The PR War Over DOGE

It took me a few years. It wasn’t something I figured out right away. But before long, I realized… I was a god!

(Okay, not THE God: please note the lack of a capital G and forgive my Friday morning blasphemy. I meant a Marvel “god,” like Thor, Odin, or Loki.) 

(Fine, more like Loki than Thor or Odin. Shuddup.) 

About 20 years ago, MMA wasn’t on ESPN all the flippin’ time. In most states — including the really big ones, like New York — it was still illegal. This was well before the UFC had a multibillion-dollar corporate merger with the WWE, a slew of major sponsorship deals, and cagefighters like Conor McGregor and Ronda Rousey were household names. Back in the early 2000s, most of the MMA fanbase was still online.

Which meant, more people would read my description of an MMA event than actually watch the fights!

So, we’d stage a fight card and draw maybe 10,000 fans. Some fights aired live on Mark Cuban’s TV network and were seen by a few thousand more (his reach wasn’t huge). But the overall MMA fanbase was far larger than that, so most MMA fans learned about the results after the fact, when they read my post-fight press release, saw a few clips, and imagined what the heck happened.

And the better my write-up, the better the fight card! Like a (Norse) deity, I could reinterpret reality however I wished. (Which I shamelessly did: Ordinary fights became “bloodbaths” and “warzones.” A three-strike KO became “a vicious volley of cascading punches.”)

Some of today’s finest fiction can be found in “factual” press releases. 

That was an important PR lesson: When something happens off-camera, the post-event narrative is king. He who controls the post-event narrative controls reality.

Recommended: Seismic Shift: The Billionaire Boys Club Goes Full MAGA

And this takes us to DOGE. 

Right now, there are two dueling narratives: The first is that the federal government is a bloated, corrupt mess, and we’re running out of our (grand)kids’ money to spend. So thank God (not Loki; the real one) that a generational super-genius like Elon Musk is willing to roll up his sleeves, crack open the books, and protect the people’s money.

Trump, Musk, and MAGA need this narrative to prevail. Otherwise, the 2026 midterms WILL be a “bloodbath” and a “warzone.”

That’s because the second narrative paints a far darker picture: Elon Musk — a Sieg Heiling Nazi sympathizer who got filthy rich on government contracts — has hijacked federal databases, destroying important jobs and vital services, using a literal chainsaw instead of a scalpel.

Which is why this late-night announcement was so welcomed:

Just did a long @JoeRogan episode

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 28, 2025

The Democrats’ PR strategy is to vilify Elon Musk and discredit DOGE. And the progressives have been making progress: DOGE is now the least popular agency in the Trump administration, and Musk’s popularity is underwater.

Musk is also the most [unpopular] member of the Trump team with a net rating of minus seven, according to the survey.

The survey also found that 63 percent [of] people said Musk has much more influence in the government than what they are comfortable with.

The situation is such that even 49 percent of Republicans think that Musk’s influence is much larger than it should be.

Axios had a similar report:

In several recent national polls, more respondents disapproved of Musk or the job he’s doing than approved of him.

• Over half of respondents (55%) in a Quinnipiac University poll conducted Feb. 13 to 17 said Musk has too much power in making decisions affecting the U.S., while 36% think he has about the right amount of power.
• A Pew survey of U.S. adults taken Jan. 27 to Feb. 2 showed that Americans had more negative (54%) than positive (42%) views of Musk (DOGE’s dissection of the federal government has dramatically escalated since the poll was conducted).
• And a Feb. 15 to Feb. 17 Emerson College Poll showed 45% of respondents disapproved of the job Musk was doing, while 41% approved and 14% were neutral.

Elon Musk needs to be more aggressive about protecting his image, because his utility to MAGA, DOGE, and the Trump administration is directly linked to public perception. It might not be right or fair, but that’s how the game is played: When you’re the tip of the spear, you become a target yourself.

Which is why “tips of the spear” usually don’t last very long.

Intuitively, we know the federal government is a convoluted, corrupt cesspool of waste, fraud, and abuse. Like President Reagan quipped 40 years ago, “Nothing lasts longer than a temporary government program,” so we understand the wisdom of wielding a chainsaw. Hey, we’re probably only going to get one shot at DOGE, so let’s rip ALL the weeds out by the roots — and if we tear out too much, we’ll add grass later.

But it’ll come at a cost:

The Trump administration has already walked back some of its announced layoffs in key sectors – including Department of Energy employees who handle nuclear weapons security, Department of Agriculture teams tasked with containing the recent outbreak of bird flu, and workers in a programme that monitors the health of first responders and survivors of the 11 September World Trade Center attack.

“I think many of these firings are indiscriminate,” said Susan Collins of Maine, another centrist Republican senator. “The fact that workers were let go who are working on avian flu, and the fact that workers have also been fired who are responsible for nuclear safety, shows that we need a far more careful approach.”

At his appearance last week at the White House, Musk acknowledged that his team might make mistakes in its eagerness to slash government spending – “but we will act quickly to correct any mistakes”, he promised.

That may be cold comfort for Americans adversely affected by the Doge chainsaw, however.

By appearing on programs like Joe Rogan’s podcast, Musk can protect his image and better control the narrative. I’m sure he’d rather focus on the critical work of DOGE, but DOGE can’t survive unless Musk’s reputation survives. The mainstream media is weakened, but they’re by no means dead and buried. 

This means Musk has to play the PR game. 

Because the Democrats absolutely are — and they’re playing to win.

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