Elon Musk Says He Wouldn’t Do DOGE Again And We Ask Why Government Waste Still Wins

A cheerful holiday hello quickly turns into a tour through timely headlines and hard truths. We start with new travel advisories for an untreatable mosquito-borne virus across several tropical hotspots and unpack what a Level 2 alert actually means for your plans, your packing list, and your appetite for risk. It’s not fearmongering—it’s about reading signals, setting expectations, and choosing wisely when wanderlust meets reality.

From public health we pivot to public language: a massive study tracking how often Americans, Brits, and Australians use the F word online. It’s data with personality, and we have fun with the findings while asking what swearing signals about mood, culture, and authenticity. Is profanity a failure of vocabulary or a tool for emphasis and solidarity? The answer, as always with language, depends on context—and that context says a lot about who we are on the internet.

The core of the show zeroes in on Elon Musk’s candid reflection on DOGE—the Department of Government Efficiency—and his belief that he wouldn’t do it again. We get honest about why bureaucratic reform struggles, how zombie payments persist, and what happens when you cut off entrenched money flows. There’s a reason backlash is swift: systems defend themselves and donors prefer stability. We explore the limits of awareness campaigns, the need for long-haul strategies, and the personal cost of stepping into a political grinder that rarely rewards reformers.

We round out with a frank take on how outspoken women on the right are treated, the emotional toll of public fights, and the tension between staying loud and staying viable. And then, a lighter turn: a Christmas morning question that reveals more than it seems—do you rip your presents open or save the paper? It’s a small choice that reflects bigger habits: do you rush outcomes or savor the process?

If you’re here for clear-eyed analysis, a few laughs, and a conversation that connects headlines to human choices, you’re in the right place. Subscribe, share this with a friend who loves sharp takes, and tell us in the comments: are you a ripper or a saver?

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Liberty Line each week on Sunday, look for topics on my X file @americanistblog and submit your 1-3 audio opinions to anamericanistblog@gmail.com and you'll be featured on the podcast. 

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Chapters

• 0:44 Warm Welcome And Holiday Vibe
• 0:55 Tropical Virus Travel Advisories
• 2:17 CDC Skepticism And Country List
• 3:00 Who Swears The Most Study
• 5:07 Elon Musk, DOGE, And Government Waste
• 5:10 Personal Takes On Swearing And States
• 6:50 Did Any Of It Work
• 8:31 Political Blowback And Donor Power
• 10:13 AI Nightmares And Sleep
• 11:37 Women Conservatives, Power, And Backlash

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:30

Well, hello. Good morning. Happy Wednesday, my beautiful little love bunnies. Christmas love bunnies at that. I hope you're doing well today. Um, we're gonna go over here and check out the X-File. Now I had all kinds of wonderful things in my head this morning that I wanted to talk about, and we'll see if I remember them as we go along with these articles. It looks like there's an untreatable tropical virus prompts travel advisories for Americans going abroad. You ready for this? US health officials have issued travel advisories for Americans planning trips to certain tropical countries amid outbreaks of an untreatable mosquito-borne disease. Those pesky mosquitoes. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the CDC, so take that with a grain of salt, announced Friday that it has issued level two travel advisories for Cuba. Who's going to Cuba? Bangladesh, who's going there? Sri Lanka, and I don't even know what this is. Gong Dong Province in southern China. Who is going to China besides Tim Walls? And I didn't know China was considered a tropical place to go visit. Well, we we just don't even need to go any further than that because I mean who really? Who cares? Okay, we're gonna save that one. No, we're gonna go ahead and do this now. Alright, because I've got the longer one I want to talk about, we're gonna save for last. For F's sake, study reveals which English speaking countries use the F word the most and who has more fun doing so? Who do you think uses the um F word the most? I am going to say New York. New York. We English speakers swear by this word. When it comes to expletives, US citizens are the most prolifically profane. Finnish researchers found that Americans drop more F bombs than their UK counterparts. Oh, they're going by countries, not necessarily states in the in America. Okay. While Australians are the most creative in their use for the ultimate four-letter word per a study published in the journal Lingua. The profane study, which was conducted by scientists at the University of Eastern Finland, set out to investigate the uses of the notorious expletive on social media and across different countries. How do they conduct this? How do they do how do they do this kind of research or conduct this kind of investigation? Uh lots of wasted money. To accomplish this task, we were going to tell us to accomplish this task, the team examined a staggering 7.8 billion words posted by 435, 300, well, I'm sorry, 435,345. That's a very specific number, X users from the US, the UK, and Australia between 2006 and 2023. Oh, I wonder if my tweets were included in this. They focused on the F word because it's the most frequently used obscenity and the most likely to ruffle feathers in polite company. Now, I gosh, I go through phases when I use this word. I usually we usually when I'm really heated and mad and angry about something. That's just the I know people say it just shows your ignorance when you use when you use curse words. It just shows your ignorance, they your lack of vocabulary. And that's probably true. I mean, I didn't I grew up in southern rural out uh Ohio. So, you know, not a lot of going on there. I admit it. I admit it. They found the U.S. citizens use F the most frequently, followed by Brits. Okay, who cares? I thought it was gonna be by states. Let's do our own, let's do our own. This is not the question of the day, because I want a Christmas question of the day. Who, what state do you think uses the most cuss words? I'm sure there's a study out there for that too. I'm gonna stick with New York. Alright, we're gonna move on to the one I really want to talk about. This is from the New York Post. It's about Elon Musk and Doge. Elon Musk reveals he wouldn't do Doge again. Doubts that effort to chainsaw government was successful. I agree wholeheartedly. I think it exposed a lot for people that were not paying attention before. But did it really do anything in the long run? No. And I feel bad for Elon. I wish that this was a permanent department and it would continue to do so. I mean, why we we shouldn't even need it, quite frankly. But our government has become so big and powerful, there's really nothing we can do about it. I mean, what's gonna happen to Elon Omar? Nothing. Nothing. People are bitching about her, and that's all they're gonna do is bitch about her. All this fraud, and here's why. Because the Republicans do it too. All right, Elon Musk, he was on this podcast. He was on with Stephen Miller's wife, um, her podcast. Elon Musk says he no longer is convinced his crusade to clean up government waste through the Department of Government Efficiency, better known as Doge, was worth the chaos it unleashed. I'm gonna have to side with him. I I when this when this whole thing first started, I thought, well, it's a great idea if they can actually do anything. But my being around for 58, tomorrow, 59 years, um if I've learned anything, nothing happens, nothing gets done, nothing actually gets done. Musk admitted he's deeply unsure whether his high profile stint running Washington's most memeable agency actually worked in a wide-ranging and at times philosophical interview on the Katie Miller podcast. We're a little bit successful, we're somewhat successful, the Tesla founder said when Miller asked if Doge achieved what it helped, what it had hoped. But he quickly undercut the praise, lamenting how entrenched the waste was. Yes, sir, yes, sir, and I'm sure he just scratched the surface. Are you kidding me? There was likely probably 100, maybe 200 billion worth of zombie payments per year, he said, noting Doge shut down only a fraction of it. Probably less than a fraction. The SpaceX CEO said cutting off even that much cash came with serious blowback. If you stop money going to political corruption, they will lash out big time, he explained. They really want the money to keep flowing. Of course they do. When Miller asked point blank whether he'd do Doge again, Musk hesitated. I mean, no, I don't think so, he admitted. I think instead of doing Doge, I would have basically worked on my companies essentially. And I think maybe this is where he and Donald probably got into it. I think I really think Elon wanted more power, I guess. Not power, but more authority to go in and gut our um spending like that. And I wish he would have, but Donald's like playing the politic politician that he claims he's not that he's not, and it's probably because he got all these big donors now, and everybody else around him has these big donors, and they don't want it. They don't want to cut, they want to keep the power and the money. I mean, really. Um the tech mogul was referring to a violent outbreak of vandalism on Tesla vehicles earlier this year after he began working with the second Trump administration. Musk also said joining Washington never gave him any illusions. He blasted what he called massive transfer payments to migrants and claimed the system creates a gigantic money magnet that encourages people to come to the U.S. I wouldn't say I was super illusioned to begin with, he shrugged before launching into a blistering critique of government spending. Despite the heavy political talk, the ex-owner frequently veered into the personal. He confessed that AI nightmares still jolt him awake many days in a row, he said, and he's running life on six hours of sleep. Hey, six hours of sleep's pretty damn good. When asked what actually keeps him up, musk deadpan. Why do I wake up in nightmares? Oh, AI, yeah. So, okay, so he's going off to AI. But I want to know more about I'll have to go finish reading this later. I'm not gonna read the whole thing to you. Um, but yeah, so you go to Washington, you get disillusioned. Uh, he thought he was gonna really go in there and do some stuff, and I think I think it brought awareness. But we need more than awareness, but people don't want to cut because they're too big and powerful uh powerful up in there, which also this kind of relates to it, but kind of doesn't. I'm gonna say something that's probably gonna really piss people off. Well, maybe not, maybe you don't even care. I really liked Marjorie Taylor Green in the beginning. Now, I still like her. I feel bad for her and Nancy Mason, that's another story. But I'm putting I'm putting those two in the same bucket. They're both women, Republican and conservatives. I don't know about Nancy Mason, if she's conservative or not, but they're both Republican. And they're both on our side. And people just want to trash them, especially Marjorie Taylor Green, after she had a falling out with Trump. Now, do you not see do you not see what's happening? Marjorie Taylor Greene, I think, really cares about America first and her pe and the people that she represents. And I think she feels like she's just up against a too big of a powerful big machine that she can't do anything about. That's why she's quitting. Now, I wish she would stayed in and finished her finished her stint. I don't know why she has to leave so soon. Nancy Mace is another story. She's an emotional wreck, she needs to get some serious help. Oh, but I, you know, I I said on Twitter the other day, don't be a woman conservative with a with an opinion and be a politician. They're gonna trash you. Might as well just go ahead and be an activist. We need why don't you just do that? Be a woman conservative activist. You cannot be a politician in Washington, D.C. Um, with a with a big opinion and and a big voice, because they don't like that. They just don't. Okay. We're moving on. Uh, we need the question of the day, which is a Christmas themed question of the day. Let's see. Okay, the question of the day is are you at Christmas time, Christmas morning, you have presents to open. Are you a rip it open, tear open fast? Or do you take your time, save, oh, to save the paper, save the tape, open it slowly. I'm a ripper open. I gotta see it now. Alright, that is the question of the day. Uh, I hope you have a good Wednesday. Woof, pray for me. It's gonna be a busy day today for me at work, but and I wore these stupid ass boots that I'm probably not gonna be comfortable in. My feet are probably gonna be cold all day. Okay, whatever. You don't care about that. Okay, gotta go. Thanks for listening. Bye.