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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   37378 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 27, 2025

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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:

  1. Trump issued an Executive Order that almost all federal workers will have to return to office five days a week

  2. 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".

  3. 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.

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

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".

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.

You know, I thought this about the tech layoffs that tried the same tactic, and those didn't seem to turn out disastrously?
It's strange because the incentives seem terrible, but if you pair it with a credible threat of "quit now or you will be hunted down and fired with all your benefits stripped," it could selectively get rid of the laziest traitors who'd provide cover for the really dedicated subversives you're interested in rooting out.

Unfortunately it probably also selects for the 64 year old guys who were the only ones keeping everything running, and are all going to retire at once

I thought this about the tech layoffs that tried the same tactic, and those didn't seem to turn out disastrously?

Yes, but that was reducing 10,000 down to 1,000 and not 1,000,000 to 100,000. Also, the Twitter layoffs affected in demand and relatively intelligent people closer to the start of their careers, while mass bureaucrat layoffs would affect relatively stupid ones at a much more critical time- too old to meaningfully reskill, but too young to retire.

The underlying problem with the American economy that has been punted on since FDR is that there are too many people for the economy to sustain on its own. That's partially why corporate welfare, which most bureaucrat jobs are, is as sacred of a cow as it is.

there are too many people for the economy to sustain on its own

I’m struggling to understand why or how you think that is the case. Could you elaborate?

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