It’s admittedly uncharitable to toast this poor fellow’s job loss with schadenfreude but the plain truth of the matter is that we told him so. We all told him so, every single voter who cast a ballot for the Democratic candidate. But some people just had to FA and now they’re finding out the hard way. The man’s *reasoning* is that he thought that the bad things would happen to somebody else. Wrong. You enable a monster like Donald Trump and bad things happen to everybody. That’s also the plain truth of the matter.
A 13-year disabled military veteran and information technology technician with the Federal Emergency Management Agency said he was blindsided this week when the Trump administration — whom he voted for — informed him of his termination.
The man, who is from northern Virginia, was fired Monday as part of cuts from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency initiative, WTOP reported. The man, who was not named in the report fearing retaliation, said he was fired on performance grounds despite his military service, disability status and exceptional performance reviews.
“The Agency finds, based on your performance, that you have not demonstrated that your further employment at the Agency would be in the public interest. For this reason, the Agency informs you that the Agency is removing you from your position,” the man was told in an email. “Until the probationary period has been completed,” a probationer has “the burden to demonstrate why it is in the public interest for the Government to finalize an appointment to the civil service for this particular individual.”
The man told WTOP his performance reviews were “all in the range of fours,” meaning he was “exceeding expectations.” Additionally, he was described by a supervisor as a “leader” who “demonstrated professionalism” in his core skills.
The man’s family has contacted their Congressional lawmakers and their union.
“I voted for Donald Trump. But this is not what I was expecting,” he told the outlet. “We didn’t think they were going to take a chainsaw to a silk rug.”
While the man’s wife said she recognizes the need for “a lot of cuts, she felt “this is not the one that you think will happen to your family.”
Again, part of me feels guilty for not having more sympathy for these people but we tried to warn them. There is this colossal blind spot that Trump voters share that it’s always going to be the other guy, the people down the street, the ones who look different, the ones who have an accent, whatever. It’s always going to be “The Other.” And that’s the fascist playbook.
At least that’s the beginning of the fascist playbook. As fascism progresses then you come to find out that it’s everybody. You remember the old poem that starts out, “First they came for the socialists but I was not a socialist so I did nothing.” And the poem ends, “And then they came for me because there was nobody else.”
That’s what this now unemployed man voted for. Oh yes, he may have thought that he was cleaning up the kids’ playgrounds, getting the riff raff off the streets, back where they belong, all that, but no: all he did was put himself out of a job. And I agree with him, it’s a terrible thing that a veteran, a disabled veteran at that, should find himself out of a job. But THAT’S what he voted for. And now he knows it. Although maybe if he makes enough of a stink he can get reinstated.
America may be in for some tough lessons in the school of hard knocks but a fool can learn in no other and 49.5% of the electorate were reckless fools this last time out.
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I hope the ACLU has a small army of people who track government employees whose names they know. At some point we’ll see people like this guy getting his job back, but people who are registered Democrats or Independents with an online presence indicating they aren’t total Trump supporters will not. SCOTUS made it much tougher to file a class action lawsuit but an organization like the ACLU should be up to the task.
the ACLU will not represent maggots
Ever see The Blues Brothers? And the scene with the Nazis on the bridge? I loved what the movie did in that scene but it wasn’t just some weird thing they dreamed up out of nowhere. It was a return ‘in your face’ to American white power types based on a court case in Skokie, IL. A Chicago Suburb with a substantial Jewish Population. I don’t recall the group’s specific name but it was something along the line of The American Nazi Party and they like going around doing their thing in their Nazi regalia and spouting the usual tropes about Jews and racial mixing etc. Having a parade in a public park in Skokie was a huge in-your-face thing and the city refused to issue the needed permit so the Nazis took things to court. Eventually they won on 1st Amendment grounds and staged their event. Wanna guess who their lawyers were? Yep, the ACLU took part. And some on the team were Jewish! Yeah, for all their rhetoric the Nazis weren’t above getting the best and if the best was Jewish then they were quite willing to ignore that fact.
The ACLU has taken on some surprising clients in its history but always recognized the difference between hate speech and hate speech that makes actual threats/incites imminent violence. It’s hurt them with donors sometimes but they exist to defend the Bill of Rights and the way they see it denying those rights to anyone or group is a denial of them to all. Even assholes, as long as they don’t break the law can turn to them for help, even if most of us hate those asshole’s idiotic and often hateful beliefs. I was still in school when that case happened. I thought then and still do the ACLU should have stayed out of the matter. That Nazi group could have found competent legal representation. I guess the powers-that-were felt it would be hypocrisy to turn down the Nazis. People can argue about it forever. And nowdays such groups could get good lawyers who want to make a name for themselves, and these days would get well paid for their work. But back then it was a BFD.
FAFO. The dildo of consequence is rarely lubed. Only feeling I have is happiness as the cheetah is eating your face.
I hope our MAGA man is represented by Eugene Vindman or some other Democrat who will actually take his concerns seriously.
In the mean time, he might brush up on his Aesop’s Fables, starting with “The Scorpion and the Frog.”
But I never thought that the leopards would MY face, said the guy who voted for the Leopards Eating Peoples’ Faces party.
Couldn’t have happenned to a more deserving person. 1 down – 50 million to go. Go Trump! (and president Musk)
I guess he never heard tRump recite the lady and the snake poem where the nice lady takes in the snake who in the end bites her.
I would love it if Mary Trump would psychoanalyze this – might be interesting.