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Why aren’t Democrats physically occupying government buildings?
I’ve been reading and watching a lot of left-wing content lately. A big topic of conversation is what exactly Democrats could do to slow down or stop Trump. The “mainstream” opinion is that Democrats can’t really do anything except sue, since they control zero branches of federal government. I disagree.
DC voted 90% for Kamala. Pretty much every federal employee is in danger of losing their job if Trump successfully consolidates power. They could collectively decide to simply not comply with Trump’s orders. He would have to blow all of his political capital on calling in the national guard while his allegedly illegal orders get litigated.
Look at this video from the other week purporting to show Congressional Democrats being “physically blocked” from entering the Department of Education. They aren’t even really trying to get inside. They could totally storm in if they wanted!
Has anyone chained themselves to their desk? Or better yet, to one of these mystical “servers” containing so much sensitive personal data? We saw more effective civil disobedience over Gaza than we are seeing over our own government.
I have two theories for this incompetence, but am eager to hear more:
All of the organizations and groups that typically organize and support these types of protests blew their entire budget on the presidential campaign. Then, money dried up as rich donors feared getting on Trump’s bad side.
After January 6, the Democrats focused their self-image around the idea of “procedure” and “doing things the right way”. This calcified to such an extent that anyone in a position of leadership is now incapable of forming and executing plans which do not conform with the collective PMC understanding of what is allowed or “proper”.
This kind of behavior would require actually committing to have one's own skin in the game, quite literally. That is not something most people who do white collar work are accustomed to or desiring of. If they lose their comfy government jobs, maybe they have to go on welfare or whatever at the worst case - though that seems likely to be rare, and I'd guess the median and modal result is finding a less desirable job that pays less/offers less security/offers less status. If they storm the DOE or chain themselves to their desk, the worst case is getting killed while being arrested, and I'd guess the median and modal result is spending some time in jail or even prison. The proportion of people who work comfy white collar jobs who believe so much in their principles that they would risk the latter when the former is right there as an option seems likely to be very small, from my experience living among such people.
You misunderstand. The government job is the welfare.
It is in the best interests of the people receiving the welfare that a significant fraction of the public perceives them to have been removed from the dole without cause to maximize the chance of being back on the dole if and when welfare is expanded again. That's a much harder sell if they're removed for cause.
This is instinctual behavior, which is why it doesn't require any tho(ugh)t-leader on Twitter to say "just comply with it, don't resist". Compare parents who tend to be cowed into submission should CPS threaten to take their children away.
This is also partially why removing the probationary welfare recipients is probably a sounder tactic than it would seem at first- people who aren't used to it yet are [politically] easier to wean off of it than people that are.
And the people that have been there for a long time aren't going to be employable once they're fired because, like a coal miner in his late 40s, his skills won't transfer no matter how smugly you say "learn to code"... which is why, when the mine's shutting down, you offer the motivated ones several months' severance so that they may buy and attend training for a different job, move to another area, or leave the workforce entirely- the other reason being that, because they're competent, they can throw their weight around much more effectively if the reason the mine's closing is a political decision on the owner's part; if you're going to purge a group, and the group will 100% find out before it occurs, it's best to offer favorable terms of surrender to the ones that could make a real mess before the purge occurs (obviously blind-siding everyone costs less, but democratically-elected politicians can't do that for obvious reasons).
Or use as a threat ‘CPS says we’re hitting you too much, you’d better start behaving or they’ll take you away.’.
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I have a feeling this calculus is understood by the Trump team and is the fulcrum of their attack: ain't nobody gonna do nothin about it!
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