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Donald Trump vs. the Blob Part 2 : Electric Boogaloo
Ladies and gentlemen, it's been 4 years since our last bout. In one corner, we have the undisputed champ, the greatest of all time, the BADDEST man on planet Earth, the king, the DC blllooob! And in the other corner, the challenger, the next Hitler, the orange man, the Donald himself, Donaaallld Trump.
Let's.. get... ready.. to... rumble!
Holy shit it's been a crazy week for the current members of the Federal bureaucracy. Let's review:
Trump issued an Executive Order that almost all federal workers will have to return to office five days a week
All federal workers also received an offer to resign immediately. If they accept, they will get their current salary and benefits until September (an incredibly generous 8 month severance package). All they have to do is reply with the word "resign".
But also, workers will have to prove that they haven't been working a second or third job (in Reddit parlance, a J2, J3, etc..) It turns out this is actually a crime punishable by prison.
On the other hand side, we have the Reddit hivemind.
There is a Reddit for federal workers called /r/fednews. It's a revealing glimpse into an entitled and mentally ill slice of our federal workforce. Much like every other website, and especially themotte.org, they post almost exclusively during working hours.
These "workers" also may be violating federal law by explicitly campaigning on the behalf of one political party over another. Even posting on Reddit may be illegal.
So who wins?
It's a tough call. On one hand, in theory, Trump controls the executive branch. On the other hand, he doesn't control the judiciary who will ultimately decide the outcome. Already, many lawsuits have been filed on behalf of aggrieved federal employees.
Furthermore, not counting the military, there are 2 million federal employees. This is a massive army of people who, though already 95% anti-Trump, are now galvanized into action to prevent the erasure of their generous pay and benefits.
Has Trump bitten off more than he can chew? Will the champion remain undefeated? Or will the challenger land enough blows to sway the judges. You decide! Respond in the comments below.
Unfortunately this usually selects for people who can find alternate employment, i.e. the actually competent people who are happy to take an eight month paid vacation and get back to work afterwards. The guys who barely got their current job really can't afford to lose it and are happy to enshittify our institutions until they get their pension.
In this case it might select for those who believe they are likely to be fired for cause, for example posting political statements on social media or having a J2.
It might also remove people who are extreme partisans who can't imagine working under Donald Trump.
The ultra progressives don’t have a J2. That was always something for relatively ambitious tech guys, not your aggrieved fat blue hair for whom even 10 hours a week of fake work is trying.
A lot of them have a J2 as reddit mods or Wikipedia admins, but you'd have to really work building up a posting history vs their work hours to nail them for that.
There's a guy with a masters in Recreation Sociology who works for the park service (from DC of course), and spends his entire workday in political struggles on Wikipedia. This is exactly the sort you want to get rid of, but none of this policy seems set up to get him.
Surely that's just a hobby? Not that practicing your hobby during work hours isn't potentially a firing offense. But trying to construe that sort of thing as "working a second job" in a manner incompatible with holding a government job seems very square-peg-round-hole.
If they’re making political content during work hours, that’s a hatch act violation.
That's also entirely fair, I just don't think that should be construed as a job.
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A fed bureaucrat and a Jannie? This is pushing the absolute limits of my disdain.
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Is he on Wiki under his real name?
I'll try and find him. Remember him from the "holiday parade tragedy caused by an SUV" article naming controversy or similar event, but most of those have multiple archived talk pages
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