Comment by insane_dreamer | Hacker News Reader

Comment by insane_dreamer | Hacker News Reader

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Trump/Elon fascism/heroism (depending on your point of view) aside, one thing that concerns me is how quickly is it possible to decide that 1000 employees at a place like the Department of Energy, including 300 at the National Nuclear Security Administration, can be dismissed without any impact on the effectiveness of these agencies.

Even if you do believe that these agencies are bloated with workers who are doing "unnecessary" work, which is possible, it seems very unprudent to make cuts so quickly. And who is qualified to make these decisions? Elon? Some Tesla or SpaceX engineer who wrote some code and put up a website? Come on. WTF do they know about how all these agencies operate and the downstream effects? You think they're taking the time to really think it through?

Now it's possible that prior to taking office, Trump had people with deep understanding of government operations go through everything, and really think things through, and prepare a list of jobs that could be cut without any impact, but if that is the case, it's never been said. Given who Trump has around him to lead these agencies (McMahon for Dept of Ed? An Oil and Gas Lobbyist for BLM? Really?) that doesn't seem likely.

Move fast and break things works fine for a start-up, and might even be fine for more cultural type stuff ("DEI"), but Dept of Energy?

It's like firing two-thirds of your sysadmins because "well, we haven't had any issues with our servers lately, and no breaches, so those people must not be needed".

Separate thread on DoE:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43055119

To my point, found this article linked to in another thread: [0]

> Some of the fired employees included NNSA staff who are on the ground at facilities where nuclear weapons are built. These staff oversee the contractors who build nuclear weapons, and they inspect these weapons.

> It also included employees at NNSA headquarters who write requirements and guidelines for contractors who build nuclear weapons. A source told CNN they believe these individuals were fired because “no one has taken anytime to understand what we do and the importance of our work to the nation’s national security.”

> The agency began rescinding the terminations Friday morning.

Part of the strategy might be:

1. Fire large swaths of the government. Declare victory!!

2. Hire those people back because it turns out that they're actually needed (who would have thought?). But that doesn't get news.

So in the end, things remain the same, but Trump/Elon get the headlines and their followers think they've done an amazing job.

[0] https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/14/climate/nuclear-nnsa-firings-...

I have been waiting 30 years for this to happen so I am excited while remaining optimistic.

If the systems and Nation is as fragile we have bigger problems than the Chaos Monkey unleashed at the Federal level.

Do people think Nuclear reactors will go unmanaged or Prisoners will go unfed? I suppose it is possible and time will tell.

We were lied to by the Government. The new administration may be lying as well. I think we will all learn a lot.

Considering the powers that be attempted to remove the current President through kinetic means I would imagine he is going to move as fast as possible.

The “powers that be tried to remove the current President” , not sure who those powers are (please spare me the “deep state” nonsense I expect higher order thinking here), but Trump attempted a violent overthrow of a democratic election. If you’re okay with that, then you and I have very different ideas of what democracy is. Coincidentally I’ve been hugely critical of the US government (regardless of party) most of my life, especially US foreign policy and military, and inherently like the idea of a shake up a la Young Turks style. But all that aside democratic ideals are the only thing that makes the US better than China or Russia, and Trump lost what little credibility he had left as someone who upholds democracy when he tried to stay in power 4 years ago and then doubled-down by pardoning the rioters. And that, my friend, trumps everything else.

No, the administration is lying. We Canadians were getting the blunt end of it.

I don't think it's been covered much in American media but President Trump is throwing threats of 25% tariffs on both Mexican and Canadian imports for the last month or so. First it was about how it would make manufacturing move back to the US. Then it was about how Canada is a national threat to the US because we're allowing fentanyl and illegal immigrants to cross in the US. Then it was about how the US was in terrible the trade deal with Canada and Mexico was (it was his deal, the USMCA that replaced NAFTA). Then it was how the US subsidizes Canada because Canada is a failing state and that the US was spending $200 billion a year propping up Canada. Then it was that Canada wasn't meeting it's NATO spending targets. Then it was that Canada is a failed state, and that everything would be better if Canada became the 51st state.

Every day it seemed like his narrative is changing. And when we had our retaliatory tariffs at the ready to cause harm to Republican states, you know what he did?

He blinked. The tariffs for Canada and Mexico were postponed until March. He's been consistent about telegraphing what his actions are going to be, but his justifications are so wildly all over the place that frankly it's probably safe to assume he's lying at least about his motivations.

And if he's willing to lie to one of the oldest allies to the United States, is it really that much of a stretch to think that he could be lying to Americans as well?

Canadians hurt by this will find sincerity and sympathy among the Americans who still have shame. But as a lens on Trump’s negotiating maneuvers, markets are starting to price in his impotence:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43057698

his justifications are so wildly all over the place that frankly it's probably safe to assume he's lying at least about his motivations.

This has been my assumption. Trump's superpower seems to be manipulating the media. He gets absurd headlines that take attention away from stories he doesn't want covered.

This whole annexation thing is bonkers. I've never in my life heard anyone suggest such a thing, except for around 1999/2000, when I visited Canada and local papers had editorials fretting that George W Bush's administration was going to annex Canada. I have no idea where they got that idea, since I never heard any American ever suggest such a thing.

> Trump's superpower seems to be manipulating the media.

very true; not only through distractions, but by a continual bombardment of outlier or outlandish comments (used to be Tweets back in his first term) that it sucks all the oxygen out of the room as the media can hardly keep up -- therefore every story, every front page, is always Trump

like the saying goes for show biz, Trump knows there is no such thing as bad publicity ; though what works for him doesn't work for other politicians because he has a cult-like base and they don't

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