Summary
Trump is nullifying federal employee union contracts negotiated in Biden’s final days.
Affected contracts include one with the Education Department ratified just before his inauguration. Trump cited a 2010 Supreme Court decision to justify his stance but did not provide a clear legal basis.
Federal employee unions, representing 800,000 workers, vowed legal action, calling Trump’s move unlawful intimidation.
This continues Trump’s prior efforts to weaken job protections, with additional plans to reclassify and lay off civil servants.
I’m not American either; I’m a progressive in a nation where our CONSERVATIVE party would be considered to the left of the DNC. So no BlueMAGA Liberalism here, which as an aside, is honestly is an even more tragic Reddit-ism - I wouldn’t be throwing stones in glass houses if I were you.
But more-to-the-point, “Fuck around and find out” is a common saying particularly amongst more regional/rural locales, that I’ve appropriated for cause. For an example of how the GOP base commonly use phrases like this, listen to Jason Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town”.
There is no more effect left for me to cause; the Left failed to stop the existential threat that was Donald Trump, due to in-fighting, lack of motivation, and the lack of urgency necessary given the circumstances.
You don’t get to vote for which “criminal” gets to bomb your family, just as much as I don’t. You’re right in the sense that your family would likely continue to be target for bombing in the near future regardless of the election, but truly ask yourself if you think progressives and leftists stand a better chance of enacting change now under Trump, than they would have under a milquetoast president like Harris.
The phrase “the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” is apt; conservatives in the US have been building towards this since the 80s (and arguably even before that); slowly, but surely rolling back progress made since the post-War period and reappointing Robber Barons and Landed Gentry.
This is also a lesson that leftists and progressives as a whole continue to struggle with; we bicker amongst each other - falling for the No True Scotsman fallacy - rather than working together and iterating through small, achievable victories towards a much larger goal. We demand a revolution which will never come, and instead shun small positive opportunities while the conservatives run rough-shod over the law, the environment, and the populace.
This is largely all moot at this point, because I truly believe that 2024 was the last US election of any importance. The nation will not be able to withstand another four years of Trump-led onslaught, especially now with the backing of his own slew of oligarchs (Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg etc.).
So maybe is nihilism, but it’s time for me (as a US politics tragic) to sit back, drink a beer, and enjoy the schadenfreude to come.