How Many Federal Workers Got Fired?
That we don't know is a wake up call to action.
On Monday I called my guy at Edward Jones. I asked him to move all of our Roth IRA money out of the market. He did his duty in trying to talk me out of it.
After the election, we made some changes to protect it in case we needed it before I got another job after my appointment in the Biden-Harris Administration would end on Inauguration Day. But on Monday, I asked him to pull all of it out of mutual funds and into income investments to protect the cash.
He pushed back that while things might be a little hot, the fundamentals of the economy were solid. He was concerned that I was going to come back on him when I’d missed out on the upside of the market. It’s what they’re trained to do.
I thanked him and assured him that I wasn’t going to blame him if the market didn’t crash and instead, we lost out on some growth. In fact, I told him I’d be delighted if that was the case.
I’m hoping I’m wrong. I’m praying I’m wrong.
I don’t think we’re headed towards a normal midterm election. We are no longer even pretending to build resiliency to address the shocks that appear to be on the horizon from climate change to global migration and rising authoritarianism with increasing conflict zones. The Trump administration is definitely not investing in a public health strategy to get ahead of an outbreak of human to human bird flu transmission.
I hope I’m wrong. I would love to be wrong.
Normal analysis and normal rules have become useless. Actually worse than that, they create permission structures accelerating Republican destruction. And to be fair, I don’t think all Republican members of Congress are ideologically aligned with the destruction.
I think they are being threatened with violence. I think they have completely lost control of their party and the power of the executive branch to men and a few appointed women who are in the radical process of regime change.
I don’t expect much love from Republicans in red state Iowa. I’m not willing to remain silent as Republicans enable Trump and Musk to tear down New Deal democracy and throw out the world order won by and led by the United States in the aftermath of World War II. The party of Reagan is now intentionally empowering Russia and China.
I’m not willing to pull my political punches in order to get a job so my husband Pat and I can pay the bills. We’re blessed that we’ve got some savings to use while we fight, and so we will.
As for Democrats, I’ve been calling for greater leadership and action. We need to do more right now. We can’t let the same national Democratic strategists who lost the election also be in charge of how we fight for our democracy. Those of us who dare to speak to that obvious observation are not necessarily being well received.
I’m unconvinced when people say that the fundamentals of the economy are strong enough to withstand the Republican agenda under Trump. It’s similar to the talking heads that do analysis of Republican leadership as if the fundamentals of democracy are still intact.
National security analysts talk about Trump playing four-dimensional chess and explain his foreign policy as if there is a strategy beyond undermining American leadership and empowering autocrats. They justify nonsensical statements like we’re going to develop Gaza as a resort property as if it’s a legitimate negotiation strategy. In all the contortions trying to explain Trump, they are using what they know to explain something they’ve never seen before in the United States and quite frankly still don’t believe is possible.
The fundamentals of our democracy just don’t allow the possibility of what’s becoming more and more obvious on the domestic front. Also, Trump is willing to do anything to advance a foreign policy that increasingly aligns with the interests of Russia over the interests of the United States.
When columnists and panelists banter about Musk’s cost-cutting efforts, they do so as if he’s serious about saving money. Every penny “saved” by Republicans at the hands of Trump and Musk is costing Americans dollars. They are also costing lives and livelihoods.
Consider the results of freezing funding and firing workers. The lost productivity, wasted resources like food rotting in ports, and brain drain from firing the next generation of leaders and making damn sure future leaders don’t consider public service starts to multiply into billions of dollars of costs rather than savings.
On Saturday Musk Tweeted on X that workers would receive an email indicating they need to account for their work. Failure to reply to the email would be taken as a resignation. Sure enough, on Saturday afternoon, all two million plus federal employees got an email directing them to provide five bullet points of what they did last week. In terms of efficiency, this is pure idiocy. It’s throw-away work. Who is going to read these and how is this going to improve productivity by departments and agencies?
The directive is meant to intimidate and to remind employees that all permission and direction comes from the White House not through the chain of command within agencies. The time spent on this directive is time not spent on the actual work our federal employees need to do to serve the American public.
Federal workers keep our nation on track. They deliver payments, they process taxes, they provide important and impartial data, deliver national security, protect our bank deposits, test products, require environmental accountability, support public health, provide public safety, and so much more. Every single day they fulfill their oath not to a president or party or branch of government, but to the Constitution itself.
Many on the left take comfort in the fact that Musk must not know what he’s doing because the DOGE website is riddled with errors and much of what he says is wildly inaccurate.
Please stop analyzing the situation as if the fundamentals of governing apply to this situation. Musk knows exactly what he’s doing and it has nothing to do with cost savings.
He’s tearing down the fundamentals of the federal government. He’s doing so by attacking federal workers while knowingly violating federal employment law. He’s been tasked by Trump to browbeat our federal employees into becoming instruments of political ideology.
Musk’s personal goal is to access data to advance his own wealth. There is also mounting evidence to suggest he’s intent on advancing far right global race-based social movements.
In the last week, there has been increased speculation about the electoral backlash to when markets teeter, inflation increases, a trade war ensues, farmers feel the brunt of bird flu spiraling with less support from USDA, a measles outbreak expands, universities stop critical medical research, tax refunds take longer to show up, the medicare payment system slows down and on and on as government because less effective.
Democratic leaders speak of these things as if they are mistakes by Trump world. They talk about Musk not knowing what he’s doing.
Those who think that this machine of destruction doesn’t have a plan to manage the chaos that’s coming are the ones who don’t know what they are doing. The first month of the second Trump administration is actually going as planned. In fact they are more successful than they probably thought possible. Chaos and crisis is the plan.
We have to stop thinking the fundamentals are strong. We’re in totally new territory. The only hope that the fundamentals of democracy, the economy, and the world order dominated by the United States since the Second World War are still meaningful is if we punch back with everything we’ve got to take Republicans head-on.
We need to look at the political power that Trump used to get elected and continues to use to gain greater control. And it isn’t about the economy. It’s radical identity politics and punching down at federal employees is central.
He’s using his second term to harness the power of big data as a means of getting deep into the personal lives of every American. His team plans to control the systems of the United States from the macro level of the government to the micro level of your personal life and every aspect in between.
And this past week has made clear that he’s going to further use his domestic power to reshape the global world order for his own benefit. Increasingly this appears to be aligned with the interests of Putin.
We need to demand that leaders in both parties, the media, the consultants, and thought leaders stop treating Trump as if there is a logic between what he claims to be doing and what he’s actually doing. Democrats also need to fight back to weaken Republican leadership.
Anything less than aggressively confronting Republicans creates a permission structure for the Trump team to continue to take total control of the United States while also supercharging the power of Russia and China.
First and foremost, we must stand with and stand up for federal public servants. Right now, they are the whole enchilada. Their work aligns with nearly all of the bread and butter issues Democratic strategists want to talk about. A non-partisan, merit-based federal workforce of dedicated public servants who take an oath to the Constitution is the most important part of our democracy right now.
We didn’t take a stand on our values to support them as Republicans ramped up their attacks. Now they are gutting the federal workforce and capturing the spoils of what is lawfully protected information. We need to be supporting federal employees with everything we’ve got.
I’m going to keep speaking out. I’m going to keep acting. I’m not seeking permission. And I’ll deal with the fallout. It’s go time. Together, Democrats need to put it on the line because it is in fact all on the line. The attack on public employees and intentionally making government dysfunctional is what will allow the destruction to take hold.
I asked Mr. Edward Jones, “How many federal workers got fired on Friday?”
He said, “I don’t know.”
“Nobody knows,” I said. “And that’s why I want this money moved to more secure investments. Because when people start to figure out what’s happening, I believe the race to the exit is going to be a panic. And since I’m planning to lean harder into the fight, I’m expecting to need that cash to keep paying my bills.”
So many of the fundamentals we want to hold onto to understand what Trump and Republicans are doing, are no longer useful for doing so. The longer we pretend they are, the harder it will be to recover from the damage Republicans are doing.
Keep making calls to your members of congress. 5 Calls has been a popular and effective way to do so. If you’re from Iowa, you can find all of the offices at this PDF.
An important analysis. I moved our investments into less risky and more accessible funds in December. My advisor advised against it. I also told him that the stock market does better under Democratic presidents than Republican ones. He didn't know that, which isn't reassuring. https://theconversation.com/the-us-stock-market-does-better-under-democrat-presidents-than-republicans-heres-what-the-data-shows-246652
Thanks, Matt. No question this is real and right on track. The visage of chaos and buffoonery is part of the plan. The audacity. All of it. I keep calling our reps to do something which just seems pointless. They have all followed suit. What else should we do?