I’m a Federal Worker. You Have No Idea the Irreversible Damage Elon Musk Is Doing.
I’m a Federal Worker. You Have No Idea the Irreversible Damage Elon Musk Is Doing.
This judicial review provides at least a reprieve, a small hope that some of the administration’s most destructive impulses will be pared back.
In the past week or so, the courts have begun to try to set some boundaries on the Musk–Miller–Trump administration’s early blitz of recklessness.
. . .
This judicial review provides at least a small reprieve, hope that some of the administration’s most destructive impulses will be stopped. Or at least pared back. But even with the courts stepping up, and even with the reality of the administration’s ineptitude sinking in, this early Musk–Miller–Trump blitz remains very—maybe irreparably—damaging. Of course, there are a lot of moles to whack: the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are being dismantled at an alarming rate, and the court system is not known for being nimble. The administration is betting, perhaps rightly, that at least some of its thoughtless, lawless efforts will slip through the cracks.
But even if the courts caught them all—and even if every court facing each lawless escapade said, “Nope, that’s not a thing”—still the entire process would be doing serious damage to our institutions. Think of it as someone spoofing your identity and going on a shopping spree with your credit cards. Even if the goon gets caught, you still have to go store by store to argue that the fraudulent purchase wasn’t legitimate and hope the debt is forgiven. And all the while, perhaps long after all the debts are dealt with, the torrent of uncertainty kills your credit score.
I just need to shout this into the void:
Fuck this fucking bullshit. What the hell is wrong with this country. I fucking hate this timeline.
blame democrats for not having a primary
So a narcissistic billionaire is indirectly ruling your country, without even being elected, and you guys are just cool with that?
Nope. But in case you hadn't noticed, we don't really have much power to stop him.
Your second amendment was intended for precisely this scenario. Guess all those school shootings were for nothing.
Narcissistic billionaires have been indirectly running the country decades, why do you care now?
I have so many ideas about it, before it even began. Good luck to you all, may we survive this next fascist cycle
Everyone who perceived the Harris pivot as "playing to lose" has ideas about it. We're over-represented on Lemmy as compared with the voting public. The Republican party has been sufficiently horrifying for sufficiently long, that there is an entire generation of voters who "lean left", but have no idea where to even begin actually holding their party accountable for things.
In 1984 Jesse Jackson had his Rainbow Coalition, but they gave us Walter Mondale. The same thing happened with Bernie in both 2016 and 2020. In the USA there is a capitalist part and a fash party, and no room is permitted on the stage for anything other than tightly controlled powerless opposition.
I am not American. I have no say in it except godspeed
After surviving the last 4 years Americans have proven they can survive anything.
This is simple sabotage. There is nothing beneficial about this outside of showing some green on Wallstreet LEDs. Pure pump and dump scheme.
To bad there is nothing we can do. We call our reps and they say "we agree, but there is nothing we can do". The Republicans definitely won't do anything so until midterms we are basically stuck.
There is more far, far more we could do, but it would require courage and class solidarity.
I actually do.
We're entirely fucked.
We're going to spend the rest of our lives witnessing the enshitification of this nation. Even if we completely turn this crash and burn around, we'll then spend the rest of our lives watching things being slowly rebuilt as traitorous Republicans continue to obstruct.
I don't think a lot of Americans are grasping exactly how hard we fucked ourselves by refusing to responsibly inform ourselves even to a minimal degree.
As someone currently living in Canada, the US is badly fucking up a lot of it's international relations too. I've heard several people here say that even if if the US unfucks itself right away (which it won't), it's still going to be a long time before things will be right again.
You don't go around threatening neighbours and allies like this and then expect to be able to just walk it back overnight.
Yeah, even just kicking out these crazies isn't a good fix because they've already demonstrated they're more than willing to lie, cheat, and steal to hold on to or gain power.
The only justice I'd trust would need to come at the end of a rope, and it'd need to include a LOT of colluders at the very least in cells as well. That includes certain media organizations that helped enable this shit-show as well.
After all that, the American public needs to force better, including proper regulation and enforcement of public over corporate interests. While some of it has been astroturfing, the embedded cleptocracy and corporate interest in the Democratic party also needs to be fixed (or both parties turfed and new better choices), because "lesser evil" is not good enough.
Other countries should also take heed from the US situation. This is what happens when you continually tolerate the intolerable, and when your government is owned by a billionaire+ untouchable aristocracy with a corporate shield protecting them from consequences.
Indeed, could you simply annex all the Blue States?
USAID was, more than anything, a means of positive international relations. It was a 2 prong approach of foreign aid and foreign good will. The mid 1900s US made a lot of fucking enemies, and USAID was one very solid method of trying to overcome the damage wrought by our government.
And now TB supplies – that were already paid for – are rotting in warehouses (among many other issues). Not only will that harm people, it will harm our reputation, AND increase antibiotic resistant TB, which will in turn affect the rest of the world including the US itself.
And that's only one piece of the very large clusterfuck.
Oh I know. I hate it because a) I love yall, Canadians, Danes, Germans opposed to the afd, etc. You're our friends and neighbors and I'm horrified seeing people not treat you as such, but also b) we had a real good thing going and we're never getting it back.
We entirely are. Our lifetimes in this country will never see another good day of it.
I don't think a lot of Americans are grasping exactly how hard we fucked ourselves by refusing to responsibly inform ourselves even to a minimal degree.
This! Methods that lower general intelligence:
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Content Streaming - its starts with Bluey
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Gaming - iPads have replaced paper in schools, in car trips colourful gems pop instead of engagement with the world. Adults game the night away, streaming live. Kids aspire to be them.
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Social media - Algorithms, echo-chambers, bots, keyboard warriors, content cencorship and manipulation, advertising, yuck.
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Dating Apps
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AI - We'll become dependent and lower general critical thinking skills.
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Legalisation of marijuana. - Its political support should be a concern. While it may be seemingly harmless at an individual level, there seems to be issues with mass use. How many users abstained from voting?
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Underfunded, cookie cutter lower education. There is no flexibility for the diversity of people and development potentials. Teaching children non-denominational meditation and concentration, or helping them observe but reconcile simple contradictory expressions of duality in existence, would strengthen their conciousness significantly.
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Over emphasis on technical STEM in higher-education without equally supporting the arts and philosophy.
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Cultural over-emphasis towards individual monetary wealth over knowledge, spirituality or even concern for the wealth of those around them. Prevents empathy.
All of these focus on separating the individual from other individuals. The darkness does not want connected families or communities. It wants you to feel alone, helpless and willing to hand over your power.
We have all seen the US police force's brutality under democratic law. How much worse could it be under authoritarian rule? My advice would be to immediately set up public meetings with local law enforcement at the officer level, start a collaborative dialogue and get to know each other, fast.
Legalisation of marijuana
Ridiculous take.
You had me on your side until you went in on weed. Let's focus on the bigger issue of alcohol addiction and drunk driving before we go after something less harmful.
If you think Bluey lowers kids intelligence or "separates the individual from other individuals" then you've never watched Bluey.
It's a great resource for teaching emotional intelligence to kids and empathises the importance of quality time with family. I don't think you could have picked a worse children's TV show example.
What kind of new age crazy are you?
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a purge could fix it all tomorrow.
As much as I agree, it will take things getting a lot worse before people do anything like that. A lot of the most heavily armed are the ones who voted for this. The pickup full of hillbillies are still in the denial phase. They still think things won't affect them, or that it'll be temporary. They are all for "those people" taking the brunt of the actions right now. They've convinced themselves that only the "libtards" are affected, and they aren't.
It's going to take a deep hit to their way of life for anything more than peaceful protests and voting advocacy (which definitely fucking vote) happens.
I have an idea, normal thinking Americans do
I also have an idea of how many billions of dollars in lawsuits taxpayers will be on the hook for in the coming 25 years
He'll ruin the gov like he ruined X
As if twitter wasn't a net negative for society to begin with.
At least Facebook was decently capable at helping you keep connected with friends and events at the beginning. Twitter was always gargled garbage to begin with.
Nothing of value will be exchanged over 140 characters without being bastardized in some way, or context withheld.
Less true in other languages. Twitter was big in Japan where 140 chars goes a bit further.
He'll ruin the
govcountry like he ruined XFTFY
He'll ruin the
govcountry like he ruinedXTwitterFTFTFY
The U.S.A. is done. Such sabotage by Trump, Musk and MAGA takes decades to recover from. 40 to 50 at least; rebuilding the civil service, amending all the laws back to normal, fixing the Supreme Court, probably needing Constitutional amendments. This easily echos for a hundred years.
If it was that easy to send the country into ruin then we were already done.
Stop the hysteria. Let Trump dig his hole. And maybe throw some support behind candidates that aren't soulless, self serving, establishment liberals.
That hole he is digging is for the dead bodies. We should be shutting stuff down instead of standing by
Putin is getting such great value from Trump. It's clearly the best deal ever.
a century of "Red Scare" has made you believe that everything evil in the world is russian.
While such a simplistic worldview might help you retain sanity in this world, if you look closely, it is the opposite of helpful, as it prevents you from seeing things as they are, and taking effective action.
Even if they get rid of pedo-Don, Fox will tell them everything that went wrong is because of Clinton and the woke and they will be like "YeAh dAMn woke-dei-sjw-blm dEsTroyIng ma cUntrY".
It's over. That's the consequence of decades of under-educating their citizen and raw capitalism. The only question that remain is how much of the world down they will bring down with them.
Yeah, that's why Murdoch and Co should also be punished to the extremes. They knowingly pushed false information over and over. The U.S. should sue them for 50 trillion in damages without allowance of Bankruptcy. A simple get the fuck out of our country to all those who participated or stay and experience for yourself what you did to so many working class people.
I think your assessment is optimistic.
Yup.
It will take decades of scraping and clawing things through Congress to get back what we're going to lose in a few short years. Assuming our government is even recognizable by the end of this.
If you have the means, it may actually be time to make another country home. If you don't, you need to come to terms that you will probably spend the rest of your life living in a declining nation where your rights are threatened.
Honestly theres a good chance that the US may collapse, its tied pretty thoroughly to capitalism which is also showing signs of hitting its end point. Its possible that within the next four years even that the US will be 50 individual countries with the federal government no longer existing. The very problems that are allowing Trump and Musk to wreck shit is the same type of problems that collapse empires, and theres no American equivalent to Russia for the USSR or Serbia for Yugoslavia.
The idea that america was fine until MAGA sabotaged it is absurd and reductionist.
I don’t see anybody saying everything was fine. That doesn’t mean no room existed to get much, much worse.
Slowly degrading since what Nixon?
If's been being eroded for a long time, but just recently it's become fragile enough to be unstoppable at any level.
Hasn't it been thoroughly sabotaged by Reagan already? Not to say that Trump can't do a fine job setting the rubble on fire, but i concur that the US has been a mess for quite some time.
... you are implying that "people will try to make things return to normal in the future".
But i think that take is misinformed.
Progress on Earth is coming to an end, and as a direct consequence, demand for human labor is plummeting, and that makes wages drop. (Consider the labor market is a market and the human effort is the traded good, and a decreased demand makes prices go down. And prices are wages.) That is the major cause for the increasing "working poor" phenomenon.
If you want to improve worker's living condition, you have to advocate for Universal Basic Income (UBI). Wages alone will not be sufficient in the future to retain an acceptable quality-of-life.
Let me update my take on this:
I understand you Americans are all so "hard work is the major content of my life" like. And that is fine. If you think that you can fix your labor market, do it. Though if you ask me, progress on Earth can not continue. There is neither quantitative nor qualitative growth that would lead to mass employment of most of the population.
The long-term plan for humanity that I see is that humans will develop spaceflight and go to Mars. There will be lots of space and technological challenges that will demand a lot of human labor-input, and that will keep the wages up, the people working and in full employment, and probably have a few other side-effects. However, future progress cannot meaningfully happen on Earth. I want to be clear on that.
Looks at the rising habitability of northern Canada, Greenland and Russia as an alternative the inhabitability of equator nations, due to climate change
Would this be considered an opportunity for progress?
We had their playbook with p2025 and did nothing. They started enacting it, and we still do nothing. We could have shock-and-awed them right back with prepared lawsuits and movements blow for blow, and nothing.
We had their playbook with p2025 and did nothing.
Liberals ran out their strongest champions
- Chuck Schumer
- Richie Torries
- The Cheney Family
- The UK Labor Party campaign staff
- Ted Cruz's former chief of staff at the Lincoln Project
- Some very reputable and trustworthy staffers from AIPAC
And spent over $1B of donor money in order to tell people that only
Joe BidenKamala Harris can Beat Trump, after a no-contest primary. A full year of campaigning. They brought Jeff Flake up as a surprise guest for the DNC!You can't reasonably call that nothing. It felt like less than nothing.
The DNC and their non-spoiler neoliberals are still getting their sweet sweet oligarch bribe checks, so all is right with the world as far as they're concerned.
They're literally more defensive about any actual leftwing movement to get them to defend the people from the murderous capitalists destroying us and the planet for short term profit.
We either need a populist to steal the DNC's machine from them as they're kicking and screaming like Trump did the RNC, make a 3rd party, the best option have a hot revolution starting with Wall Street, or accept this hell as we sleepwalk into oblivion.
Blue no matter who is rearranging deck chairs on a sinking ship. I voted for Harris out of some harm reduction, but the capitalists are the problem and own both parties. Republicans revel in the cruelty and are simply louder about it. Democrats will support your freedom to be LGBTQ... As you die in the gutter of poverty, exposure, and capital defense force brutality. Here have an affirmation ribbon to use as a blanket and/or snack in your cardboard box as they support the industry denying the claims for the nerve damage that made you lose your shitty subsistence job when your treatment would cut into their profit expectations.
Both parties support the "Freedom" of the rich to toss capital batteries they broke into the trash when they're no longer of use to their bottom line. Freedom without social responsibility is a rampage.
This is not the Democrats fault. It is the fault of those that voted for Trump. The knew exactly what he was, and still voted for him. They wanted this.
I'm suspect of posts that blame Democrats, are these posts put up by paid shills?
WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW IS THE FAULT OF TRUMP, AND HIS MAGA FOLLOWERS!!!
What I don't understand is that no one is stopping this from happening. They're all just letting it happen. Perhaps because they are afraid to lose their jobs but at what cost? I've lost all hope for this country and I wish to God I could move. Oh well.
What can you do if your boss that the president puts in charge fires you?
You can assume you're already going to be fired since you don't align with the program so white not ring the alarm bells as much as you can? Film it. Livestream it. Anything for God's sake.
I think a lot of humans are having this thought anyways: "We are all fucked. There is no future for many/most of us", and therefore, people have no reason/motivation to fight.
What would a vision of the future be, in your eyes? Where do you see yourself in 40-50 years?
A believe a lot of blue politicians actually agree with Trump and what him to push things through where when things go to shit they can then try to blame Trump and still run for re-election and the sheep will still vote for them.
I'm a federal employee. You have no idea the stress my family and I have been dealing with since that motherfucker swore in.
A relative of mine is a state employee... he had two reports that'd applied for transfer to the equivalent federal departments... and those two have now withdrawn their requests.
I wish you the best of luck and I thank you for your contribution to public well being.
They wouldn't have been hired anyway. We had people who were supposed to start on Monday, January 27th. On Thursday the 23rd, their offers were rescinded and we were told they wouldn't be starting. I can only imagine. Of course they had already quit their previous job. Now what the fuck are they doing?
I don't live in the US, but I did want to just say that as an outsider I appreciate the effort you are putting in, especially given the hostile working environment.
Good luck homie
To add more context - I’m a federal employee who has received these Fork emails -
They always come out at night, usually ~ 8-9 pm Eastern. One came out on a Sunday night. So you show up for work the next morning and that’s what’s waiting for you. I’m convinced this is done on purpose, to fuck with us.
As Vought (perfect Bond villain name, right?) said:
“Put Them In Trauma”
They literally want to traumatize us. They hate us because for decades we’ve been the only ones to tell them no. No, Elon, you can’t fuck all kinds of shit up when you launch a spaceship. No, Elon, you can’t make the stock market go haywire because you were high and tweeted something stupid. No, Elon, you can’t make a deal with the Pentagon and then run to Putin and do something completely different.
Elon does not like to be told no, but Elon can’t go 5 minutes without acting like the entitled dipshit that he is, so here we are.
And so, ~ 2.5 million civil servants - scientists, healthcare researchers, USAID, engineers, doctors, etc etc, will feel his wrath because he can’t be told no.
I took a big pay cut for this job because I valued job security over money after growing up in a household where jobs were not guaranteed and my parents struggled. Finally I got there after trying for years, and now Elon has to throw a shit fit.
But it’s not about me - I’ll be ok, but many others won’t. And we won’t get it back without a lot of work, work that I’m not sure that we, as a country, are going to be willing to do. The brain drain and decades of knowledge capture will be lost forever. And that’s by design - now we can all go work for contractors with fewer benefits and no job security and help Elon to make even more money.
One of the Fork emails taunted us by saying that we should be happy to leave our low productivity jobs in government so that we could go work high productivity jobs in the private sector. (So funny!) I know that’s bullshit, but also I’m old enough to not let 4chan incels trigger me that easily.
I do worry about my younger/newer coworkers though, whose heads are spinning. So, I try to help them. I’m educating them about the union and hopefully giving them the tools to get through this and deal with what comes after in the best way possible, whatever that may be.
So the next time you have to go to some annoying government place with a long line and you’re tired and hungry and frustrated, please try to remember that whoever you end up coming face to face with may have just gotten another email trolling them and telling them what a piece of shit they are and they should resign from their jobs. Just give them some grace. Be kind.
Deliberately sabotaging your job as a government worker (assuming you're not working in a military industrial complex or enforcement job) plays directly into the right's framing of government as inefficient. It's important that public-facing positions be competent to foster public trust; after all, those positions are what conservatives dismantle first as pretext to abolish an agency. After public discontent sets in through first-hand experience dealing with understaffing, those public services become ripe for privatization.
This site is an amazing start! Glad it exists right now.
This is a great resource, and I hope it helps a lot of people.
My agency, and my job specifically, must be done right or people could get hurt. So things like renaming files or purposefully scheduling meeting conflicts aren’t options. I need to find specific bits of technical information to ensure a design is safe. I need to have meetings for safety reviews and make sure there isn’t anything that my group missed that could end up hurting someone.
I’m not saying these won’t be helpful to us in the future, if my agency’s current mission were to change in some way, but right now it’s the same as it was during the last administration. I will keep it in my back pocket though for when I feel it’s necessary.
Thank you!
Have you been passing around copies of "Simple Sabotage" and applying those tactics?
If no, why not?
Not personally and directly, no, but broadly, yes - I do know the irreversible damage they're doing.
And here's the real key to it all - none of it is accidental. The damage is the point.
Their goal is actually very simple - it's to utterly destroy every aspect of the government that benefits the common people or inconveniences the wealthiest few, in order to convert it explicitly and entirely into a mechanism for protecting and expanding the privilege of the wealthiest few at the expense of everyone else.
And they announced it and fully laid out a plan ahead of time. This should come as a surprise to no one who is literate.
The problem is Trump voters aren’t literate.
And there are a lot of them.
They are all acolyte of the Curtis Yarvin cult. Scumbags all of them
If they wanted to reduce spending in a meaningful way, they would at least look at the defense spending
We know. What we don't know is why are all civil servants just rolling over, instead of applying simple sabotage.
It's easy to volunteer other people, but these are civil servants who inherently believe in the rule of law by default. That programming in itself makes it hard to go against this lifelong belief in doing things by the book.
I hope they can do what they can to resist, but I also don't believe this is on them either. If the former President in a position of power couldn't put the brakes on this shit; if we as a society couldn't put the brakes on this on November 5th... Well, my expectations are very low. Things will have to come crashing down hard until the apathetic and ignorant wake up, I suspect.
but these are civil servants who inherently believe in the rule of law by default. That programming in itself makes it hard to go against this lifelong belief in doing things by the book.
Most simple sabotage is doing things EXACTLY by the book... Civil servants often take shortcuts to expedite things. They should take ZERO shortcuts.
Elon toadie asks for a set of creds. Demand Toadie get all appropriate forms completed, first, and then demand documented procedure for obtaining those creds are followed TO THE LETTER. No rush jobs. No prodding the ticket holder for updates. Just exactly like the book says to do it.
Just an example.
It’s easy to volunteer other people, but these are civil servants who inherently believe in the rule of law by default. That programming in itself makes it hard to go against this lifelong belief in doing things by the book.
It also means risking their livelihood, which I expect in many cases is an even greater deterrent than an aversion to rule breaking.
How would sabotage help when destroying the government is Musk's and Trump's goal?
It slows them down. Which is what we can hope for, until people get a bit more organized into other forms of resistance.
The same reason most of us decline our ample opportunities for sabotage every day. Someone else should do it.
Well, that changes, the more people do it. And I am not going to brag here about what I've done, but at least once a day, I do something to put a wrench in a cog.
Ya know how about 2/3rds of the internet population is now on at least 1 watchlist because of supporting Mangione. The second we start seeing vulnerable citizens having their medicare/medicaid/food stamps/gov housing/anything I missed that our taxes pay for to keep people from dying in a ditch during a snow storm/benefits actually cut. You know, like the second 2 small children citizens freeze to death because of funding cuts while the rich refuse to pay their fair share. I say we all, in unison, do something so illegal it requires a legal response, but since so many of us are doing it they won't be able to pick out anyone to single out for certain so we can all keep doing it as they freak out and go after whomever they feel is vulnerable. Like who's the one person it's illegal to threaten to kill? What would happen if 75million of us did it at 2:30 on a Friday afternoon? Pure, unadulterated chaos. Just if some kind of "threat protest" were to take place because of small children dying while rich fucks slept in late, and now a bill for more benefit cuts is being considered, you yourself should absolutely be prepared to be targeted as a ring leader because they will target the weakest and try to use them as a scape goat, I can almost guarantee the current Reich's SS wouldn't have the balls to knock on the door of someone that lifts 80lbs of dry cement with 1 hand and is documented as "should already be dead we don't know what the fuck." I could be wrong, and if I am, nothing would make me happier than sum small nut little man that everyone thinks is a badass finally going toe to toe with me... But I have no doubt they would pick on a highschooler, or housewife, or a software engineer. So be ware of how they view you before you stand up bravely, you don't want to be the reason the cement beast goes on a rampage, you want to live to see the cement beast go on a rampage. Also, I'm not advocating for any actions at 2:30 on a Friday afternoon, but at the rate they are looking to "slash" benefits for the average Citizen, and frankly I've had everything taken from me already, I'm not on government benefits but my family is, and I'm done having everything taken. I'm Jim Carrey and this is fun with Dick and Jane - "I got the lawn back". Take again, and I will take whatever I can, and I've already seen how your little Piggy's cow toe for me. I would too if I was weak like them.
Let's all stop paying federal taxes
What could possibly go wrong?
Doing only that would just give them more fodder to complain about a deficit. Mass violent resistance is just an excuse for crackdowns and martial law.
One interesting and simple idea I've seen is just opting out of the consumer economy. Americans in any socioeconomic strata can just stop buying anything but the bare minimum.
General strikes are effective but hard to coordinate and maintain, most people can't risk skipping a paycheck. But anyone can switch to beans and rice, cancel subscriptions, learn to repair their own clothes, buy a phone second hand, etc... Since a massive portion of our economy is driven by that spending (68% of our GDP) it would definitely hurt, but they couldn't ignore it.
It's easy to do and doesn't have an outsized impact on poor or at risk groups, and it's not all or nothing so any way you can cut helps. I wonder how they'd react to 200 million people on an economic hunger strike...
Working as a federal employee comes with a set of golden handcuffs. You trade in a decent salary for retirement at the end. Firing people, or even asking them to leave for less than 10 months salary (maybe) is a huge Fuck You to those who have already sacrificed years of time. When you started your career- you couldn’t possibly predict something like a Trump train coming along to piss all over your life’s plans.
Who the fuck, with any level of competence, would ever want to apply for a federal position after seeing this shit show?
Who the fuck, with any level of competence, would ever want to apply for a federal position after seeing this shit show?
That's the point. Musk et. al. are foreign assets with orders to weaken NATO and the US at all costs. They are successfully accomplishing their orders. And once the US's economy has spiraled and collapsed, the USD will no longer be a trusted currency used for global trade. Then it's BRIC's time to shine. That's their dream, at least.
Do you know about Curtis Yarvin and the so-called "network state" plan they are in the late stages of realizing? I don't think BRICS is the endgame of the tech oligarchy.
How are they going to get past the fact that there are half a dozen currencies better position to subsume the dollar than any of theirs?
Who the fuck, with any level of competence, would ever want to apply for a federal position after seeing this shit show?
People with enough money saved to outlast shitshows, who also intend to accept bribes.
Actually, a Trump type person has been predicted for the last 25 years. The rise of populism was evident clearly for all to see in 2007, and only got stronger.
35 years. Look up Some More News's video from 2020 about how 80s and 90s pop culture tried to warn us about the absurdity of a Trump presidency and how important it is to not let people like that in power.
Yeah, this along with so many other things they have already done are going to cost us a shit load of tax dollars. We're going to have to pay market rates or above or offer sign on bonuses to get anyone willing to work for the fed again.
Fools who think Daddy will be proud of them?
Did he really get rid of remote work for no reason?
for no reason
Reason: Attrition
You don't have to fire them if they quit.
You gut those departments and put the money into things that benefit tax cuts on the rich, or you hire friends and loyalists into those seats and pay them all the money to do nothing.
It's a gift, Everything they're doing is a different length of gift to make the rich richer.
I know a very nice family with three kids and both parents do remote work for the government. I think one an auditor and the other in IT.
They got a bomb dropped on them a couple weeks ago something along the lines of “show up in person at an office within X days or you’re gone.”
There are not offices anywhere near us. The parents world basically have to move to two different states to keep their jobs.
Sure did! USCIS hq is a circus, the internet was down most of the day bc they've never had so many people there before and it wasn't designed for it
What's annoying is the US cable/social media incessantly jumps right to the Trump/Musk framing of things.
The US AID shutdown has led to food aid stuck at ports as populations that rely on it starve.
A report on Monday from Paul Martin, the USAid inspector general, found that close to half a billion dollars’ worth of food was rotting because of confusion surrounding Mr Trump’s freeze last month.
How many americans have heard about the consequences of Trump's actions? 1%? How many have heard about Elon's vague and baseless claims that US AID is a big fraud? It seems every Republican I know has heard that.
The answer, of course, is for the remaining USAID staff to just ignore conflicting instructions and just give the food away. Federal workers need to understand that the job they have is not secure whether they obey or not.
While I agree that would be ideal, I suspect a lot of the services that let them process that food out to who needs it are unavailable.
The federal workers that I know are doing everything they can to get everything that's been spoken for out to the recipients ASAP. If food is rotting, I suspect it's because it can't be moved.
It's crazy how bad it's going to get in the next few months. I work for a branch in the fed that's almost all remote work, about 10 out of 150 or so are in person including myself. I know I'll be safe, but my team? Section? Branch? All screwed. Then what's left, for me to be swallowed by a RIF? The deal was tempting because of the threat behind your inaction likely not mattering.
Hoping it cools off soon. It's hard to sleep lately.
It double sucks because I just got my spouse into a federal job (she got herself in, but I provided her resources, resume building, etc, of course.) But now since she's considered probationary and a temporary hire? She might be let go and swallowed into regret.
Yes I do.
Is anyone impressed at just how fast they destroyed the government? Almost as if Elon had been given illegal access to the various parts of the government before Trump purchased the seat of the president.
Hmmm I wonder how that could have happened.
Hitler dismantled democracy in 53 days and there are a lot of parallels.
https://www.alternet.org/hitler-democracy/
We're coming up to 3 weeks with Trump, and they've taken a wrecking ball to a lot of government norms, including gutting any department that they think might threaten them. If history is an indicator (and it absolutely is) you can expect him to start targeting attacks against political opponents soon.
I've been wondering how long it will be until his opponents start to be arrested. That has been a successful strategy for Putin, along with rigging who can be on the ballot if there are any future elections (and from comments I heard before the election, when Trump was addressing some kind of white nationalist evangelical gathering, I get the impression that elections are far from certain now) so it would be no surprise to see a similar approach in the US.
You'll have to forgive me because I'm a European with a limited understanding of US law, but what can stand in the way of wholesale dismantling of the democratic process? Am I correct in thinking you don't have a politically independent judiciary and that the Supreme Court was stacked with Trump supporters during his first term, so he can essentially do whatever he wants?
Why would you be impressed? The US is a horribly outdated mess of institutions from which many are still built on the logic of the 18th century slaving owning white men being "the people" of the constitution.
Elections are still on Tuesdays because the plantation owners and their posses are supposed to be in church on Sunday and travel to the polling station on Monday. Most proper Democracies hold elections on Sundays, so people dont have to take time off work and depend on their superior to not bully them for exercising their Democratic rights.
FFS slavery is still legal in the US, as long as the slave has been convicted on some bullshit mandatory minimum sentences for Cops having planted a baggy of drugs on them.
The US is falling apart. It is inherently unstable and Trump is now accelerating the process, but it has been ongoing for much longer. Also Trump being elected not once but twice shows that he is on of the symptoms of the US falling apart, not the root cause of it.
Its a wink wink moment. Felon and his felony team must have had illegal access to the government institutions before dumbass was elected.
If that is found to be true Elon will have to go to jail one day ala Watergate. They violated the law by hacking at government servers illegally.
I was downplaying Project 2025 thinking “Musk is just going to write recommendations to President Trump but they still have to go thru Congress for cuts, what can he do?” I am still in awe he just swooped in, took over systems and is brute force closing down agencies quicker than the legal or congressional system can react. At this rate at the end of the first 90 days this Goverment will be radically different for the worse
Not just the govt, but private industries as well. Its all interconnected in such a complicated web that they cant possibly predict the full repercussions. I dont think they care either
I grew up thinking that government was slow. Until I encountered Trump's second term. Now tell me why the dems take fuck long to do so little?
It's way harder to build things than to smash everything to bits?
Because breaking things is easy and building things is hard? Also doesn't help when nearly half of your elected representatives work against building things.
Just wait a few months and you'll see the consequences of government moving quickly. If anyone respects the rule of law there will be lawsuits galore.
However, no one will be countering Trump because apparently no one respects the law anymore.
The consequences instead will be no one knowing what the fuck they are supposed to be doing, or what they are allowed to be doing, or who is suppos d to be doing it, and everything will come to a grinding halt.
Because they share the same incentives as the Republicans. Can't help out the average Joe too much otherwise the billionaired will get mad.
Dems are there to make us think we have a choice.
So am I. I'm still doing ok.
For now, you may not be next but eventually you might be in their crosshairs.
I'm fucked either way, as a mailman lol between the contract debacle and the privatization threats. I'm just sick of it all. Just saying that I'm not worried about it. Yet.