentals and early recordings of songs from their self-titled debut album and their 1979 album On Parole. Fans can get their hands on a deluxe edition boasting a second disc with the live set Blitzkrieg on Birmingham '77, as well as a previously unreleased 7-inch containing two live performances. The tapes were restored by Motörhead collaborator Cameron Webb at Maple Studios in California and mastered by Andrew Alekel at Bolskine House in Los Angeles. The lost album is part of Motörhead's 50th anniversary celebrations. Late frontman Lemmy Kilmister is set to receive a statue in his hometown of Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent as part of the milestone celebrations and to mark the 10th anniversary of his passing on December 28, 2015, aged 70.
Mint
22-04-2025
- Politics
- Mint
Is Trump a tyrant or a savior? Maybe just a bumbler
If you confine yourself to the mass media, you won't find many dissenters from a binary view of President Trump's second first hundred days. His hyperactive start is either an overdue and necessarily bruising overhaul of America's corrupted institutional framework, a revolution against a failed establishment, or else the most menacing arrogation of executive power in the history of the republic, a series of giant steps toward complete authoritarian takeover. But I wonder if there isn't an emerging mass of people for whom the bigger question isn't whether their president is a savior or a tyrant, but whether this man and this team are really capable of pulling off a project so bold and ambitious—whatever the intent. The important question may not be whether they are encouragingly redemptive or bottomlessly malevolent but whether they are simply incapable. To be sure, the grand task they have set for themselves—remaking the American and global order of the past few decades—would have been a stretch for a team of brilliant strongmen with the political genius of Machiavelli and the ruthless efficiency of the Spanish Inquisition. Mr Trump's immediate principal goals were laudable and commanded widespread approval: close the porous border, downsize a bloated government, end the woke lunacy that has had most of our establishment in its thrall, restore American strength in the world. But identifying goals is the easy part. Achieving them is a different matter. This exercise requires successful fights with entrenched, powerful interests in a diverse and pluralist country—and world. In their multifront 100-day war, the Trump team has taken on, in no particular order, the courts, leading universities, most of the media, much of the legal profession, the bond markets, the currency markets, the equity markets, the world's second-largest economy and second most powerful geopolitical force, the global system of alliances, and the global economic system. The theory behind the blitzkrieg approach is that its boldness is its principal guarantee of success: that by flooding the zone you keep enemies off balance and disoriented by the sheer energy, demoralized by the sheer ambition. But you do have to execute. The evidence is accumulating that this war is less Blitzkrieg than Blunderland. The Department of Government Efficiency has, as many of us suspected it would, delivered a mouse to challenge the mountain of U.S. government spending. The effort to revive American manufacturing is harming American manufacturing. Changing the rules of the international economy has proved hard: We still await even one of those vaunted trade deals from supplicant foreigners. Ending the war in Ukraine hasn't happened—but we have managed to alienate just about every partner we have. We may at least be edging closer to a bold new Iranian strategy—but it seems to be a retread of Barack Obama's failed strategy. Not only is there no evidence that China has been cowed by any of this, but it also seems the People's Republic of Harvard now likes its chances against the federal government—helped by the report that a blundering administration accidentally pressed send. To give credit where due, immigration restrictionism has been a big success. Many of us may not like the price paid in legal chicanery and a dubiously necessary heavy hand, and the administration may yet have to choose between an outright constitutional crisis and looking weak if it backs down to the courts over its deportation efforts. But the law-enforcement efforts and the message sent to immigration scofflaws have begun to offset the damage done by years of open borders. But elsewhere the impression is of escalating failure alongside escalating overreach. In its first few weeks the most striking difference between the second and first Trump administrations was a unity of purpose, a lack of internal dissent and an accent on execution. But two stories caught my eye last week for a more familiar picture of indiscipline and disarray. First we learned from the Journal about the bizarre lengths to which the president's economic-policy advisers went to get Mr. Trump to pause his destructive initial global tariff plan, how they had to ensure that tariff fan Peter Navarro was out of physical range of the president to get Mr. Trump to issue a statement revising the plan. Then there was the news of intensified internal fights at the Pentagon as three aides to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth were ousted, one of whom took to social media to say they had been victims of 'baseless attacks" from colleagues. I don't doubt the seriousness of intent with which the Trump administration is seeking to remake the political and cultural landscape. Nor do I disdain the fears of those who argue that the administration's expansive interpretation of its executive authorities represents a threat to the constitutional order. The problem I have is that even as they overstep their limits, they seem to blunder deeper into the mire. Their biggest risk may be that voters will start to ask: What's the use of a strong man who can't do anything right?
CNN
26-02-2025
- Politics
- CNN
A nascent backlash against Musk sharpens risk for Trump and GOP
CNN — The resistance may be stirring. Elon Musk's chainsaw is not only slashing away at the bureaucracy but is generating the first warning signs that it could eventually cut deep into the political standing of President Donald Trump and his MAGA allies. Political risks are rising for Republicans as court defeats pile up for the administration and as confusion is fomented by conflicting instructions from the SpaceX chief-turned-government cost cutter and the rest of the administration. Trump often prospers in the chaos that he foments, and the erratic swathe that Musk is slicing through the civil service is a direct response to the fury many voters expressed in last year's election. And for some in Trump's base who embrace the president's anti-elite rhetoric, the act of subjecting federal workers to fear and pain may be a political end in itself. Among conservatives more generally, meanwhile, cutting government is perennially popular. So, Musk's onslaught may still be a winner – at least for now. But pushback from some of the most authentic Make America Great Again Cabinet secretaries to Musk's email to federal workers asking 'what did you do last week?' hints at another possibility – concern that confusion and morale-busting assaults on staff could make it harder to enact Trump's agenda. Two dozen and counting court challenges to the constitutionality of the administration's dramatic personnel and cost cutting purges could be similarly chilling to the president's goals. As could several cases testing whether Musk is acting legally in assuming more power than any private citizen in modern history. Some GOP members of Congress are meanwhile beginning to experience a backlash over Musk's frenzy — including in rowdy town hall meetings that have gone viral. While it's unclear whether these represent the first roots of a political uprising, or just canny progressive organizing, they're a reminder that the federal government is not limited to Washington but is also a huge red state employer. And while Musk's wild anti-government theater fits Trump's shock-and-awe application of raw power since his White House return, some lawmakers are wondering whether the sheer velocity of his effort could be politically counterproductive. 'Things are happening so fast and furiously,' Rep Nicole Malliotakis told CNN's Manu Raju on Tuesday. 'We need to take a step back and make sure that we're doing things in a way that we are rooting out the waste, the fraud and the abuse and the mismanagement, making programs efficient but not resulting in unintended consequences,' the New York Republican said. Musk's action is laying bare one key question about Trump's second term Some recent polls have shown majority public disapproval of Musk's Blitzkrieg through the federal government and concern about his potential overreach. In a CNN/SSRS poll last week, 51% said Trump had gone too far in cutting federal programs and 53% thought it was bad that Musk is so prominent. If attitudes towards Musk harden, they could crystallize into broader opposition to what many critics see as an unprecedented and unconstitutional attempt to destroy the rule of law and the federal government. This would deepen the intrigue over the friendship between the world's richest man and its most powerful man. Their capacity to preserve their relationship under stress could also shed light on one of the key unknowns of the president's second term: If his plans for the most far-reaching shake-up of US governance and society in decades make him unpopular — will he press on or take it down a notch? So far, Trump has shown no sense of disengaging from Musk or that he's whipped up an incoming political storm. 'I thought it was great,' the president said Monday of his friend's demand for federal workers to reply to an email justifying their productivity last week. For now, the Tesla pioneer is the personification of his determination to ensure that this term, no one will rein in his power grabs. The White House will attempt to dispel any suggestions of concern within the administration over Musk's role when he shows up to the first Cabinet meeting of the president's second term on Wednesday. 'The president and Elon and his entire Cabinet are working as one unified team,' White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said. Another day of Musk-inspired disruption Tuesday brought another dizzying spate of developments in the high-speed effort to dismember the US government and in the drama surrounding Musk. — Twenty-one United States Digital Service technology staffers, including skilled engineers, designers and data scientists resigned. The staffers complained of hostile interviews from DOGE employees and said that in the current extreme circumstances they could no longer honor their oaths to serve the people and uphold the Constitution. Their gesture threatens to severely hamper government operations through the loss of experts who best understand its operating system. But Paul Barrett, deputy director of the Center for Business and Human Rights at New York University's Stern School of Business, said that the symbolic value of the resignations of public servants who intimately understand the government's operating systems, would outstrip any operational risk their departures posed. 'The federal government is a big workforce, a couple of million. So, 20 people leaving is not going to change the situation in some dramatic way,' Barrett said. 'What's important here is that, like some of their brother and sister civil servants who have resigned or been willing to be fired rather than cooperating with the Musk-DOGE rampage, these people are saying, 'We will not cooperate. We will not obey. This is not legitimate.'' — In another development likely to exacerbate concerns about crushed legal and personnel protections, the Office of Management and Budget, along with the Office of Personnel Management, are expected to issue a memo that will direct agencies to prepare for large-scale firings, CNN's Alayna Treene reported. — Trump meanwhile sowed new confusion about Musk's directive to federal employees to detail their productivity after the tech mogul several times said a failure to respond would be tantamount to a resignation. 'Well, it's somewhat voluntary, but it's also, if you don't answer, I guess you get fired,' Trump said in the Oval Office. 'What it really is, what it is, is – do people exist?' he added, underscoring the baffling logic and execution of his government gutting plan. — A federal judge indefinitely blocked the administration from freezing federal loans and grants. That move, in the first days of the administration caused nationwide uproar as vital services were shuttered, showing for the first time how the loss of federal services could impact daily life and be a political liability. 'Defendants' actions were irrational, imprudent, and precipitated a nationwide crisis,' said US District Judge Loren AliKhan. — Another federal judge halted Trump's executive order that indefinitely suspended refugee admissions, while a second ordered the administration to pay foreign-aid related funds owed to government contractors and nonprofits by Wednesday following Musk's evisceration of USAID. — Hostility towards government runs deep in America's DNA. But the callous treatment of thousands of government employees who've been fired, including probationary workers, often with little notice or compensation, seemingly at the whim of Musk and his young followers, has been callous. Some of those workers spent Tuesday going door to door in the Senate demanding action. 'Our goal is to just start putting some faces and names to all the federal workers who have been impacted by the furloughs, layoffs, immediate firings by Musk and DOGE,' said Elizabeth Glidden, who was fired as a technical program officer in USAID's Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance. 'It's been terrible. I've cried everyday,' Glidden said. 'I go through waves of crying, anger, frustration.' Early signs of political tension The human toll of the firings, as well as the concern among Americans over potentially lost government help is beginning to crest into political momentum, CNN's Annie Grayer reported. Several House Republicans pleaded with leadership Tuesday for guidance on handling a deluge of questions from constituents about recent cuts, multiple sources said. GOP lawmakers are on a tightrope between pro-Trump base voters and constituents being hurt by Musk's destruction. Malliotakis said Trump had appointed 'very smart people' as Cabinet secretaries and they should be empowered to make cuts. 'This idea that they were going to just fire people via Twitter, Elon Musk, that to me, seems rash,' she said. The New York lawmaker is far from the most endangered Republican in next year's midterm election, so her concern is notable. But so far, House Speaker Mike Johnson, who is already hampered by a tiny majority, is holding the line. 'I think the vast majority of the American people understand and applaud and appreciate the DOGE effort, the goal to scale down the size and scope of government,' the Louisiana Republican said. GOP Senate Majority Leader John Thune was more mindful of the humanity of the federal workers let go, while sharing the goal of trimming government, saying 'It needs to be done in a respectful way.' Respectful is the antithesis of Musk's approach – one reason why it's worth watching whether he develops into a political liability for Trump. Revolts often start from a small pile of political kindling – for instance, the Tea Party movement that reached critical mass in response to the early policies of President Barack Obama. Barrett believes that significant political pressure on even a small number of GOP members in Congress could slow the DOGE purge. He said: 'I think there's every chance in the world that a handful of members of Congress will summon the courage to confront Trump and suffer his wrath if they get enough constituents back home telling them 'Hey, we sent you to Washington and we've had enough of this. This is this is chaos, craziness.'' Should such a backlash develop, Musk's swinging of a chainsaw above his head at the Conservative Political Action Conference will be seen less as an exuberant emblem of disruption and more an act of hubris that presaged a political fall.
