That’s how the Musk and Trump administration is treating (and maybe viewing) the federal workforce at the moment
If their approach to potential downsizing, stiffing people, and layoffs is confusing, it shouldn’t be; it’s actually remarkably consistent. Where the confusion is comes from the fact that the administration is pursuing 3 different lines of attacks
at once, that sometimes are in conflict.
Also something else that’s remarkably consistent: they lie a lot about what they’re doing, so that also makes it hard to keep track.
- Federal employees are human waste who do nothing for this country. This is mostly Elon Musk’s gig, and so far has involved offering almost all federal employees (millions!) a “deferred resignation” program. Often invoked here is the fact that Musk laid off 75% of the workforce when he bought Twitter, now X. And it continued to run OK. But it’s a stupid comparison. Twitter is essentially an automated feed. If no one went into the office one day–zero people–it would still run OK, and not many people would notice. Probably not even for a few days. Federal government doesn’t work like that. If 2-million employees all called in sick on the same day, we’d all be in deep doo-doo and see the impact right away. People would die. No exaggeration. I don’t know whether federal employees doing a sick-out would be legal, or instead give Musk the ability to fire everyone without cause and without severance, but I’d imagine the threat of such action could at least make this less of a one way street and instead get Musk to the table with unions–these are pretty much all union jobs, we forget–to ensure that at very least people are treated with dignity, and not just as numbers. Which is what they are now. Isn’t that what unions are for?
- Since, according to Trump, the only racism that still exists in the US is against White people, Black people, disabled people, women, etc., in federal jobs must be scrutinized. Trump’s presumption is always there were better qualified White men who were leap-frogged over and lost out. And that injustice must be righted. From now on, Trump says, all hiring and promotion will be “colorblind.” But if you’re a hiring manager in Trump’s world, would you risk bringing on a Black person, or woman, or disabled person if there were a bunch of White mens’ resumes on your desk too, and you would know damn well that hiring anyone not White would likely jeopardize your own job? The only proof needed to know this is going to happen is to look at any group photo of White House staff, or even interns, during Trump’s presidency vs. any Democratic president.
- Worship of Trump. This is where Trump’s efforts and Elon’s efforts come together. Because worship of Trump has skyrocketed to the #1 qualification for snagging a government job. But aside from the resumes already compiled by the folks at Project 2025, mostly entry-level people, how do you quickly know if somebody workships Trump or is maybe just saying so to keep their job and protect their family? Investigating 2-million people each, individually, takes a lot of time, money, and effort. Much easier to bore into their private employment records, which Elon is actively doing. Along with a bunch of people who are employed by him, not the government. Because while voting records are private, political, many charitable donations, and many other things are not. Then, even if you don’t have definitive proof of anyrhing, you can very quickly draw up matrixes to decide whether a person has been associating with the “right” clique or not.
Buckle up.