Republicans In ‘DOGE’ Caucus Not Too Familiar With Original Doge Meme
WASHINGTON — Republicans in Congress have enthusiastically started groups celebrating the new “Department of Government Efficiency” led by billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.
But even as they embrace the DOGE brand, many of the lawmakers don’t know its backstory.
HuffPost asked Rep. Aaron Bean (R-Fla.), co-founder of a new DOGE caucus, if he was familiar with the internet meme that started it all.
“Uh, vaguely,” he said. “The dog?”
The dog.
Musk pitched a Department of Government Efficiency this summer, in a social media post, after President-elect Donald Trump suggested he could give Musk, Trump’s biggest campaign funder, a Cabinet position. The proposed name was a joking reference to doge (pronounced “dodje”), an internet meme that inspired Musk’s favorite cryptocurrency token.
During a 2021 appearance on “Saturday Night Live,” Musk admitted dogecoin was “a hustle,” tanking its value. After all, the token was created as a joke, a satire of meaningless cryptocurrency speculation.
The underlying internet meme, started in 2010, typically shows a Shiba Inu dog with superimposed text representing the dog’s thoughts, such as “wow.” It’s more a celebration of the dog than a satire, though it sometimes conveys a knowing, false amazement.
As senators came and went from the inaugural Senate DOGE caucus meeting with Ramaswamy in a Capitol office building on Thursday, several said they were unaware of the meme.
“I did read it somewhere,” Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) said. “I didn’t know much about it, though.”
Ramaswamy himself declined to comment. Sens. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) wouldn’t say a word. And Senate DOGE caucus founder Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who is under intense pressure to say whether she supports Trump’s controversial pick for defense secretary, said she wasn’t taking any questions.
Other senators were willing to talk about doge and to look at the meme.
“Is that Elon’s dog?” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) joked when a reporter showed him some doge images.
Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) said he was unfamiliar with the meme, but when he saw the pictures, he laughed and said he actually had seen it before. He was happy.
“I’ve got a dog myself,” Schmitt said. “I’m a big fan of the canines.”
Of the dozen DOGE-enthusiast lawmakers HuffPost queried, only Sen. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) definitely knew the meme. He even knew that the dog in the original images, Kabosu, died earlier this year.
“God rest her soul,” Budd said.
It’s not clear whether the Department of Government Efficiency, which isn’t actually part of the government, will ever be anything more than just another advisory panel that makes recommendations lawmakers ignore. Ramaswamy and Musk have made dubious claims that they could easily slash trillions of dollars from the federal budget and that they could even suggest executive actions Trump could take to make it happen without Congress’ approval.
Republicans seem to be embracing DOGE as a fun rebranding of their own long-standing desire to slash federal spending. Still, some have expressed skepticism that DOGE can cut spending without Congress, which has constitutional authority to control taxes and spending.
“They’re more of an advisory group that works behind the scenes with the White House,” Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) told reporters Thursday.
On the other side of the Capitol, ahead of another event with Musk and Ramaswamy, House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) talked up DOGE and the virtues of government efficiency in a live TV interview just off the House floor. Afterward, he told HuffPost he wasn’t familiar with the meme.
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“I haven’t had time to be on social media,” Smith said. “I’ve been working for the American people.”
