"The effort started right after Clinton and Gore took office, in March 1993, with an almost relentlessly normal process called the “National Performance Review,” even though the abbreviation sometimes confused Car Talk fans. It was a six-month review that included both government agencies and input from the public, which resulted in a formal report that made some 400 recommendations for making the federal government more efficient, through things like computerizing many processes, possibly combining some agencies, and yes, cutting staff.
Clinton gradually implemented many of the report’s recommendations over time, with Gore serving as a kind of team lead to meet with Congress and speak to the public, taking care that government services wouldn’t be interrupted, which again reflects the fundamental difference between ReGo and Doge, which was that Team Clinton saw agencies and Congress and the public as partners in making things work better, not as enemies, perpetrators of fraud, or even “traitors” who must be rooted out to allow the co-emperors to rule without opposition. Heck, a lot of the ReGo recommendations became legislation that was passed by Congress, which is a hell of a lot different from Trump’s insistence that nothing can constrain his power."
Trigger warning, lots of snarky cursing and low humor, the kind that makes me cringe a little bit anymore; as if I were listening to the crude and awkward speech of someone it dawns on me is actually a close family relation. I associate my own first encounter with this style of journalism with city arts weeklies and, specifically, rock criticism and music zines in the 1970s and 1980s. And as a bumpkin with a appetite for big academic books the style from the first felt instantly right to me; readers/writers, like me, trying to hack stuffy formal language into something more legible and relatable. The way you might talk with some pals over a beer. The Stranger, the local news and arts bi-weekly, now quarterly, has turned this into their own signature LGBTQ+ friendly brand; bless them and hoping they can survive and thrive in the coming neolib austerity. (The Stranger's elections guides remain essential reading for me, and always good for a hoot or two. Highly recommended!) But now that I'm an old cuss myself, must admit, I find the style a bit distracting and eye-rolling at times. As I do with our author, Herr Doktor. At any rate, if this manner of journalism works best it might be in takedowns like this one: comparing Musk's "shock doctrine" Doge demolition of government services going on right now with Al Gore's cost-cutting commission, ReGo, from the 1990s. Zoom's comparison, beside the gonzo snark, is actually very instructive. Not that repugs want to hear it but this is semi-endearing shop talk about the preposterous gaslighting going on right now in the lawless Neo-Nazi public square over at Twitmo. We are one; viva la resistance.
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