I’m becoming increasingly convinced that a significant fraction of professional Republicans are completely untethered from reality in very fundamental ways. Consider this story about this former DOGE staffer, Steve Davis (boldface mine):

Elon Musk’s right-hand man tried to stage a bizarre coup after being told to leave the government — ignoring the order and “bluffing” his way into continuing to do his old job, according to a new report…

After the White House announced on May 29 that the operational head of DOGE was following Elon Musk out of Washington, Davis apparently decided he wasn’t going anywhere — and continued as if nothing had happened.

The situation became so problematic that in June, the White House Presidential Personnel Office had to contact DOGE leads across government and White House liaisons to explicitly tell staffers that Davis was no longer an employee and to “cease all communication with him.”

But Davis wasn’t having it. Acting as if he’d never left, he continued reaching out to staffers for DOGE updates and making requests. He even led a DOGE meeting on the sixth floor of the General Services Administration a full week after his supposed departure, announcing a “DOGE 2.0” that would be more collaborative with Cabinet secretaries, Politico reported.

“He was at the GSA running the meeting like it was business as usual,” one person familiar with the events told reporters…

Davis then dispatched a trio of allies—GSA Acting Administrator Stephen Ehikian, Josh Gruenbaum, and Anthony Armstrong—to assess people’s loyalty and installed them as DOGE’s new leadership, Politico reported.

“They claimed authority from [Vice President] JD Vance and [chief of staff] Susie Wiles but actually did not and do not have it—they were bluffing,” a second source revealed.

I think there might have been a Seinfeld episode about something like this? Anyway, this is utterly bizarre behavior. Normal people do not do this. They’re all just so fucking weird*.

*Also fascist and evil, but so weird too.