President Donald Trump, in recent mass e-mails aimed at MAGA voters, is implying that mass layoffs of federal government workers being carried out by his administration with the help of the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) may lead to “dividend checks” for Americans.
One of the MAGA e-mails reads, “DOGE dividend check? Friend, should I give DOGE savings back to you? Check signed by Trump!” And another, written in all caps, asks, “SHOULD TRUMP GIVE DOGE SAVINGS BACK TO AMERICAN CITIZENS VIA CHECK?”
Salon’s Chauncey DeVega, in an article published on April 24, describes MAGA’s “dividend check” e-mails as a prime example of Trump’s “game show politics.”
READ MORE: ‘Chilling’: Trump official threatens staff with criminal sanctions for speaking with press
“As a master propagandist and expert manipulator of the media and information environment,” DeVega explains, “Donald Trump is very intentional with his strategic messaging. Trump would not be sending such e-mails if he did not have research suggesting that such messaging would be effective in keeping his MAGA followers’ loyalty, bringing in new supporters, and/or generating more distraction and spectacle that he can use as cover and camouflage for his autocratic project.”
DeVega is a scathing critic of Trump, often describing him as a “fascist” in his Salon articles. But DeVega is also critical of fellow progressives who, he believes, make a huge mistake when they underestimate Trump. And the “DOGE dividend check” pitch, the Salon journalist warns, may work to his political advantage.
“Those outside of the MAGAverse and TrumpWorld, especially the mainstream liberals and centrists in the news media and political class, will, as they have consistently done, mock Trump’s free money bonanza e-mails and other outreach and fake populist appeals,” DeVega observes. “Such voices tend to believe that anyone who would trust Trump’s promises of free money are dumb, dupes, rubes and/or easy marks. These same public voices and elites have a credibility and legitimacy problem. They are the same people who underestimated Donald Trump’s broad appeal and power in 2024.”
DeVega continues, “Donald Trump’s repeated hint that he is going to send the American people more money reflects a larger strategy with him at the center of a vast propaganda experience machine. The Democrats, liberals, progressives and mainstream political class more broadly have no equivalent experience machine. Nor do they have an easy way of countering it…. Trump’s suggestion that he may give the American people another ‘stimulus’ check, or DOGE ‘dividends,’ resonates because of the country’s extreme levels of wealth and income inequality.”
READ MORE: ‘Repressive tactics’: Highly-respected global org issues Kristi Noem a warning
Chauncey DeVega’s full Salon article is available at this link.
