politics

So a narcissistic billionaire is indirectly ruling your country, without even being elected, and you guys are just cool with that?

Far too many Americans will argue with you about how every single thing Trump and Musk do, is good. There is no way to change their mind and I am surrounded by them.

To bad there is nothing we can do. We call our reps and they say "we agree, but there is nothing we can do". The Republicans definitely won't do anything so until midterms we are basically stuck.

I'm a federal employee. You have no idea the stress my family and I have been dealing with since that motherfucker swore in.

Not personally and directly, no, but broadly, yes - I do know the irreversible damage they're doing.

And here's the real key to it all - none of it is accidental. The damage is the point.

Their goal is actually very simple - it's to utterly destroy every aspect of the government that benefits the common people or inconveniences the wealthiest few, in order to convert it explicitly and entirely into a mechanism for protecting and expanding the privilege of the wealthiest few at the expense of everyone else.

I actually do.

We're entirely fucked.

We're going to spend the rest of our lives witnessing the enshitification of this nation. Even if we completely turn this crash and burn around, we'll then spend the rest of our lives watching things being slowly rebuilt as traitorous Republicans continue to obstruct.

I don't think a lot of Americans are grasping exactly how hard we fucked ourselves by refusing to responsibly inform ourselves even to a minimal degree.

To add more context - I’m a federal employee who has received these Fork emails -

They always come out at night, usually ~ 8-9 pm Eastern. One came out on a Sunday night. So you show up for work the next morning and that’s what’s waiting for you. I’m convinced this is done on purpose, to fuck with us.

As Vought (perfect Bond villain name, right?) said:

“Put Them In Trauma”

They literally want to traumatize us. They hate us because for decades we’ve been the only ones to tell them no. No, Elon, you can’t fuck all kinds of shit up when you launch a spaceship. No, Elon, you can’t make the stock market go haywire because you were high and tweeted something stupid. No, Elon, you can’t make a deal with the Pentagon and then run to Putin and do something completely different.

Elon does not like to be told no, but Elon can’t go 5 minutes without acting like the entitled dipshit that he is, so here we are.

And so, ~ 2.5 million civil servants - scientists, healthcare researchers, USAID, engineers, doctors, etc etc, will feel his wrath because he can’t be told no.

I took a big pay cut for this job because I valued job security over money after growing up in a household where jobs were not guaranteed and my parents struggled. Finally I got there after trying for years, and now Elon has to throw a shit fit.

But it’s not about me - I’ll be ok, but many others won’t. And we won’t get it back without a lot of work, work that I’m not sure that we, as a country, are going to be willing to do. The brain drain and decades of knowledge capture will be lost forever. And that’s by design - now we can all go work for contractors with fewer benefits and no job security and help Elon to make even more money.

One of the Fork emails taunted us by saying that we should be happy to leave our low productivity jobs in government so that we could go work high productivity jobs in the private sector. (So funny!) I know that’s bullshit, but also I’m old enough to not let 4chan incels trigger me that easily.

I do worry about my younger/newer coworkers though, whose heads are spinning. So, I try to help them. I’m educating them about the union and hopefully giving them the tools to get through this and deal with what comes after in the best way possible, whatever that may be.

So the next time you have to go to some annoying government place with a long line and you’re tired and hungry and frustrated, please try to remember that whoever you end up coming face to face with may have just gotten another email trolling them and telling them what a piece of shit they are and they should resign from their jobs. Just give them some grace. Be kind.

We had their playbook with p2025 and did nothing. They started enacting it, and we still do nothing. We could have shock-and-awed them right back with prepared lawsuits and movements blow for blow, and nothing.