Why You Should Care About State Department Layoffs

In case basic humanity isn't enough.

The State Department summarily dismissed more than 1,300 employees last week. This was under the orders of Trump’s flunky Marco Rubio, who the Senate unanimously confirmed to the Senate. Republicans are shameless but Democrats are at least capable of that emotion so should probably regret helping install Rubio, who has gleefully enabled Trump’s assault on U.S. soft power.

Congress was informed in late May that thousands of State Department employees would lose their jobs as part of a “reorganization” that torches decades of specialized skills and training. It’s a direct assault on the U.S. government in broad daylight. The gutting of foreign aid and deliberate weakening of the country’s global influence is what you’d expect if a hostile power had conquered the U.S. There is no sensible plan behind these drastic cuts. It’s like the mob raiding a business down to the studs and busting the joint out.

The scene was grim on Friday, as people left their offices with small boxes, plants, and coffee mugs. However, you can always count on MAGA to find pleasure in others’ misfortune. They probably belong to “kick the dog” clubs. Political “commentator” Kate Hyde posted on social media, “Watching theater kids get fired from tax funded jobs may be my new favorite hobby.”

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Right-wing journalist Salena Zito complained that the massive, government-mandated layoffs received too much attention, which is probably the argument you’d make when you can’t actually defend a particular action.

“Number of times Ive been laid off/ people I know or cover have been laid off (in numbers larger than this) has been significant. No cameras rolled up. No reporters called it unprecedented. This happens every day in America. News organizations should cover more even handedly.”

This doesn’t happen “every day” in America, as that would mean almost 500,000 people lose their jobs each year. Fox News would’ve probably mentioned that, at least when Joe Biden was president.

These job losses are also the direct result of the current administration’s policies. The Trump administration has politicized jobs that were once considered relatively apolitical, and these people have been fired under a barrage of lies.

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Of course, the one person you really wanted to hear from on this matter is living Horatio Alger story Meghan McCain. The completely self-made woman posted on social media, “One thing I never realized until I moved to the DC area is the absolutely insane amount of people who think they are entitled to a job in government — forever. It is part of the rot in DC and they need a reality check about how the actual world works.”

Yes, John McCain’s secret daughter who owes her entire career to nepotism thinks other people require a “reality check.” I reject the premise that the “actual world” is an exercise in social and economic Darwinism, where only the supposed “strong” survive. The world’s natural, immutable state is not nasty and brutish. That’s what some of the worst people on Earth say in an effort to justify their own cruelty. Whether the world is a paradise or a hell is entirely within our choosing.

It wasn’t so long ago that people did in fact feel “entitled” to keep their jobs in both the public and private sectors for as long as they showed up every day and did their best. They didn’t fear losing their livelihood because some corporate Galactus consumed their company so unknown stockholders could enjoy a profit. My father had the same job for 40 years, so I can appreciate what it means to grow up with that security. Republicans are moral frauds, so it’s not a surprise that the self-proclaimed “pro-family” party doesn’t see a problem with kids growing up with parents who are constantly looking for their next job because there is never any real, lasting security. No matter how much they contribute to a company, there is always the risk of some Elon Musk creep coming in and “making a change,” with no regard for how many lives he disrupts. “Honey, I know you enjoyed the friends you made at school, but Musk showed up at the office with a kitchen sink and, well, now we have to move.”

We should all unite against this callous treatment, but even some liberals are falling for Republicans’ obvious divide-and-conquer class strategy. For instance, MSNBC contributor Rotimi Adeoye suggested in a social media post that “people in rural and urban communities that are struggling have a tough time finding empathy for mass layoffs in the state department because when layoffs happen in their community it isn’t met with the same attention, this doesn’t mean government layoffs are good ofc (I think they are bad).”

I stress again that no previous Democratic president actively fired struggling people in rural and urban communities and justified it all as eliminating “waste” and “fraud.” Besides, Democrats have actively tried to avoid appearing as if they support people in rural communities losing their jobs, even in dying industries. You’ll recall Kamala Harris’s “evolved” position on fracking (for all the good it ended up doing her in Pennsylvania). I don’t blame Bill Clinton for the decline of print journalism just because the internet exploded on his watch. He didn’t have a “shut down afternoon newspapers” platform.

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A lot of mainstream Democrats think it’s a mistake to focus too much on the State Department layoffs because, as I’ve seen asked more than once online, “Who cares about bureaucrat losing their jobs?” Perhaps I’m still on a high after seeing the new Superman movie, but I personally think that it’s good moral policy to care when bad things happen to other people, especially when you could’ve prevented it. Maybe Adeoye is right that average Americans might have a “tough time finding empathy” for State Department employees who’ve lost their jobs — after all, they are well-educated and have options — but we should all care about the loss of expertise. It’s not just about foreign aid. Trump’s chainsaw approach to the government will directly affect Americans when their kids consume rancid food that wasn’t properly inspected, when they no longer have access to a fair education, or when a natural disaster hits for which we are all unprepared. Let’s at least try to care about each other while there’s still time.