Deferred resignation email to federal employees | Hacker News Reader

Deferred resignation email to federal employees

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164 pointsdnissley151 comments

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I wonder how many spoofed "From: potus@whitehouse.gov" "Subject: Resign" emails they're about to get.

Yeah. I also wonder how many spoofed responses they will get in general.

And what plan they have to tell those apart (hint: none).

Doing so is exactly the type of abusive behavior abusive ex partners are known for.

Agree with it in principle or not, this system really belies the stupidity behind these scenes.

Governments and employers don’t do paperwork around hiring for fun - they do it for an auditable paper trail which has real and important value.

One more now.

Impersonating a federal officer or employee is a crime. 18 U.S. Code § 912

(technically you have to obtain a document, money, or other thing of value to run afoul of that particular law, but getting a reply to a successful spoof might qualify, and who knows whatever other laws it might violate, 25 CFR § 11.432 perhaps).

Oh noes! And we all know how famously rigorously spam and phishing is prosecuted!

(I didn’t actually do that. What stopped me is no longer being 12 years old, not a fear of going to Gitmo for sending an obviously fake email.)

Here's the OPM guidance memo to department heads about this program: https://chcoc.gov/sites/default/files/OPM%20Guidance%20Memo%...

Key quote:

"Employees who accept deferred resignation should promptly have their duties re-assigned or eliminated and be placed on paid administrative leave until the end of the deferred resignation period (generally, September 30, 2025, unless the employee has elected another earlier resignation date), unless the agency head determines that it is necessary for the employee to be actively engaged in transitioning job duties, in which case employees should be placed on administrative leave as soon as those duties are transitioned."

Only a couple days and it's already File Not Found. Here's a different link that appears to still work:

https://chcoc.gov/sites/default/files/OPM%20Guidance%20Memo%...

Here's the FAQ that got put up on OPM.

https://www.opm.gov/fork/faq/

Note: This is pretty much every single one of the federal employees (2.2 million) other than: "military personnel of the armed forces, employees of the U.S. Postal Service, those in positions related to immigration enforcement and national security, and those in other positions specifically excluded by your employing agency."

The quotes are predictably demeaning: Am I allowed to get a second job?

"Absolutely! We encourage you to find a job in the private sector as soon as you would like to do so. The way to greater American prosperity is encouraging people to move from lower productivity jobs in the public sector to higher productivity jobs in the private sector."

Poster (YouDoHaveValue) on Reddit had a pretty great take:

Typical indicators of a scam:

  - Sounds too good to be true
  - Urgent requests or threats, FOMO
  - Spelling / grammar errors
  - Payments via unconventional / insecure means
  - Links or attachments prompting you to provide personal information

There have already been legal fights about the mass mailings from new OPM addresses as reported by (Wired) https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-lackeys-office-personn...:

"Last week, federal employees across the government received emails encouraging them to turn in colleagues who they believed to be working on diversity, equity, inclusion, and access initiatives (DEIA) to the OPM via the email address DEIAtruth@opm.gov"

Also, this story seems to have sank remarkably quickly...

Federal employees have statutory no-cause termination protection, and the President presumably can't simply reclassify the federal workforce as "at-will".

Article II says: “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” I doubt it’s constitutional for employment law to preclude the president from firing any executive branch employee.

It’s quite possible it’s constitutional to have contractual remedies for termination. I suspect that’s why there’s an 8 month severance.

I mean, if you want to see him set the land-speed record on getting a TRO, beating today's performance, by all means let's see him try. Your guess is good as mine which way Gorsuch and Kavanaugh will go on admin-law/separation-of-powers issues. Maybe it'll be resolved before the midterms!

My read of this is that no 8-month severance has been offered, for whatever that's worth.

That’s what DOJ is for. He’s got the pointiest eggheads working for him now. He should litigate everything. And if people don’t like where we’re at in 2 years or 4 years, they’ll vote accordingly!

AP is reporting 8 months severance: https://apnews.com/article/trump-buyouts-to-all-federal-empl...

Roberts Seila Law decision explicitly states that Congress can --- outside of the situation of heads of single-director independent agencies --- limit the removal powers of the President. Further, the logic you're using implies that the entire federal workforce is exempt from literally any employment law of any sort. You may respond that the administration's pointy eggheads are going to craft persuasive arguments to that effect, but I'd be happy to put money on their likelihood of success. What do you say?

I'm not interested in the politics of this, as you so often are. I'm just interested in people having a clear understanding of the dynamics at play here --- in people nerding out on legal issues. Except under a fringe interpretation of Unitary Executive theory, the President cannot simply ignore statutes like the CSRA.

The politics is inextricable from this since we’re talking about separation of powers. There is always a tension between democracy and the government’s status as an employer or contracting party. But if the political issue is loyalty of the federal bureaucracy to the agenda of the elected president, can Congress constrain the president’s ability to act on that political issue? I think that’s a very different analysis.

And there’s no such thing as “unitary executive theory.” It’s a label created to make the meaning of Article II seem somehow esoteric. It’s like saying “first amendment theory” or “equal protection theory.”

None of this is responsive to anything I just wrote.

It’s responsive to this point:

> You may respond that the administration's pointy eggheads are going to craft persuasive arguments to that effect, but I'd be happy to put money on their likelihood of success.

I’m saying the arguments might be more persuasive than you think given the context in which they will arise. Separation of powers cases often arise against the background of novel political situations that require application of abstract separation of powers principles to novel situations.

We are facing such a situation today. Prior to 2017, we had never confronted before the issue of federal employees declaring they would use their employment to frustrate the legitimate political objectives of the duly elected president. That then became a major issue in which Trump campaigned, and won. (It’s point #9 on the GOP 2024 platform: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/2024-republican-pa....)

All this is relevant not because politics, but because it starkly illustrates a constitutional issue. Voting for the president is the means by which democratic influence is exercised over the exercise of executive power. Invoking generic employment law to frustrate the ability of the president to effectuate the very executive reforms on which he campaigned raises a specific constitutional issue.

The opposing view here is that, if voters want to effectuate significant reforms in the structure and behavior of the executive, then Congress must be the one to do that. Maybe that’s true but it seems very odd to me.

The clearly expressed will of Congress is that federal employees are not typically to be classed as at-will employees. This current Supreme Court majority explicitly said Congress has the authority to constrain executive branch HR policy. I'm not sure I've read an opinion before where Congress made a black-letter declaration of some policy, and the court overturned it because of the perceived will of the narrow majority of voters for the President, but hey, you do you.

I really don't much care about the underlying principles here. I'm a fan of at-will employment. I generally (though with nothing resembling the fervor of this administration) think that the federal employment rolls are bloated and inefficient. But I also believe what I learned in St. Barnabus Elementary about the separation of powers: Congress makes the laws, the President executes them.

This letter does not say severance. It is deferred resignation. During the 'notice period' of 8 months, as far as I can tell the only definite derogation is that there will be no return to office required during those 8 months.

While I'm sure some people will end up with gardening leave for those 8 months, it's not guaranteed by the letter (my emphasis):

> If you resign under this program, you [..] will be exempted from all applicable in-person work requirements until September 30, 2025

> I understand my employing agency will likely make adjustments in response to my resignation including moving, eliminating, consolidating, reassigning my position and tasks, reducing my official duties, and/or placing me on paid administrative leave until my resignation date.

> I will assist my employing agency with completing reasonable and customary tasks

Seems AP are reporting on this exact same thing, I'm not sure why their read is that this is a 'buy out' or 'severance'. All it is is a waiver of Return To Office for 8 months provided you resign at the end of those 8 months.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42861210 provides more context:

https://x.com/DOGE/status/1884600568863162708

The thing that's interesting to me is how the Trump Republicans used tactics so effectively to accuse the Dems, "deep state", etc. of all this nefarious conduct, and then explicitly embraced that conduct as openly and vigorously as possible. E.g accuse career civil servants of being secretly partisan, and then explicitly kick out anyone who isn't loyal to Trump and demand Trump loyalty, countering ~150 years of American policy. Accuse Democrats of stealing an election, and then attempt to violently overturn the results of an election after essentially every claim of election malfeasance was laughed out of court.

Even how they painted Biden's pardons was pretty brilliant IMO. Trump had already pretty much telegraphed that he would pardon anyone who kissed up to him, and had been explicit about how he would use federal power to seek revenge. So while I was very much against Biden's pardon of his family, I'm sure Biden was probably like "F this shizz, it's not like holding the moral high ground is doing anyone any favors." But now, of course, anyone with Trump's blessing will get a pardon regardless of what they do, and they can point to Biden's pardons as "Dems did it first".

I think we are truly and surely fucked in the mid-long term - what we're going through looks pretty much exactly what all previous empires looked like when they fell into decline. It's just kind of stunning to watch with so much transparency.

DARVO: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARVO

Seems like an Elon email!

The subject line is identical to the subject line he used for the "leave or become hardcore" email to twitter just after the buyout.

Came here to say the same. Got musk written all over it

Including the typos in the first draft they posted

> The federal workforce should be comprised of employees who are reliable, loyal, trustworthy, and who strive for excellence in their daily work. Employees will be subject to enhanced standards of suitability and conduct as we move forward.

Has there ever been a loyalty component to rank and file federal employment before? This seems to go against the meritocracy they claim to want.

If you do a great job, anything else shouldn't matter...

There’s nothing in there about being qualified for the job, so this is definitely not a meritocracy play.

The bit right after the piece you quoted is interesting:

> Employees who engage in unlawful behavior or other misconduct will be prioritized for appropriate investigation and discipline, including termination.

I hope they start at the top!

It depends who is deciding what illegal is…

  There’s nothing in there about being qualified for the job,

Yes there is:

  Performance culture: The federal workforce should be comprised of the best America has to offer. We will insist on excellence at every level — our performance standards will be updated to reward and promote those that exceed expectations and address in a fair and open way those who do not meet the high standards which the taxpayers of this country have a right to demand.

And really, who wouldn’t want to work at a place with lower pay than almost anywhere and now horrendous job security and workplace conditions!

> horrendous job security and workplace conditions

Isn't at-will employment the norm in America? How exactly is the job security horrendous?

Most places won't fire you based on your political affiliations. Especially when the political affiliations you're supposed to hold might change every 4 years

I guess it will become as “horrendous” as the USA norm, while having lower pay and worse conditions.

But then in section 4, they replace the existing job performance standards with:

> 4. Enhanced standards of conduct: The federal workforce should be comprised of employees who are reliable, loyal, trustworthy, and who strive for excellence in their daily work. Employees will be subject to enhanced standards of suitability and conduct as we move forward. Employees who engage in unlawful behavior or other misconduct will be prioritized for appropriate investigation and discipline, including termination.

Note that it does not say anything about performing job duties aligned with your department’s mission, or even things mandated by law. Also, it’s clear “other misconduct” is meant as a threat to anyone disloyal to Trump.

Today, Trump fired a bunch of government aid workers for distributing aid that they were legally obligated to distribute.

No. Federal employees take an oath to defend the Constitution, not the current executive.

Civil service in the US has been neutral politically and merit based for the last 140 years. It stands directly opposed to the "spoils system" which awarded positions to friends, campaign contributors, family members, etc. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoils_system

There is a huge difference between "creating lists for further use" and "offering buyouts". You sure those lists are only for offering buyouts, just because a notorious liar tells you so?

Discussion at reddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/fednews/comments/1ibbbh7/this_was_p...

Loyalty to whom? Your spouse? The country? Your immediate supervisor? Your coworkers?

It's the things that aren't said that make it feel so Orwellian.

From the letter (emphasis mine):

  If you choose to remain in your current position, we thank you for your renewed focus on serving the *American people* to the best of your abilities and look forward to working together as part of an improved federal workforce.

“American people”

So when they said they would run the government 'like a business' they actually meant a Private Equity hostile take-over informed by 1970 McKinsey consultants.

It's day 8. Good luck all.

Welcome to the era of private jets, record-setting yachts, prime real estate, and Russian prostitutes. Tremendous. PS you're not working hard enough and salaries are frozen.

Wow, I have morbid curiosity about how this will work out.

Democrats better hope that this crashes and burns, because if this shows any chance of being effective, we're in for a tough authoritarian ride.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42849061

Has something like this ever happened before? Did it feel this bad last time around?

This seems especially spooky.

Future America will understand that you don't treat government like a company.

The money government spends on salaries is money directly injected back into the economy, it could be seen as a form of social welfare.

Yes, but they can get the same effect by buying military hardware--and that has the added benefit of making Raytheon management and shareholders richer. When you just directly pay an employee with government money, there's no way to do that!

The military industrial complex in the United States is a socialist jobs program (with the added benefit of making the management and shareholders of contractors richer).

"Future America" is sounding increasingly oxymoronic.

You know what else injects money back into the economy? Letting tax payers keep more of their tax dollars.

But still less than if the federal employee was providing any ROI whatsoever on their salary. Why not instead talk about which federal departments (or agencies) provide an ROI, and how that can be measured in a nonpartisan way.

(In any case, US federal debt interest payments will be ~$952b in 2025, out of $7.5 trillion budget. That's >> more than the $271b on total salaries for all civilian employees (or the $4.7 trillion tax cuts which expire end 2025). So, intentionally crippling the federal govt still wouldn't touch either the debt or interest payments; except as a blunt instrument to kill govt programs and bypass Congress.)

For low-wage employees who spend almost all of their income on goods and services, yes.

For highly compensated employees who save the majority of their money, no.

The solution is simple, crash the economy so there are more people spending their whole paycheck every month

Looks to be the plan.

Saved money are also injected back into the economy. They aren’t stored under the mattress. They are in banks, where they are lent out, spent and invested, creating jobs, buying goods and services.

You're only 1/3 right. Saved money isn't lent, nor spent (lending is just creating money). It's invested, 95% in the secondary market (probably more in the US). If the secondary market isn't correlated to actual production (and nowadays, it actually isn't, even in mining, prospecting and future are the main beneficiaries, which to me is crazy. One of the only exceptions is the energy sector), that money won't create real jobs.

What do you think those sellers on the secondary markets do with the money they get?

At the end of the investing chain it’s always jobs, products and services - or bank deposits.

Any money not physically hidden in a cash vault or under a mattress takes part in the economy.

Re-invest in crypto or other, already-existing stocks. The secondary market is so huge nowadays, and uncorrelated from dividends, mainly because growth (followed by regular buybacks), not dividends, is now the main way to pay investors, but not only. In fact, what Jacques Richard call "futuristic accounting" (his research is available in english [0]) is basically helping big companies to decorrelate real profits from dividends.

[0] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265171038_The_dange...

> Re-invest in crypto or other, already-existing stocks.

Again, for a stock to be on the market, somebody has to do the economic activity to create & bring it there. Buying from that "someone" pumps the money back in the economy. Buying from another, previous, stocks owner just moves the situation to him.

Kind of like when you pay your retailer for the product on the shelf: there are certain delays but eventually the money has to reach the product builder, with each participant in the production & logistics chain keeping his share on the way.

This is simple, trivial logic and no amount of biased, ideological "research" can change it.

Except when you're in a bubble.

You're right, eventually an investor exit his position to buy newly issued shares or obligations, which in theory should be used to increase production.

What I'm saying is twofold: most of the money is invested in purely financial products, not production. Two examples: I'm not against futures, I think it's a good idea to stabilise farmers income. But when you have twice as much money in futures, twice as much investments in agritech, and the same agricultural output, can I say that money had no impact in production? Also,just look at the state of mining companies, or rather, where new money is invested. A lot is in new prospecting companies with 'AI' or 'blockchain' in their website. In the same time, new mines open less frequently, despite a huge increase in investment. Am I allowed to say that investment in this sector is decorrelated from actual production?

That's my first point. My second was that the new accounting 'technique' (futuristic accounting) used by some companies (PE, but probably others) is used to issue dividends uncorrelated from profit (thus uncorrelated from production).

Also I don't want to enter a boxing match, just confronting point of views, and I don't care that you didn't read about the specific of futuristic accounting, it's about accounting, I understand. But don't call ideological something you did not read next time.

The only point I am addressing here is the claim that invested money is not injected back in the economy.

Where exactly do you think invested money goes, if not in economy? Please be specific. Give concrete examples.

No boxing match, just trying to understand your point. I know nothing about mining sector and I have no clue what the connection with your “futuristic accounting” is.

My retirement account already has a big hole in it from Trump’s first round of tax hikes and tariffs.

I seriously doubt it’ll be any different this time around.

Lowering government expenses will not reduce the tax burden of the majority of Americans.

Trumps original tax plan benefits the higher income earners at the expense of lower and middle income earners.

Source: https://taxfoundation.org/research/all/federal/donald-trump-...

Much like Hatchback said, I don't see why it is a good thing to inject money into the economy versus not taking it in the first place. I'm not saying that these efforts are going to work to make the bureaucracy more efficient (I simply don't have the expertise to judge that), but I think any attempted solution is better than deliberately allowing inefficiency to fester as a form of social welfare. The federal bureaucracy has been a literal joke for longer than I've been alive because of how much it wastes resources. Something has to change, even if these current steps don't turn out to be the right ones.

By all means, we should be critical and say "this plan isn't going to work because xyz". That's an important part of the process. But at some point we do have to try something and see how it pans out, then try to adjust the plan based on the results.

That presumes that the intent of this effort – regardless of how it's spun – is to make government more efficient. It's hard to take spin like this at face value: voluntary departures may equally make programs less efficient since understaffed or more reliant on contractors, for example.

Anyone else think it’s likely America ends up without being a meaningful democracy by the end of this? I am skeptical the stated goal is efficiency it’s loyalty to MAGA. Imagine how extreme they will get if you can never vote them out.

I very much agree, and it's part of why I live abroad.

I don't understand why the people behind January 6 would then go on to allow free and fair elections and politely hand back power when they lose.

I moved abroad decades ago and have now spent more than half my life out of the US, but it's only nowadays that I thank my lucky stars.

For a long time I eyed the pay and interesting companies in norcal thinking “did I make a mistake?” But now I clutch my EU passport thankfully

I think the chance is about 10%.

That's too high of a chance, IMHO.

Genuinely, who are you expecting to stand up against it?

The Democrats in Congress? Massive public demonstration?

It feels all but inevitable to me

The Calexit people are gathering signatures right now:

https://www.sos.ca.gov/administration/news-releases-and-advi...

I'm in WA, could you extend it to all of Cascadia? ;)

Last time a state tried to leave there were words though. I doubt this will go smoothly

WA was the only state to decrease in Trump vote margin

Happy to be of service

Edit: The current movement appears unrelated to Yes California - https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...

"""

“People think if you’re a secessionist, you’re crazy,” Ruiz Evans said on Saturday. “I hate Donald Trump,” he added. “I am full-blooded Mexican. The day he went on TV and said all Mexicans are rapists, I said, ‘He can go f** himself.’ “

He added: “When I see Trump pick on women, on LGBTQ people … my family left Texas for California to escape that. And when I look at Trump, it reminds me of all the horror stories my mom and my grandma told me from [the time] before they left.”

"""

Sign me up.

(original below)

I am absolutely in favor of an independent California, but in the past at least the backing for this has had ties to Putin (which makes sense, I suppose, it would cripple the US)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes_California

I would not be surprised if this is some Russian psy op honestly. Please stay!

According to Brennan center, CA is number one at losing people relative to other states.

If it hypothetically exits to prevent other states from making it more like them and less like itself, that would presumably accelerate.

Did you budget for a DMZ or a Berlin wall to keep newly minted California citizens in? Especially those that pay all the taxes, like e.g. myself (I bailed in 2015)

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/how-...

I doubt public demonstrations would do it. They'd have to start losing MAGA cult people for them to change course themselves.

But if we can hold out for 2 years (big if) there's a very strong chance we'll retake the house.

And if things continue down this path (i think it will get worse) we could maybe take back the senate. but the map is very hard.

That would give power to fight back.

If we get a once in a generation swing of seats we could think about getting rid of the filibuster / few remaining norms. Then we could rebalance judicial. But that's a big risk if not sure the power will endure beyond a handful of cycles.

i dont think demonstrations would work either fwiw.

a big swing requires the dems to seem credibly like a real opposition, for people to want an opposition, and for that election result to be untampered.

given how little they've done to stop this so far and how little they're promising to do now, and how shaky the foundations for the elections are in the first place ..

idk, it seems unlikely

> I doubt public demonstrations would do it.

Trump is itching to trigger provisions of the Insurrection Act as far ahead of the mid-term elections as possible. Public demonstrations by anyone associated with the left will achieve nothing right now given the composition of Congress. The best bet is to stand down, and stand by. The ground will probably be fertile for local organizing though.

Trump will send the military in this time and kill protesters. Like he wanted to before.

Congress and anybody in his administration that decides to grow a spine without being booted before they do.

Barring that, the American people in 2 years, assuming a politicized FBI run by Kash Patel doesn't intervene in particular elections.

Ends up…i think it’s just happened. Been on this path for a while but the simple fact its treaties mean nothing totally trashes any reputation that was left, and it’s clear it’s run by the ultra wealthy. The people are just bystanders.

> and it’s clear it’s run by the ultra wealthy. The people are just bystanders.

The first part is true, the second is not. Yes, it's run by the ultra wealthy. But the people wanted this. The election wasn't in debate, and this wasn't a case of a popular vote/electoral college split. Also, for all of Trump's faults, hidden agendas really aren't one of them. People know exactly who he is, he said pretty much exactly what he would do, and a majority voted for this.

I think that's why so many "on the left" are resigned. Y'all voted for this shit, so knock yourself out. We may be looking at some massive cases of "But I never thought the leopard would eat MY face!" in the future, but at this point IDGAF, people voted for this.

I think the left are resigned because the reason people were so fine with a "shake it up" Trump presidency is we've been run by billionaires over citizens for thirty+ years already, regardless of the party in power.

The Dems are part of the path that lead us to this moment and aren't doing much of anything to reverse things. To me, it felt at the time like I was either making my last fair vote now, or they kick the can another 4 years with a do-nothing presidency where inequality keeps getting worse, and we lose to fascists next time.

There isn't a real opposition big enough and popular enough to oppose this , and tbh I doubt one can be built in time

You're talking about them as separate groups, but it's likely that the majority of Americans who consider themselves part of "the left" have been voting for these piss-poor Dem candidates that have indeed willfully have led to this, for at least the last 3+ elections.

If no one considering themselves part of "the left" would've gone out and voted for HRC and the dems got sent home with 40% of the vote back then, the path may have changed. They voted for her, and for Biden, meaning the path never changed. There were zero punishments for the DNC's despicable behaviour.

I have a lot of sympathy for those who did the opposite and did not vote for these candidates. You did the right thing.

i'm not convinced that the Dems are actually doing everything they can to win elections. my guess is, unforntunately, that we'd be doomed either way

Oh you're 100% right! All evidence points toward them not doing so! My (potentially hot) take is that if they'd gottten spanked with 40% the first time around, or Biden had lost, there'd have been much more external pressure for meaningful change to start trying to win elections.

Doesn't necessarily change your overall point but Trump won a plurality of the vote, not a majority.

The people did not want this. A majority of voters voted for not Trump. He also spent the bulk of his campaign — aided by the press — distancing himself from project 2025.

I’m on the left and I’m not resigned to this. I still have some fight left in me.

> The people did not want this. A majority of voters voted for not Trump.

He won the popular vote though, unless I'm misunderstanding your point.

> He also spent the bulk of his campaign — aided by the press — distancing himself from project 2025.

What specific media companies did this?

I heard nothing but negative things about Trump and constant pointing out ties to project 2025 by all major news networks, cable and textual.

Except maybe Fox, but I don't watch it nor know anyone that does. (Well, not that many people I know even watch or read mainstream news in the first place anymore...)

> He won the popular vote though, unless I'm misunderstanding your point.

I think the distinction here is that only about 1/2 the population even voted.

No, the distinction is that 1.5% more voters chose Trump than chose Harris, but that still didn’t push Trump over 50% of the vote, so it’s correct to say that most voters didn’t vote for Trump, but to win the popular vote he only needed the most votes.

This whole thing verges on “silent majority” thinking. The people who don’t vote have no bearing in this calculation. If they cared either way, they would have voted.

It’s particularly suspect with Trump, because of his strength among infrequent voters. https://abcnews.go.com/538/vote-back-trump/story?id=10909062...

“But among respondents who were old enough to vote but voted in none of those three elections, Trump crushed Biden 44 percent to 26 percent.”

If we just talk about the people who voted, and who they voted for, then almost half of them voted for Trump, almost half of them voted for Harris (although a slightly lesser "half" than Trump).

If you want talk about people who didn't vote and how they would vote, young people (over 18 but under 30) are less likely to vote and participate in polling services like KnowledgePanel. But they didn't vote so whatever.

> Except maybe Fox…

This is a good question. Aside from the most popular cable news network for the past 20+ years in a row[1] that’s considered trusted by 40% of Americans[2], where did we hear that stuff?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/markjoyella/2024/01/30/fox-news...

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/04/08/five-fact...

Trump won a plurality of the popular vote, but still only 49.8% of those who voted. So not even a majority of American voters, just that Harris got less (48.3%), so 1.5% of voters voted for Trump than Harris, and then the rest of the voters voting for someone else or leaving the president column blank.

> The first part is true, the second is not

People wanted this because news and social media have told them to want – both which are functionally mouth-pieces of the ultra-wealthy. News has been consolidating into fewer hands for decades; it’s only getting worse, and their owners more emboldened. The popular social media sites, when not owned and manipulated directly by their owning oligarchs, are subject to a massive amount of astroturfing bankrolled by other ultra-wealthy folks. The wealthy chose Trump, and so it is.

We aren’t completely bystanders, but the cards are unimaginably stacked against us. We need to break up massive media companies, get rid of manipulative algorithms, and fight tooth and nail to get money out of politics – as much as we can.

> People wanted this because news and social media have told them to want ...

> are subject to a massive amount of astroturfing ... The wealthy chose Trump, and so it is

People refuse to believe this can happen to them. Just as people do not believe they can be influenced by TikTok algos or advertising. They would know if it were happening to them; doesn't matter if they are left right east west up down or sideways, they are special snowflakes and it's those "others" that are the sheep that fall for it.

I did a stint in door-to-door sales (during a period of burn-out); as much as I didn't want to believe the shifty sales consultant that would come in and give sales training clinics, it's the people that absolutely know for sure they are not buying that were the ones I liked best--they won't be "tricked" or persuaded. No tricks needed, my personal ethics would not allow it even though there were "tips & suggestions" other sales people gave out; those that claim to be unsellable were almost always the sales I got the most commission from.

The exact same argument, that Trump voters were “influenced” by algos, can be made that anti-Trump voters were influenced by mainstream media or whatever.

So you either believe that people have agency and actually decide for themselves, or that they are puppets and democracy is a sham.

Maybe re-read what I wrote?

> So you either believe that people have agency and actually decide for themselves, or that they are puppets and democracy is a sham.

Do you always think in such binary terms? Life is nuanced, there very few absolute binaries, but as I originally pointed out, those that hold on to that "either or" absolute type of thinking were my easiest, most profitable sales.

Mainstream media is also for Trump - look at the contortions NYT et. al. are making to excuse Elon's Nazi salute.

Trump literally got up on stage with Elon promising to do what he’s doing. Elon spent the entire last week before the election in Pennsylvania, a major swing state, telling people what the administration was to do. Trump also got up on stage with many of his key appointees, who were outspoken about what they were going to do. Now, they’re all doing those things.

Like, you can say his policies are bad and you don’t like them for whatever reason. But the “false consciousness” argument applies to Trump the least of any president in my lifetime. He won spending less money both times, with the uniform hostility of big, centralized media. Trump’s big thing this campaign was in person rallies and podcasts.

I don’t watch mainstream media. I listen to some podcasts twice a week driving to work, and follow some people on X. Nothing Trump has done came as any surprise at all to me.

> I don’t watch mainstream media. I listen to some podcasts twice a week driving to work, and follow some people on X. Nothing Trump has done came as any surprise at all to me.

honestly its shocking that any of this is a surprise. dude was President once, and was consistently making attempts at this before, only to be hamstrung by Congress.

his entire 2nd run was pretty blunt about ties to Project 2025 and their aims. Even Drudge and Fox News covered this stuff.

Framing this as “Project 2025” makes it seem like he distanced himself from these policies. The policies in his EOs are from his own platform: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/2024-republican-pa.... If you listened to a couple of his long form podcasts and rallies, these things were all in there.

Obviously there’s a lot of overlap between what Trump campaigned on and Project 2025. But Trump hasn’t issued any EOs banning abortion or similar issues that were in Project 2025 but not his own platform.

Oh, come on. They lied through their teeth.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-i-have-nothing-t...

> Former President Donald Trump denied any connection to Project 2025, the handbook for a new conservative government written by the Heritage Foundation and several right-wing think tanks, in his Sept. 10 debate with Vice President Kamala Harris.

> “I have nothing to do with Project 2025,” Trump said in the ABC News Presidential Debate. “I haven’t read it. I don’t want to read it purposely. I’m not going to read it.”

Then they hired/appointed its people and implemented their policies.

Not necessarily a lie on Trump's part. Trump wants to retain independence - he's not going to agree to implement a think tank's program by name. For example, he notably distanced himself from making promises on abortion policy during the 2024 campaign, and indeed so far the only move he's made to benefit pro-lifers is freeing protesters imprisoned under the Biden administration.

Also, much of the energy behind Trump and MAGA is rejecting the dominant conservative think tank culture that's existed since the Reagan administration. This is seen by them as only fighting for the interests of large corporations - notably including completely selling out American workers in favor of immigration and offshoring - while losing every cultural battle in the last few decades from being too conciliatory to the liberal establishment that dominates the cities where these think tanks are based.

Many of these think tanks (including the Heritage Foundation, which is why Project 2025 takes the tone that it does) are in the process of being replaced by younger right-wingers more aligned by MAGA - they often reject the label of "conservative" as denoting a failed movement, preferring "dissident right" or similar terms. They want a counterrevolution - "what is there left to conserve", they say. But until their takeover is complete (which will probably happen in Trump's term, and will definitely be complete if Republicans win in 2028), it's understandable why younger Republicans would reject any explicit association with the old conservative think tanks.

Trump he was very open about the policies he did support: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/2024-republican-pa.... He never disavowed any of these policies. He talked about them all the time at his rallies and podcasts.

The “Project 2025” thing was an effort to pin him to Heritage Foundation policies on abortion. He correctly pointed out that Heritage didn’t speak for him. You can’t say that Biden’s platform is the same as Sunrise’s platform just because they agree on some things.

There are a number of major systemic risks.

As ever, the problem is compounded by the chunk of population who enable it, and the typically larger chunk of population who are unable or unwilling to recognize clear and present danger.

Or: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ee6-sI9rdtA

Clearly the Democrats think American democracy is secure because they insist on running terrible candidates and pursuing unpopular policies. It's funny how the politicians yelling about how Trump 2 is an existential risk seem to be more concerned about their careers than this "threat to democracy". I'm frankly tired of taking this stuff seriously.

I'm with you fwiw. Except I think its less that MAGA isn't an exstisential threat to democracy (they are) but that the Democrats are really just that useless.

Yes. I sadly agree with obama: we can survive 4 years. I don't know we can survive 8.

“I think that four years is OK,” Obama said. “Take on some water, but we can kind of bail fast enough to be OK. Eight years would be a problem. I would be concerned about a sustained period in which some of these norms have broken down and started to corrode.”

We're already far beyond some norms breaking down...

Sadly I can't find a great source for that quote. just found it on scmp and jp. weird. I swear I have this memory of that being in politico or nytimes at the time. iirc was from an 'otr' towards the end of his term.

It was indeed an off the record chat, made public.

https://www.benzinga.com/government/22/10/29111070/obamas-ta...

How is president ordering to work from the office or resign - an end to democracy?

This narrative is pure bs.

Are you being intentionally bad faith? Or did you not read the memo?

Great rebuttal. You're so convincing.

There's four more years of this. I no longer think there's a happy ending here, and we're way past the point of being merely concerning.

This is a pro-democracy move! Elections being accompanied by a large scale shakeup to help the elected president enact the agenda people voted for is a good thing actually. Ideally, every federal employee would respond to an election by maximally pushing to achieve the president’s agenda, like at a startup. That would be responsive democracy, where voting yields immediate and visible changes.

If you mean something other than “democracy” then say it.

It’s actually a republic

Sure, a democratic one. So?

There is a distinct difference between democracy and republics

They aren’t mutually exclusive.

What general point are you trying to make? That there is no democratic process in the USA? Because we have federal and state level democratic processes.

I think they mean democracy, as in, if he's willing to disregard laws passed by congress and the constitution, and has been caught on record demanding poll workers to "find" votes, and has disbanded all oversight -

why would you expect future elections to be free and fair?

Albert Einstein once said “Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it; he who doesn't, pays it”

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