How can Doge access critical government infrastructure and fire people if it isn't even a real department?

Laws are only a thing if enforced.
The fox is in the hen house so if we want law enforcement we need to make sure it happens ourselves.
- To add to this: The Supreme Court has granted the president immunity from any wrongdoing in addition to pardoning powers.
  So Trump or anyone close to him can essentially not be convicted which leads to the massive corruption we’re seeing right now.
- The Devil is in the details, and he needs to get the fuck out!

It is a real department, sort of. Trump used Legislation that was intended for an Obama Era "US Digital Service" and rebranded it "US DOGE Service". He didn't even need to change the acronym, although it is now a nested acronym.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_DOGE_Service
They do, in fact, overstep their legal boundaries quite often. But the administration simply fires anyone in any other department who gets in the way until they get an acquiescent administrator who lets them grab the department by the pussy.
- "When you are rich and famous enough, they just let you do it."
  I wish Trump bragging about sexual assault wasn't national policy.
  
  yeah but the non-voting lefties are way diggin' it. They're so glad genoside joe is out.

twice the orange shit was impeached, and the republicans did not remove him from office.
then the orange shit was found guitly of 34 felonies and was let off the hook. technically convicted but no punishment.
the systems, checks and balances that should have prevented this situation were tried, but congress / senate did not hold him accountable and punish him. they figured they would end up with more power and money if they let him do what he wanted and so are letting him.
that's basically it. unless there's some sort of miracle (and i really doubt there will be) democracy is over in the united states. you just watched the grand old experiment fail.
- So, it isn't the exact same situation, but just as a reminder: von Papen, the conservative guy who ultimately put Hitler into power, initially thought he'd be savvy and cede only "not that important" posts to Hitler and the NSDAP. After all, a silly, comically insane upstart like Hitler would be easily outmanoeuvred by knowing the law and how statecraft works, right?
  Well, the Nazis just used those posts in illegal ways, overstepped their official authority and refused to report to von Papen at all (whom they should at that point have been subservient to) - knowing full well no one was going to stop them anyway. Shortly thereafter, von Papen was out and Hitler was chancellor.
  Von Papen managed to live until 1969, and wrote an autobiography that was derided by historians for having a terribly naive lack of understanding politics, lack of principles and being full of vanity.
- Not to mention he basically gave any of his followers a get out of jail free card to do violent crime. Do my bidding, I will pardon you. And then pointed toward the gay/Mexicans/trans/non white male communities.

It's a coup. They are currently rewriting the rules of how things are done.
- It's a coup. They are currently ~~rewriting~~ willfully ignoring the rules of how things are done.
  FTFY

Because nobody’s punched these little fucks in the face yet

Good question, as an American, I’m all for these fucks being the first against the wall.

It's good to be a king, and that's what Trump is now. The people in charge of defending us from this took the money instead.

It doesn't seem like people are really aware that the coup was successful this time. All the shit we are seeing is just fallout from that.

The mechanisms only work if people enforce them.
- And the purpose of the executive branch is to enforce the policies created by the other two branches. Sooo. Yeah. A vote for Trump, or no vote at all, was a vote for this

It's a little thing we call "tyranny."
- ...... as a treat

south america has a tradition of government reform and transparency wherein criminals in government are arrested sometimes forcibly. no such tradition exists in the USA

There are two kinds of true, and thus two kinds of 'real'. There's the kind where what you believe matters and the kind where it doesn't. Gravity is the second kind. Step off the top of a building and it doesn't matter if you believe in gravity, you're going to fall. Politics is the first kind. If everyone believes I'm the king of North America, well, then that's the truth. It's reality. Likewise if everyone in the government believes that Elon Musk can fire whoever he wants, then he can, because everyone will just go along with it.
- While true, this takes the heat off the place it most belongs: individuals, individually choosing to go along with something so horrible, when they could instead choose not to.

there's tons of mechanisms to stop that from happening
There are tons of such mechanisms in the United States as well. Unfortunately the mechanisms essentially boil down to laws, policies, and norms. Doing an illegal action does not pull a lever that deposits you in jail. The whole system relies on the people in power choosing to do the right thing. That's going to be a potential issue in any country with centralized power.
- I watched similar thing happen in my own country. It was just one decision (so far) and made with a very comfortable parlamentary majority. The problem was that it was supposed to be unconstitutional according to wast majority of constitutional experts. That turned out to be absolutely no problem for the parlament and the administration.
  It's not even that I am too much against what they decided, but it did change my views on the nature of law. Any law or constitution is just a paper if it isnt enforced and will carry no weight, when it is simply ignored.

There are all sorts of mechanisms in the USA to stop this from happening as well. However, Trump spent the first term embedding loyalists in the courts and congress, so there really is not much left to stop him. If the people who are there to act as a check on presidential power are in on the game, then who is left to enforce the law?
Prosecution takes a very long time and authoritarians move very quickly. Time is not on our side.
- Dude. Time was up on November 6th. I'm not sure who you imagine time is still available for to use in any way whatsoever. We had time between the start of 2021 to the election in 2024, and we squandered it. No time left my friend. It's the end of time.
  
  I think you misunderstand the phrase as I'm using it.
  Time is always on someone's side. It's the nimble, the patient, the determined who win. MAGA is more nimble than the institutions that oppose it. It's been more patient and focused than the opposition which has been constantly chasing after the latest shiny object of the week/month/year rather than anticipating the need for focus and unity. The bad guys are winning and they are not slowing down; we are falling further behind.

I'm afraid that my country the US is entering a dictatorship similar to the 1973-85 dictadura in Uruguay. Even about 40 years later, when I (stupidly) left there, I could see the political and social PTSD from it. Along with Uruguayans being "never again with that horror" from there successful transition to one of the strongest democracies in the Americas.
The big difference is, instead of being a "civic-military" dictatorship, the US is beginning a "civic-techbro" dictatorship.
The military will follow along later. Much of the enlisted, non-officer troops are pro-Trump. Even some officers are.
Source: immediate relative who is a sergeant in the US Army. He is horrified by the Trump supporters in his unit.

This is like in Latin America when a president wins a CIA backed 'election' and then creates a NEW legislative branch of government that has twice the power of the current legislative goverment, it's a very simple and obvious way to practice 'legalism' which is a Fascist principal of doing things that APPEAR legal. But clearly aren't.

there’s tons of mechanisms to stop that from happening
Those are fake. Laws are fake. Government is fake. Money is fake. Everything is an illusion. It's not a physical law of nature or something. It all boils down to if someone feels like doing something or meh... and the people in charge here are more like meh.
- Yeah anything involving human behavior is ultimately...just based on how people feel and act. There's (currently) no Robocop programmed to enforce laws to the letter.

They are a real department. The USDS.

Commonwealth countries have a cabinet system of govt.
Minsters are selected by the cabinet from members of parliament. Departments are closed, opened and altered all the time when there is a ministerial reshuffle ordered by the cabinet.
Any minister could run this sort of operation in their department without palrliamentary approval, and the cabinet could do so for the whole govt (and frequently do).
The US has a presidential form of govt. The presidental office is separate from the parliament. Minsters are appointed by the president and must not be members of parliament.
But the president can't just choose anyone - they must be members of their political party and they must be elected through a series of member elections and state executive decisions.
The issue here is not that DOGE cannot operate under a minister, its that the president cannot order a political outsider to undertake the duties of a minister properly elected through party processes.
BTW, no such limitaion exists in France - the French president can appoint anyone as minister, they don't even need to be a French citizen or a residnet in France ! Macron attempted to do this recently but had to back down when the parliament blocked money bills.

Aren't they able to veto all financial expenses of the state or so? Then they probably can't fire people directly, but just decide that a certain role is superfluous, and doesn't receive funding anymore.
(I'm just guessing, but that's how I'd do it)

In Europe and even South America there's tons of mechanisms to stop that from happening,
How naive is you?
The only difference between US and other regimes is that other regimes understand political science and current US regime doesn't...
Make no mistake, this behavior will have consequences for the US government. People seeing this behavior in such raw condition will rewire the subjects brains going forward.
Big part of being a sovereign is having peasants accept your authority... You don't fucking piss on their faces en mass and then expect them to obey Lol
It is getting hard for normies to larp "Constitution" online haha