Republican Stupidity Watch: Valentine’s Day Massacre Edition

In a Valentine’s Day Massacre, the Trump/Musk regime sent mass firing notices to tens of thousands of federal employees across the country, effective over the weekend. The firings had nothing to do with performance, nothing to do with merit, nothing to do with efficiency. Their common characteristic was cruelty. 

Those fired were “on probation.” That means a one- or two-year period after hiring or after transfer from one position to another or one agency to another. During this probationary period, civil service protection against firing does not apply. That’s the only reason for these firings: the Trump/Musk/DOGE machine COULD fire people, and so they did. 

Over and over again, agency heads and supervisors confirmed that the firing had nothing to do with performance, nothing to do with merit, and nothing to do with how vital these employees were to the work of their agency and the service of their country. The Washington Post described some of the cruelty:

“The firings … swept up people with years of service who had recently transferred between agencies, as well as military veterans and people with disabilities employed through a program that sped their hiring but put them on two years’ probation. …

“Some employees said the proceedings seemed rushed, the details botched. Termination letters at Education listed the wrong job, or the wrong start date. A legal help number offered in a notice sent to a Small Business Administration employee led to the voicemail for an apartment building, not a lawyer. Some firing letters seemed copy-pasted from a form and left out the name of the agency where employees worked. …

“Others were stunned to find themselves included in the probationary category, including a federal nurse with more than five years of government employment who recently moved under military orders with her spouse — and had to switch agencies as a result. Now she’s out of a job. 

“A veteran of the National Park Service, who had worked at parks including Yosemite, Shenandoah and the Great Smoky Mountains, last year left a permanent position to accept a promotion in a new park. There, she was told she’d have to serve one year of probation. On Valentine’s Day, she was fired for ‘performance,’ ending a quarter-century of service.” 

Added to the cruelty was the usual stupidity. Firing employees who watch over the nation’s nuclear stockpile, and then scrambling to try to un-fire them. A hiring freeze that prevents the Forest Service from hiring the “seasonal” firefighters that they need every year as the fire season ramps up. Firing people at the chronically understaffed Indian Health Service and then rescinding the firings. Firing one-tenth of the workers at the National Health Institute’s Center for Alzheimer’s and Related Dementias.

“What makes this particularly jarring is that it could set back efforts to treat and develop cures for these awful afflictions, as these insiders and other experts fear. But it’s also that the potential for this center to do good—and the importance of the broader cause of battling Alzheimer’s—have both been championed by Republicans. Indeed, CARD’s full name—the Roy Blunt Center for Alzheimer’s and Related Dementias—honors former Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, an influential Republican who spoke glowingly about its potential to advance human progress when its opening was announced in 2022.”

Republicans are beginning to feel the pain of firings and also of cuts in services and grants to their states. But Republicans in the House and Senate continue to uncritically support the Trump/Musk dismantling of government. They own the unfolding disaster that is the Trump/Musk administration. They own the stupidity and they are responsible for the pain.