Now, I hate the expression “conspiracy theory” and have been advocating against its casual use for a couple years now. I especially object to how commonly people use the term to slander popular beliefs that contradict institutional statements but are highly credible; we’ve learned that many “conspiracy theories” have ended up being true. But today, I’m going to use the expression to refer to things I’d define like this: a belief or set of beliefs which connect unrelated observations together based on a set of fundamentally false assumptions.

As the internet has proliferated unsubstantiated assumptions, conspiracies have become more abundant. The internet has also incentivized politicians, political influencers, media outlets, and pundits to constantly battle for attention. Attention means influence, which translates to votes, fundraising clicks, subscriptions and money, depending on what you are looking for. And easy ways to get attention include: stoking conspiracies, evoking fear, and providing shock value.

Republican conspiracy theories are at the center of conservative discourse and messaging. Conspiracy theorists on the left, in contrast, are usually marginalized

"DOGE is not a serious exercise," said Jessica Riedl, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a fiscally conservative think tank that supports streamlining government. She estimates DOGE has only saved $5 billion to date, and believes it will end up costing more than it saves. The examples - previously unreported - span 14 government agencies and were described in Reuters interviews with three dozen federal workers, union representatives and governance experts.

At the Social Security Administration, in a four-day period in the first week of March, computer systems crashed 10 times. Because a quarter of the agency's IT staff have quit or been fired, it's taking longer to get the systems online again, disrupting the processing of claims, one IT worker told Reuters. Few dispute the SSA's computer systems are old, often crash and need updating. Musk told Baier the agency's computer systems are "failing", and "we're fixing it."

Since its founding on Trump's first day in the White House, DOGE has largely shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development, which provides aid to the world's needy, canceling more than 80 percent of its humanitarian programs. Almost all of the agency's employees will be fired by September, all of its overseas offices shut, with some functions absorbed into the State Department. At home, the government overhaul has resulted in the firing, resignations and early retirements of 260,000 civil servants, according to a Reuters tally. Over 20,000 probationary workers - recently hired or recently reassigned employees - were fired in February. After court rulings they were reinstated but most were sent home on full pay. Most are now being fired again after further court decisions.

Trump and Musk have said the U.S. government is beset by fraud and waste. Few civil servants and governance experts dispute efficiencies can be made, but say there are already people inside the federal bureaucracy trying to save taxpayer dollars. Yet some of these offices have been targeted for cuts by DOGE.