Scrambling to replace their health insurance and to find new work, some fired federal workers are running into another unexpected unpleasantry: Relatives cheering their job loss.

Summary

Recently terminated federal workers face not only unemployment challenges but also hurtful reactions from family members who support the government cuts.

Luke Tobin, fired from the Forest Service, and Kristin Jenn, whose Park Service job was frozen, describe relatives celebrating their job losses as necessary to “make the government great again.”

Former Park Service employee Riley Rackliffe encountered social media comments calling him a “glorified pool boy” despite his Ph.D.

Some workers report family members unfriending them on social media or dismissing their positions as “waste.”

  • ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
    1·
    7 days ago

    “It’s really hurtful for the president to insinuate that you don’t exist or that your job consisted of sitting at home doing nothing and cashing the paycheck,” he says. “I’d like to see him sifting through spiny naiad in 120-degree weather looking for parasitic snails. He’s the one that goes golfing on the government dime. I don’t even know how to golf.”

    Although I don’t think much will get through to MAGA people, the hypocrisy is what gives me the most hope. Trump’s mind is so unlike his voters’ that he doesn’t deserve to represent them.

    Like, I wake up earlier than my wife. She has back problems, but I like to keep the kitchen nice for her and not remind her of it. So every day I unload the entire dishwasher, carefully putting away every plate, knife, glass without making noise. I don’t mean it as a virtue-signal, we all probably do little things like this. I just mean, can you even imagine Trump doing something like that? Imagine him caring about someone other than him that much? Imagine having to live so intentionally and carefully for any reason at all?

    That should get through to them, right?

    • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
      1·
      7 days ago

      The problem is that’s not the Trump they see. They see a hero story told through YouTube, podcasts, angry Facebook/Twitter posts, MSM, Discords and such. It’s immersive. It’s engrossing/triggering enough to turn on family.

      I can’t stop saying it. The root problem is the information environment, and no amount of policy or studying or empathy or signaling or even hardship is going to change squat until that is turned on its head.

      And I’m more militant about that now. Big Tech is beyond fixing, it needs to be fucked up.