I recently told someone that being a journalist right now is like standing on the edge of a beach and watching a tsunami approaching. Other journalists, government workers and activists are on the shoreline with me, and we can all see it clear as day. And we agree we need to warn the others inland.
So we start making calls and telling people this catastrophic wave is about to hit, but the people inland still can’t see it and don’t believe us. Everything looks fine where they are; it’s dry and comfortable. “Let us know when it gets closer,” they say. We try to communicate that every moment of preparation counts, but it’s no use. They’ll only believe it when it’s crashing on their heads.
This week feels like the wave is about to crash.
Federal workers at the Social Security Administration (SSA) learned Wednesday that a plan was in motion to cut 50% of staff. Tuesday evening an anonymous comment on a well-known industry blog caught the attention of many workers already on high alert about their jobs. The comment said that on a 3pm call, Acting Commissioner Leland Dudek told SSA leadership that, “he wanted a plan to cut 50% of ALL staff, including frontline staff, to him by tomorrow afternoon.”
By early Wednesday afternoon, The American Prospect confirmed the rumor. Dudek, the Elon Musk loyalist I wrote about last week who went from administrative leave to leading the agency after helping the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), planned to cut the workforce in half. The move could affect tens of thousands of employees across the country, and far more people who rely on the agency for monthly checks that keep them afloat.
“Can say unequivocally that such deep cuts to SSA, which is already at historically low staffing, will cause significant to extreme degradation of services,” an SSA employee texted me Wednesday afternoon, “very likely including checks missed and individuals dying before their claims can be processed.”
Once checks stop arriving on time or at all, the full force of this administration’s destruction will be felt by millions. It is no exaggeration to say this will kill people—mainly people who are elderly, disabled and/or poor. Society’s most vulnerable sit in the crosshairs of our nation’s wealthiest people who have absolutely everything, but somehow always want more.
In a press conference earlier this month, President Trump said, “Social Security will not be touched,” by DOGE’s efforts to slash spending, decimate federal agencies and devastate workers. But just a few weeks later it’s clear that the notorious liar was lying.
Before this news became public, DOGE was already hard at work slashing the SSA. Their site lists 45 lease terminations for SSA offices across the country. Dudek also announced the closure of the Office of Transformation and the Office of Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity—you know, the one that investigates harassment, discrimination, and medical/disability claims. “Our focus is supporting President Trump’s priorities, which include streamlining functions and prioritizing essential work,” the bootlicker wrote in a press release.
Making matters even worse, the heads of the Office of Personnel Management and the Office of Management and Budget published a joint memo on Wednesday detailing how they plan to carry out Trump’s “Department of Government Efficiency” Workforce Optimization Initiative. This latest blueprint for mass destruction will rock every single government agency.
“The federal government is costly, inefficient, and deeply in debt,” the memo from Chuck Ezell and Russell Vought begins. “At the same time, it is not producing results for the American public. Instead, tax dollars are being siphoned off to fund unproductive and unnecessary programs that benefit radical interest groups while hurting hardworking American citizens.”
The seven-page document details how agencies should approach a RIF—a reduction in force—as well as reorganization plans. A phase one proposal is due for review and approval by March 15th. Soon thousands upon thousands of federal workers will be unemployed.
When Ezell and Vought reference “hardworking American citizens,” they’re certainly not referring to the ones working in the federal government. No, they’ve made it their life’s work to cast these workers as leeches with lower productivity jobs, as the Fork in the Road guidance put it. And they continue to get major assists in this endeavor from right wing trolls and legacy media.
On Tuesday Chris Rufo, the transphobic, racist activist who rose to prominence for driving former Harvard University President Dr. Claudine Gay out of her job, published a post entitled, “The NSA’s Secret Sex Chats.” Snippets of conversations from an internal LGBTQ+ chat room dating back to 2022 were leaked to Rufo reportedly by one current and one former employee at one of the nation’s intelligence agencies. Rufo’s ire focused on transgender members of the chat and discussions they had about topics like gender reassignment surgery, with the obvious goal of painting them as meritless workers who deserved to be fired.
The New York Times, which published 63 articles related to Rufo’s crusade against Dr. Gay in late 2023/early 2024, came through in the clutch once again. They published a story early Wednesday morning with the headline, “Gabbard Says More Than 100 Intelligence Officers Fired for Chat Messages.”
Speaking of Gabbards appearance on Fox News Tuesday night in which she admonished the workers in the leaked chats and announced her plans for termination, the Times wrote, “Ms. Gabbard put her actions in the larger context of her efforts to depoliticize the intelligence community and the Trump administration’s efforts to hold employees accountable.”
Oddly missing was the context that this effort is part of a targeted purge of queer employees from the federal government by people who want to deny their very existence.
Adding insult to media injury came the announcement Wednesday morning from Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos that his paper would only be publishing certain types of opinion pieces. “We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets,” the billionaire posted on fellow billionaire Elon Musk’s platform, X. “We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.”
As I wrote previously, billionaires aren’t journalists and they should stay the hell out of editorial decisions. And when they start trying to exert influence, it only portends bad things to come.
With two billionaire co-presidents of the United States sending the message that anything good is ripe for destruction, it’s no wonder others are taking the same cue. And much larger swath of Americans are about to feel it.
