This is now. Trump 2.0 has an entire fantasy department made up of adolescents and post-adolescents along with the richest man in the world, to do the job for him. Gone are the days of personal, one-on-one dismissal, a place where a direct line might actually connect Herr Prez with the victim. This is the new stuff, to paraphrase Marilyn Manson. We now have an entire fake department, DOGE, to randomly nix people, i.e. crush the employee's self-worth and future as well as strike fear and terror in the hearts of any other employee within range, all for absolutely no common sense reason whatsoever.
Here's the worst part, fellow Americans. In many instances, it's perfectly legal. In the private sector, it's totally legal. In the government, it's up to the Executive Branch to enforce the rules, which means that the head of the Executive is in charge of enforcement, which means, oh never mind. Nevertheless, justification for termination is almost never demanded. And since this is common in regular life in the US as well, Americans are actually cheering this disaster. They have no idea they are actually egging on the dismantling of the federal government. They will soon find out.
Ever here of "at-will"? Most jobs in America are classified as, "at-will." You can get fired in a second. You can also quit in a second, but not many are into hara-kiri. Workers in the US are practically devoid of freedoms. They have the liberty to wait to be fired at any moment for any reason and that's about it. Ah, the nonexistent American culture surfacing once again. This rarely exists outside of the USA.
Europe, for example, knows no such absurdity. I lived in Switzerland for four years in the 1970s. By law, there was a one-month notice given after hiring, with two-months notice that MUST be given before one leaves an establishment between two and nine years of employment. Thereafter, at least three months must be given. The employer and the employee are bound by this civil law. Justification is mandatory. When I decided to leave in 1979, I gave notice at the end of June that my last day would be August 31 and I was leaving to return to the USA.
The average Swiss employee believes that they are the best thing their company ever received. They are proud of their work and learn every aspect. This clashes significantly with the American viewpoint of always looking over one's shoulder, fearful of the dreaded "pink slip." With the new chainsaw approach to axing people, government workers will spend the rest of their days fearing the ax instead of helping the citizenry.
I also lived in Mexico for four years in the 1980s and similar, though less stringent rules also applied. Again, you can't just fire someone because they wore a blue shirt, or for no reason whatsoever. Like most nations, they believe in worker's rights, not entrepreneurial terrorism.
In today's America we have a job slaying department running amok in the federal government and a president who is sipping his diet cokes at the golf course and applauding wildly along with his base. Every day over the past four months, there's been a new DOGE scandal of people given little to no notice to clear out their desks while fellow federal workers, the lucky ones who weren't culled --". this time".., watch on in horror.
These same workers will then try to return to some semblance of job, duties and responsibility all the while thinking in the back of their mind that any second they could be next. Working in constant fear is no way to run a public service. We are already seeing the effects of this transformation. Air traffic controllers can't do their job properly, FEMA assistance for disaster relief is almost nonexistent and entire agencies no longer exist with no one to pick up the slack. Things will only go downhill from here.
In Europe, I saw workers who believed they were fantastic and that their company was so lucky to have them as employees. Their work was exemplar. Government workers can spend all their time helping the public without fear of instant unemployment by some snot-nosed teenager with acne and bad breath. People can have continued confidence that the government that existed last night when they went to bed is the same one they woke up with this morning.
To top things off, DOGE is a completely made up department consisting of inexperienced personnel performing a task they don't understand and have no experience doing. There is no rhyme or reason for most cuts. On May 9, CBS posted an article showing how just one judge halted layoffs in twenty different government departments. Since then there have been suits and countersuits and counter-countersuits so that no one knows where they are at. Are the employees laid off or not? Who knows what the final outcome will be? Yet Americans cheer the chaos.
There are many other ways DOGE and Mr. MeMeMe have been eliminating workers as well. There have been lucrative offers for some to resign, immediate sackings of entire departments and even some rehirings of employees that were, "Oops, sorry about that-- fired by mistake. All the while, those who are yet to be fired look on in amazement and abject fear that they are witnessing their own future demise. In all, over 100,000 federal employees have been removed.
Recently, the Washington Post reported that "at least 24,000 federal probationary employees have been fired as part of the Trump administration's move to shrink the government workforce. Even though, some 16,000 of those firings were deemed illegal by a federal judge in a separate case that is being challenged in the court, the overall effect has been solidly engraved in the minds of all those remaining government workers, "You're next!"
The net result of this is a government that is paralyzed by fear and totally dysfunctional. The only workers with job security are those working in DOGE itself and in the DOJ because Trump will need all the legal help he can get to handle the hundreds of lawsuits that will surely surge forth.
Americans are now assured that, going forward, nothing in the government will work the same as before and every task that used to take an hour will probably take several days, if at all. Uncertainty reigns over nearly every department as official procedures for everyday tasks will now have to be rewritten to conform to the embryonic and unformed new executive branch. The lawsuits will ensure that the final outcome won't be known for years to come and in the interim, chaos and confusion abounds.
And in four years, we elect a new president to undo what this one did ---- ". maybe.
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