Press Freakout Over Federal Layoffs All About Who, Not What or How

AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

Getting laid off or fired sucks. It sucks for everybody. 

And the Pravda Media and liberals have been very good at ginning up the outrage about federal workers losing their jobs, at least among people who are susceptible to such manipulation. 

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Some of the stories are ridiculous, such as the Washington Post's claim that only one person in the 7500 square miles of Yellowstone National Park has the keys, so people will die in restrooms due to being locked in. 

Others are unintentionally bizarre or worrisome for other reasons, such as CNN's claim that unless intelligence officers are guaranteed lifetime employment, they will turn traitors and work for our adversaries. It's heartwarming to know that CNN and the people who leaked this story are admitting that our intelligence community is riddled with sociopathic potential traitors. (Not to mention the obvious fact that giving such people access to classified information is insane!)

But most of the stories are of the sobbing worker variety, and I admit that I, too, feel sorry for many of the people being let go. It's true that many of the people being laid off/RIFfed are redundant, or not productive, or in any other place would be fired for cause, it's also true that many others are just in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

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Good people feel empathy for others in distress, so these stories work at chipping away at support for what DOGE is doing, and that is exactly the point. Pravda Media want DOGE to fail, so they are doing something extraordinary: paying attention to people who are experiencing distress from the natural churn in the economy and life. 

Here's John Kerry dismissing the concerns of people he and Joe Biden put out of work by killing the Keystone Pipeline:

Speaking to reporters at the White House on Wednesday, Kerry insisted that energy workers had been “fed a false narrative” about what environmental policy changes would do to their livelihoods.

The truth, he said, was that the people working in energy and coal impacted by climate change efforts will “have better choices” and can “go to work to make the solar panels.”

“They’ve been fed the notion that somehow dealing with climate is coming at their expense,” Kerry said. “No, it’s not. What’s happening to them is happening because of other market forces already taking place.”

Only SOME people's pain and distress matter, though. When Biden pursued policies that caused inflation, destroyed tens of thousands of jobs, got people fired for not wanting to take an experimental "vaccine"/not really vaccine--that was all for our own good, and we should be thrilled that Grandpa Joe was doing all of it. 

In fact, it was the people who objected who were big meanies. 

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On Day 1, Joe Biden killed the Keystone Pipeline, costing thousands of jobs. The media, for the most part, cheered and told the workers to learn to code. Joe was saving the earth despite the fact that the oil still flowed, only this time much more dangerously on trains. As Biden policies squeezed Americans' pocketbooks with inflationary policies, Pravda Media insisted it was all in our heads--the economy was roaring. We were just too stupid to see it. 

What makes this propaganda work is that the people being released from the government are of the right class. It is a crisis not only because Pravda loves the administrative state and has been pursuing policies that increase the power of the elite and suppress that of ordinary people but also because the media sees themselves in the mirror when they see bureaucrats let go. 

These are THEIR friends. They went to school with them, at least as a class. What "journalist" knows a pipeline worker? That Army guy who was discharged for not taking the jab? He clearly was a rube who didn't trust the experts, so he deserved it. 

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But the government employee? That could have been them. In fact, it might even be in their future. I used to work with journalists about 15 years ago, and a substantial fraction of them went over to government work as the market for journalists shrunk. It was a great career move because if you aren't near the top of the pyramid in journalism, your prospects for employment in a year keep going down. Government employment has been for life. 

The vast majority of the people on whom these sob stories work are also of the same class. They never had to write an email saying what they accomplished. They never faced layoffs. They may have had ups and downs in their careers, but they always had a reason to be confident that things would work out. They have degrees, a good work history, and a network. 

It's similar to student loan forgiveness under Biden. It's about class and little more. The debts of college grads matter, and if a construction worker has to kick in more of his paycheck to help out the gender studies major...

Feeling bad for people being separated from their jobs is natural and good, but doing so only when people are like you is self-indulgent. If you don't care much that BP laid off 7,700 people, don't cry to me about government bureaucrats. Where are the sob stories in the media about them? How about stories about the people Biden kicked out of the military?

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Nobody cared for them, so spare me the sob stories about people who have better pay, benefits, and pensions than most Americans. 

PITCH: 

Despite the lies from the leftist media, President Donald Trump and his administration were given a mandate to take a chainsaw to the federal government, and the American people have his back.

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