Infinite Raven

Coaching & Consultancy

The Raven Gets Irritated: DOGE, Grief, and the Wilfully Lost

10–16 minutes

The 2024 U.S. Presidential election, Donald Trump’s return to office, and Elon Musk’s role in DOGE have triggered intense emotional reactions from Democrats, resembling the stages of grief. Kübler-Ross’s DABDA model – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance – provides a framework for understanding these responses. An extended version developed to explain employee reactions to organisational change adds the opportunity for strategic reactions – revising and deserting – providing active pathways to show agency and adaptation.

Still Down the Rabbit Hole

I’ve been reflecting on the Democrats’ intense emotional reaction to President Trump’s victory in the November 2024 election – and their oddly hostile attitudes toward Trump, Elon Musk, and the Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE).

Renaissance Men

I wasn’t a Trump fan during his first term from 2016 to 2020. But since the assassination attempt in July 2024, after four years to reflect on his first term, he seems to be approaching the job with greater focus and intent. Now, Trump follows the rules and procedures: signing executive orders, sending lawyers to the courts, stopping and starting with a patience that surprises me.

Thomas Edison is famously quoted as saying, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Trump, it seems, spent his first term finding 10,000 ways to be more thoughtful, less hyperbolic, and better prepared this time around. 

Elon Musk, appointed and directed by Trump, is providing ‘Tech Support’ in the form of a systems analysis, evaluation, debug and redesign. He posts on X daily explaining his rationale, making the process transparent, setting measurable targets, reporting progress, and providing every concerned citizen with information and accountability. In doing so, he effectively treats the public like executive shareholders in the governance of their country.

They are, each in their own way, Renaissance men, demonstrating a remarkable breadth of skills and knowledge. Regardless of how one evaluates their actions, it’s undeniable that both have multiple strings to their bows.

The Unpopular Kids

Their strengths have propelled them to extreme success, but ironically isolated them, leaving them in a reviled group at the top of today’s cultural hierarchy. They are the “evil billionaires.”

I wonder if the middle-income citizens making these accusations recognize the irony: would they accept being dismissed by an equally outraged lower-income crowd? Would they tolerate being told their opinions don’t matter, their intentions can’t be trusted, and that they must pay disproportionately higher taxes just because they’ve achieved some degree of financial success? I suspect they wouldn’t see the parallel or engage with that logic.

The outrage over money and success often comes from those who have just enough to feel informed but not enough to empathize with the elite they resent. And they seem to miss the fact that beyond a certain point, money is just a number. The real concerns regarding morals, values, and life’s endless pitfalls, are tied to the human condition, not the financial one.

When the ‘Wrong’ People Do the Right Thing

DOGE is proving effective, throwing open the heavy, dust-laden curtains of government bureaucracy and clearing the way for a leaner America. One that can take care of its citizens and continue to function economically.

And yet… where is the joy that the Liberal Left so vocally prides itself on?

With a mix of schadenfreude and incredulity, I’ve watched from across the Pond in the UK as Democrats scream and sob in their cars and kitchens on TikTok and YouTube. Some have shaved their heads, others have attacked strangers or broken down in public spaces.

Many openly discriminate against and dehumanize Trump supporters – a contradiction of the tolerance and respect they claim to uphold.

And on the street corner, the too-thin man in rags holds a sign that reads, “The end is nigh”…

WWFS – What Would Freud Say

A hundred years ago, Freud would have had a field day observing generations of people with fragile egos unleashing trembling ids, overwhelmed by repressed fear and aggression.

He might wonder whether their terror of losing control reflects parental figures who laid the groundwork for their inner conflicts and anxiety.

He might sigh over his cigar, lamenting a Thanatos death instinct expressed through a cultural obsession with destruction fuelled by Hollywood’s love of breaking things, people, and worlds apart, only to wrap everything up neatly in a denouement that ends before any meaningful consequences or rebuilding can be seen.

I think they are grieving – And like anyone in grief, they can’t see, don’t know, and won’t listen until they’ve worked through it.

Using a Framework to Explore my Theory

DABDA is a five-stage model of grief proposed by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her 1973 book On Death and Dying, representing the emotional stages people often experience when facing loss: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. It’s not a linear process, and not everyone experiences every stage, but for decades, it has been a useful framework for understanding the emotional rollercoaster of loss and change.

I sat down for a chat with some AI pals and tried a little framework analysis – could we find examples of each stage of grief in the Democrats’ behavior since Trump was elected?

I asked ChatGPT to review texts I pasted in from news articles, press releases, and transcripts from Senate hearings. To keep things interesting, I introduced some competition: Grok3 Beta, ever the show-off, flaunted his vast knowledge – sometimes too glibly for me to follow. But soon enough, we settled into a discussion style that suited my need to have things explained several times, very slowly… all while keeping a constant check on the little fibber.

I’ve noticed how the media shapes the narrative, so I’ve favoured original sources: interviews I can listen to, X posts I can read, Senate hearings I can watch, press releases straight from the offices of those speaking. I want to understand the picture, not the frame.

Denial

ChatGPT identified key themes about the U.S. Presidential election in November 2024 from the source material: “This can’t be happening. Trump isn’t the President. This isn’t how government works. It’s illegal. They don’t have the authority.” 

Grok led me to Democrat Senator Bernie Sanders giving his prepared remarks on the illegitimacy of Trump’s Presidency on the U.S. Senate floor on February 4, 2025: “Under President Trump we are not seeing a ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people.’ Quite the contrary. We are seeing a government of the billionaire class, by the billionaire class, for the billionaire class.” 

Also, we looked at the resolution introduced by Democrat Senator Chris Coons on February 6, reaffirming the critical importance of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) for national security. In it, he argued that DOGE’s aid freeze was illegal, stating: “Congress created USAID as an independent agency, and only Congress can reverse that.”

Anger

ChatGPT happily provided commentary once more to illustrate the DABDA stage in context: “Trump is Hitler, Musk is a fascist. Anyone who voted for Trump is racist, sexist, ignorant, subhuman.” And, of course, the blame game: “This is all Musk’s fault. It’s Fox News’ fault. It’s the White Man’s fault.”

Google and I find a Senate floor speech by Democrat Senator Angus King on February 20, where he called Trump’s mass firings and agency shutdowns “the most serious assault on our Constitution in the history of this country.” Frustrated, King warned Congress was “just sitting back and watching it happen.”

Not to be outdone, Grok suggests looking at Democrat Senator Elizabeth Warren; I find an angry press conference on February 3: “We are living a nightmare created by Donald Trump and Elon Musk, and we need to wake up.”

Bargaining

This stage requires attempts to resist, delay, or mitigate the administration’s actions rather than accepting the new reality. ChatGPT said the quiet part out loud: “Maybe we can stop him with lawsuits. Maybe we can resist, delay, obstruct; block every appointment, every policy.”

Grok became confused at this point and generated a hallucinated quote from Democrat Senator Chris Murphy, claiming that existing strong oversight mechanisms already ensured “every penny is tracked.” The irony is almost too perfect: a Musk AI fabricating a quote praising the robustness of a system expressed by referencing an item set to be discontinued due to its abysmal cost-to-value ratio. You couldn’t make this up… though clearly, Grok could.

At this point, I told Grok to sleep it off and tagged ChatGPT back into the game. With a little help from me and Google, the Little AI That Could informed me that the Bargaining stage is evident in Representative Connolly’s February 3, letter requesting Elon Musk’s appearance before the Oversight Committee. This move reflects an attempt to challenge Musk’s role in restructuring the federal government.

ChatGPT and I scored another slam dunk when we found Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer’s floor speech on January 28 in which he warned that the federal aid freeze would have dire consequences and told Americans to “… call their senators, call their congress members, particularly Republicans, and get them to tell President Trump to stop it. Cut this out. Cut out these cuts. Because you’re going to hurt us.”

Depression

“Now we’re talking,” said ChatGPT, with the dramatic flair of a doomsday prophet. “America is over. Democracy is dead. There’s no hope.”

Grok and I found a suitable sky-is-falling comment from Democrat senator Chris Murphy posting on X on January 28 “Trump is trying to collapse our democracy – and probably our economy – and seize control.”

Grok also highlighted Democrat Senator Mark Warner’s February 6 remarks in support of Coons’ resolution, claiming that DOGE is “a gift to our adversaries that will make us less safe.” 

Then, Grok had a bit of a tizzy fit and seemed to think it was 2023… 

Acceptance

This isn’t about approval. It’s about acknowledging reality and choosing to move forward within it. ChatGPT struggled to find a good example in the material I provided, but a quick search on X and a chat with Grok offered a glimmer of hope, leading me to Democrat Senator John Fetterman, who seems more interested in getting things done than dwelling on what doesn’t work.

In a January 9 post on X, Senator Fetterman referenced his decision to visit Trump in Florida at the ‘Winter White House’, Mar-a-Lago, and said, “It’s my job to find common ground and deliver results for everybody.”

He’s clearly not aligned with the new administration on everything, but he’s accepted reality and put his shoes on.

Strategic Reactions to Change

Given the political upheaval we’ve been discussing – shifting power dynamics, policy reversals, and institutional restructuring – it’s useful to consider a framework that captures not just emotional reactions but strategic responses.

In a 2018 study, Castillo, Fernández, and Sallan refined Kübler-Ross’s model into a six-stage framework specifically tailored to organizational settings.

Based on interviews with individuals navigating restructurings and role changes, Castillo et al (2018) merged Denial and Anger into a single stage and introduced two new phases: Revising and Deserting.

Where Bargaining is about trying to soften or reverse a change, Revising marks a shift toward adaptation. This is where people start recalibrating, adjusting messaging, rethinking strategies, and figuring out how to function within a new reality.

You can see this shift in action in United States Representative Ro Khanna’s February 13 opinion piece in The New York Times. Instead of simply opposing the proposed DOGE cuts, he acknowledges public support for them and urges Democrats to offer “transformative solutions to deliver future prosperity for all Americans, rekindling our bonds as citizens and healing our divides in the process.”

Deserting is the conscious decision to disengage – not out of despair, as in the Depression stage, but as a deliberate, strategic choice. This isn’t the melodramatic “I’m moving to Canada” flounce, it’s stepping away from counterproductive conflict.

In a February 10 article in The Free Press, Ruy Teixeira referenced former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s comments to Politico, which captures this mindset well: “You don’t fight every fight. You don’t swing at every pitch.”

By adding these stages, the model acknowledges the agency of individuals in responding to change, whether by attempting to resist, actively adjusting, or ultimately choosing to disengage.

A Very Human Response

Politics is not that different from the corporate world. Both realms are riddled with complexity, a web of stakeholders, and an intricate mix of emotional and strategic responses to change. The dynamics are similar whether you’re steering a business or a country.

Real empathy isn’t virtue-signaling, performative outrage, or attacking those who disagree. It’s recognizing the human condition even in those who irritate you most. I can see the Democrats’ outbursts for what they are – grief, resistance, adaptation – but that doesn’t make them any less frustrating.

Still, I am hopeful. It doesn’t feel like a dismantling of government in the U.S. right now – it feels like watching a disaster movie in reverse, the fragments of their Constitution snapping back into place.

If the Democrats can’t adapt in real time, maybe they can at least find the space to disengage, grieve the chaos and rediscover the stardust of it all.

References

Comments

Penny for ‘em