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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.
The word stochastic terrorism is rightfully derided, but what do you call this kind of speech, which received 42k votes?
Edited for brevity. If you convince a person that they are at war with Hitler, and in fact the last line of defense against Hitler, what do you think the end result is?
/r/somethingiswrong2024 posters keep wondering when the military and 3 letter agencies will take out Trump. Also more confusingly wondering how NATO can assist. Of course they use "saving democracy" type rhetoric.
They never use the word "coup" when describing this. And I don't think they get that democracy would not be restored post-coup. As though a cabal of CIA and military leaders would overthrow the elected government and then decide to appoint Kamala as President. They explicitly talk about Kamala being made President.
This reminds me of the Roman republicans who naively assumed assassinating the king-adjacent Julius Caesar would re-establish the Republic. Oh how wrong they were.
Assassinating Julius Caesar did re-establish the Republic. The problem is that it didn't fix the problem that made the Republic unstable to Caesar in the first place, so we see exactly the same process happen again within about a year. (Formation of a triumvirate, eventual fall of the weakest triumvir, civil war between the other two, winner established one-man rule).
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