Doge is dead and Trump is having a bromance with socialist Zoran Mondani.

So was the dream of smaller government always a mirage?

Is this a new era of Maga Socialism?

Welcome to the Reason Roundtable.

This is your Libertarian Review of News and Culture

from the editors of Reason Magazine and friends. I am your host, Peter Souterman. And today I am joined by my

colleagues, Nick Gillespie, Catherine Mangued Ward, and special guest, Reason's very own,

star of page and screen, Robbie Suave, also our dungeon master. Catherine, I want to start with you.

I think we were all pretty excited by the possibility of Doge. I mean, I remember when it was

announced right after Trump was elected. I was just like stoked. I was on fire. I was like,

this is our moment. It might not work, but we got to try. This was going to be a massive government

cutting exercise. And who boy, it did work.

It's over.

Nothing happened.

We're not going to see any, like the Matt Welch test that we got for this was, is there

going to be a visible dent in the size and scope of the growth of government?

And it sure looks like there's going to be

bupkis. Just nothing. Yeah. It still had eight months to go on its tenure even. It was

licensed for another eight months. And everyone was just like, it's probably best if we quit now,

which is not a good sign for the success of the venture. So, you know, the line has been the spirit of Doge is still alive everywhere in the administration.

The real Doge is the friends we made along the way.

And there's probably a little bit of truth in that.

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