4 ms·
While a lot of us both relate and agree, I’m not sure the rhetoric is helpful here. If the flame wars are kept to a minimum, the submission keeps trending, and
by rl3 2y ago
While a lot of us both relate and agree, I’m not sure the rhetoric is helpful here. If the flame wars are kept to a minimum, the submission keeps trending, and awareness rises. This one in particular is very important for the tech community.
I think the crux is that too many people are taking what’s being said at face value. The banner of cost cutting and lean government was chosen because it’s hard to argue with, assuming it’s true and done responsibly - which it isn’t. Randomly firing 200 people that worked at NNSA is one of the most profound examples of this, let alone gutting 18F.
For anyone paying attention, it’s indeed crystal clear the move is being used to install loyalists while “saving” an amount of money that’s order(s) of magnitude less than the grift they’ve granted themselves, after cutting the very watchdogs setup to stop that kind of grift. Heck, even the word grift is charitable when it’s more like outright brazen corruption.
However, convincing everyone of this difficult insofar that it requires them to a) not take these people at face value, and b) swallow the pill that not only were they wrong for trusting said persons in the first place, but they potentially even voted in the administration that’s doing the damage.
Getting people to admit that they were wrong, even to themselves, is pretty hard these days. Hopefully it becomes too obvious to ignore, and that process becomes easier when it’s replaced by a feeling of betrayal. Because if there’s one things American love on either side of the aisle, it’s getting angry.
18F was one of the finest examples of a non-partisan agile tech organization that was highly efficient and effective. It was just trashed it for no good reason at all.
- foobarian 2y agoIt's telling that all the cost cutting is happening in the 1% slice of the pie, not the defense slice of the pie. There be dragons most likely.
- ryandrake 2y agoExactly. It's like declaring you're going to lose weight and then just trimming your fingernails.
- rurp 2y agoThe fact that such an obviously false pretext is being used and accepted by so many followers is one of the most depressing parts of all of this. It is incredibly clear that this is not about saving money or balancing the governments finances, but so many people blindly believe whatever Elon or Trump tells them. At this point I'm not sure there's any limit to what their followers will believe and support, which is extremely chilling.
- mattgreenrocks 2y agoYou have to purge the people that are actually mission-oriented because they are not sufficiently subservient. Also, the voting base seems to hate the fact that federal workers tend to enjoy a lot more stability in their job than private sector workers do. What boggles my mind is that the feds were made into political enemies so quickly and the public had zero empathy for the callous method that they were fired in. Meanwhile, in Dec 2024, you didn't see the level of bile aimed at the feds like you see it today. And worse, very few people seem to realize that they've been politically hoodwinked. They'll simply retcon their belief that they've always disliked the feds that much, and their guy is finally giving them their just rewards.
- mattgreenrocks 2y agoSupposedly, the DoD is next. I like to believe they'll end up kicking the proverbial hornets nest by angering the Northrop Grumman/Lockheed/PE firms owning defense contractors, but I'm not optimistic that will deter them.
- thegreatpeter 2y agoEthan literally wrote "a far-right President" won, so I wouldn't consider 18F non-partisan.
- otterley 2y agoDo you contend that he is not one? If not, why not? To use an example from the other end, it’s not particularly partisan to claim that a communist is on the far left of the political spectrum.
- eadmund 2y agoIt all depends on what one means by ‘right’ vs. ‘left.’ I don’t think that those labels — which I believe originate in seating conventions in peri-revolutionary France — are particularly relevant to American politics. Is free trade right-coded or left-coded? Tariffs? Drug policy?
- otterley 2y agoSorry, what is your point? The subject here is whether it is partisan to describe someone as having a far-right ideology, and whether that appellation is generally accurate. This term is well understood.
- orwin 2y agoFar right is reactionary, going back to previous systems/time. MAGA is definitely a reactionary (I.e: far right) movement, it's in the title. There is also a hierarchical component to far right movements, which MAGA didn't completely had the first time around, so it is more complex, but you can do with that definition.
- rl3 2y ago>Ethan literally wrote "a far-right President" won, so I wouldn't consider 18F non-partisan a) That’s a fair way to describe it regardless of political leanings, and moreover even if it wasn’t, I fail to see how that’s somehow able to be extrapolated to the entire org. b) Last I checked government employees are allowed to express their opinions, which would be relevant had the man not resigned - meaning what you’ve read is a personal take. Like the vast majority of people, I doubt he took politics to work. c) Consider 18F was started under the Obama administration and continued through the first Trump administration. The federal government is being actively dismantled right now in ways that are unprecedented - even for every Republican administration in recent history. I think it’s reasonable to say “far-right” isn’t partisan in that context. It’s accurate.