The Snitch State: inform on your colleagues if they think of hiring people who aren’t white
— Adam Serwer (@adamserwer.bsky.social) January 22, 2025 at 3:57 PM
The headline is a reply I posted on BlueSky last night when Cheryl Rofer re-tweeted the above. In case you haven’t heard, the Trump Administration is issuing a number of anti-DEIA orders (the “A” is for Accessibility as Soonergrunt pointed out, indicating that disabled vets would also be hit). The key one is rolling back the EO signed by LBJ to implement 60’s civil rights legislation in the federal government.
In 2016 Trumpland, this effort would have been a bunch of jibber-jabber from Trump accompanied by bumbling and fumbling as it was rolled out. In 2024, he’s got a new set of people working for him who understand which levers of power to push and pull to get things done quickly.
Another part of having their shit together was reflected in the pardons of all (almost all?) of the J6 terrorists. This Axios piece (which is almost unreadable because of their house style) reports that Trump grew tired of the process of figuring out which of the convicted terrorists was truly violent, and said “fuck it, pardon them all”.
In 2016 Trumpland, Trump’s “fuck it, just do it” outbursts would be tempered by more moderate advisors around who would try to dampen his most base instincts. In 2024, they just do what he says. I’m not saying he didn’t do bad things, but there was more of a process and review before they were done, and that process introduced a bit of delay and moderation.
I think a lot of political commentators, and probably some Trump voters, believed that we’d get 2016 Trump. We didn’t: we’ve got a new, more competent and more unleashed Trump Administration in 2024. We need to adjust to this new reality quickly.
Steve LaBonne
To all the idiot voters who thought Trump wasn’t really going to implement Project 2025: fuck all of you sideways.
Elizabelle
@Steve LaBonne: With a chainsaw.
Tim C.
This has been my read for months as well. The next phase of this is going to be horrific. My mantra has been …
Shit is going to break. It’s going to break big. The economy, the justice system, all of it. The only thing I would add to the pile is that while they have their shit together more in terms of getting the thing they want done, they are absoultely terrible and predicting the outcome of their acts. They are still, in fact, morons, but the damage won’t just be limited to their enemies.
Another Scott
Dunno about more competent, MM. I think that remains to be seen.
E.g.
GovExec.com:
More at the link.
Best wishes,
Scott.
LAC
@Steve LaBonne: And fuck those who think our job is to reach in and tweak their hearts. I am nothing to this administration except as DEI cannon fodder – too many of US folks in federal jobs, so something is wrong. And this is what was in place in the 2025 plan that apparently a whole lot of people were okay about.
With rusty farm implements and no lube. Yeah, tone police, I said it!
Old School
Does nominating Scott Turner for HUD Secretary count?
E.
@Another Scott: They don’t have to be competent communicators, they just have to be good at hating the right people and targeting them. The last administration was only sort of good at the first and too lazy to be good at the second. This batch is better.
ArchTeryx
Let the terror begin. I hope we’re ready to defend our own, however we have the power to do so.
matt
@Steve LaBonne: And to the lying reporters who propagated that lie – we know who you are.
ArchTeryx
@LAC: Last time we went through this Godwin himself said it was okay to call these people nazis and compare The First Felon to Hitler. If the shoe fits, and it fits this pack of assholes like Cinderella’s slipper, then call a spade a spade.
VFX Lurker
This, this, this, THIS. Maybe racism self-selects for stupidity, but these jokers are ABSOLUTE MORONS.
For instance: our federal government should be on a hiring spree right now to prepare for the demands of our annual tax season.
I’m going to see if I can file my taxes in February this year.
Suzanne
I am curious about what others believe that this entails.
Over some threads yesterday, I was reminded that there is probably a divide among the commentariat here that could roughly be described as how pragmatic to be in opposition. Some Dems voted for the Laken Riley Act, which I find really, really upsetting. But I can appreciate the “reflect the values of the electorate in order to build power” argument, even if it’s not where I land. Most jackals are good people, even if some of us can be prickly.
So what does it truly mean to “adjust”? Do we expect our Dem officials to oppose everything the FFOTUS throws at us?
Steve LaBonne
We have a family member who works in public relations at a local Federal installation. To say that we’re worried would be a huge understatement.
LeftCoastYankee
Yeah, better “prepared” is probably how I’d phrase it. They have a wishlist of things they want to break, but as Tim and Scott point out I don’t think they’re any more competent in understanding the outcomes of their actions.
I also think this break it all at now approach could actually penetrate the “reality” of the media and the politically uninformed. Or not.
Regardless it’s time to bang the drums!
Old School
Old Man Shadow
Sure would be a shame if we flooded all of their snitching tools with spam, false reports, and accusations against conservative organizations and people.
jonas
Yeah, but look at egg prices. They’re…(checks notes)…still high and climbing.
Shit.
Poe Larity.
I know a lot of mil-adjacent civilian/contractor remote workers who whined about Biden and always vote R.
Traffic in VA is about to get a lot worse.
ArchTeryx
@Suzanne: Yes. But we can’t depend on them to do it alone. If they do it, praise their staffers. If they don’t, yell at them (in a civil manner) to either get with the program, change parties, or get primaried in 2026. Fetterman has to be Target Number One on that, but there’ll be plenty of other quislings. There always are
“Whose side are you on?” is the cry to action of organized labor and now it has to be ours, too. You either are a nazi or you aren’t. If you collaborate with nazis, that makes you one too.
Chris
Unfortunately, this is roughly the kind of thing I expected. In 2016, the dog was so shocked it caught the car it didn’t know what to do with it; it didn’t even expect to catch it in the first place. In 2024, he and his peeps had four to eight years to learn from their mistakes. We’ve had eight years of eroding norms and normalization. We have an even more fascist Supreme Court that’s been legalizing the unthinkable at warp speed. Any fear that 2016 was a fluke and that there it still might not be safe to pursue overtly fascist politics has disappeared. And of course, they’ve had four years to stew in their rage at how the entire federal government “betrayed” them by not letting them win four more years in 2024.
They were always going to be pissed, and they were always going to go in full-on revenge mode. 2024 was never going to be like 2016.
Chris
@Suzanne:
Yes. It’s what they did from 2008 onwards, and it’s worked out pretty well for them.
Old School
Old School
I guess WordPress doesn’t like me today. Sigh
Edit: Maybe an edit will get this through:
brantl
They’re especially good at being vicious bastards, they aren’t very good at being anything else.
TheOtherHank
I said this on Bluesky a while ago, but they are stupid people who don’t understand how complicated modern society is. They think they can do whatever they want and the thing they want to happen will happen but there will be no ripple effects. eg, they can terrify the people who actually produce the food we eat into not going to work, but there will still be food on the grocery store shelves. They can freeze research funding because they hate that “woke science”, but when they go to the doctor they will get there maladies cured. Etc, etc.
As Christopher Moore said in his book Fool, “Heinous fuckery, most foul”
Chris
@TheOtherHank:
Do they think that, or do they simply not care because they trust that any ripple effects can be blamed on liberals, race traitors, blacks, immigrants, DEI, wokeism, Marxists, etc etc etc?
brantl
@Suzanne:
Do we expect our Dem officials to oppose everything the FFOTUS throws at us?
You can work ad hoc, if you want, but I can’t remember anything that Stumpy did that was remotely worthwhile; most things were at least wastes of time, many more were downright evil.
Professor Bigfoot
@ArchTeryx: “It ain’t name-calling when it accurately reflects the facts on the ground.”
They’re Nazis by another name, and that’s just a fact.
Professor Bigfoot
@TheOtherHank: Another book now on my “to-read” list; thank you ever so kindly!
Kay
All those NYTimes columnists and Substackers whining about “Wokeness” got us here.
A ferocious pushback to the notion that they’re mediocre people who just had every advantage. It’s still true though. That’s what they are.
scav
Speaking somewhat of snitching and reporting and getting rid of troublesome bishops, shouldn’t someone report that treacherous daily indoctrination of our precious children into DEIA lockstep beliefs, that hand on the heart nonsense treason of “with liberty and justice for all”?! Not to forget that hand on the heart nonsense is a change from the pledges original manly and intended salute.
bbleh
In 2024, they just do what he says.
Yes, to the necessary degree. But they also do what they WANT, and that worries me as much or more
The people around him think similarly to his worst instincts on many issues — that’s why they’re around him — but many of them have their own agendas, and many are ZEALOTS.
If their agenda fits with his, all the better, but if it doesn’t, or not fully, they’ll do it anyway and claim it does. And if/when he hears about it, they’ll explain earnestly why it fits and how good it makes him look, and he’ll mostly go along. He’s old and not particularly attentive to detail, he’s got a few obsessions that are getting worse, and he’s always been fairly easy to manipulate (just ask Putin).
“People is policy,” and he’s got a bunch of True Believers in there now. It’s gonna be a wild ride …
Steve LaBonne
@Kay: I always like to point out that if they really believed that white men are superior, they wouldn’t be fighting so hard to insure that they don’t have competition. Deep down they know the truth about their own mediocrity.
Steve LaBonne
@Professor Bigfoot: Sometimes, as with the Musk salute, Nazis tout court.
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
They want fair competition, with fairness determined by whether or not they win.
Steve LaBonne
@Chris: Yes, because they don’t understand how devastating the ripple effects will be. Like the idiot Trump voters, they really don’t think the government does anything important.
Jeffro
Why, it’s almost like they’ve got some sort of Project or something for 2025…
Steve LaBonne
@Jeffro: Can’t be, Trump never heard of that, remember?
Belafon
@Chris: My experience is that most people can’t think more than two steps beyond their current thought or action, and in most cases, only one level. They play chess and can only think of the piece they are staring at.
Notthatproud
The story about rolling back the LBJ executive order is overblown. That EO dealt with non-discrimination in federal hiring and employment practices. That was effectively codified in 1978 and the current non-discrimination laws can be found at 5 USC Sec. 3101 et seq. I don’t think Trump’s EO accomplishes anything.
ArchTeryx
@Jeffro: That is what terrifies me. I know what that “project” ends in. How far they get into it determines whether or not a lot of us survive the next four years.
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: Doesn’t that sound exactly like Trump himself?
He is truly a white man among white men.
Chris
@Steve LaBonne:
Again, do they not understand or do they just not care because they’re confident they won’t be blamed for it?
The South was a disaster area for half a century after the Civil War. It never mattered. Every disaster was just another thing to blame the blacks and Yankees for. That’s what they’ve been trying to recreate nationwide for decades, and they’re at the point where they think they’re there.
Steve LaBonne
@Notthatproud: The EOs are poorly drafted and essentially performative, we all understand that. But what they do is enable Rufo wannabes to run around breaking shit. By the time the courts put a stop to at least some of it, there will be a great deal of irreparable damage and a lot of federal employees permanently terrorized into silence and quiescence.
Steve LaBonne
@Chris: They are already breaking so much so quickly and so badly that I think their confidence in getting off scot-free will turn out to be misplaced. Poor whites in the South had always been poor. Lots of people who are not currently poor are about to get poor.
suzanne
@ArchTeryx: @Chris: In practice, opposing literally everything he does is a steep, steep slope. For example, both of the Dem senators from AZ, Kelly and Gallego, voted for the Laken Riley Act. We probably won’t get better senators from Arizona. How much leeway are we willing to give, how pragmatic are we going to be here?
Hilbertsubspace
A quote from Thucydides: The Peloponnesian War
Book 3 Paragraph 83
Inferior intellects generally succeeded best. For, aware of their own deficiencies, and fearing the capacity of their opponents, for whom they were no match in powers of speech, and whose subtle wits were likely to anticipate them in contriving evil, they struck boldly and at once. But the cleverer sort, presuming in their arrogance that they would be aware in time, and disdaining to act when they could think, were taken off their guard and easily destroyed
Thucydides: The Peloponnesian Wars (Jowett)
Notthatproud
@Steve LaBonne: yeah, I mean, he won the election. He gets to tell federal employees what to do now. That’s the nature of it. Will they be terrorized and quiescent? Maybe, but they have to do what he says either way. What are we defending here?
Geminid
@bbleh: He’s got a lot of true believers all right. What makes this worse is he has a cool, calculating technocrat as Chief of Staff.
When she worked on Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaigns back in the day, Susan Wiles made a reputation as someone who made the “trains run on time.” Wiles is still doing that, and doing it so well we hardly even hear about her
Steve LaBonne
@Notthatproud: I don’t see anyone defending any of it. P. S. While I am painfully aware of the parlous state of the judiciary, the fact is that the president is not an emperor and at least theoretically he can only tell people what to do within the law. We had better not lose our grasp of that principle even though enforcing it will be difficult.
uor
removed; broken nym
dc
@Old School: For example, most if not all cabinet nominees are DEI hires: include Trump bootlikers and incompetents.
Trollhattan
@Steve LaBonne:
As soon as Trump started saying “Project 25? Never heard of the guy” it was the tell he was all in. Only missing detail is who got flayed for releasing it to the wild too early.
I also can’t name a person not Republican who denied that.
Bill Arnold
@Old Man Shadow:
That is something that generative AI excels at.
(“in the style of a small town right wing newspaper editor, please write a …”)
dc
@Notthatproud: Most Federal employees are at the lower levels, the people who actually get work done but are not decision makers. Workers can passively resist and slow walk everything.
Baud
@Chris:
QFT.
That’s what “only Dems have agency” is ultimately all about.
Steve LaBonne
@Trollhattan: Well, reporters may not have actually denied it, but they were busy stenographing the Republican denials.
Jeffro
@Steve LaBonne:
@ArchTeryx:
I know we’re only three days in, but we’re going to need one or more of the Dem leaders to step in and say “we’re not going to be able to wait until the mid-terms, America…Project 2025 is every bit as bad as we told you, and we need everyone to come together now to oppose every last bit of this corruption. trumpov is a lame duck, but this pack of goons can do a lot of damage if we don’t hustle up”
and then call daily press conferences, make use of social media, hit the podcasts, etc. Campaign, in other words.
(and in the meantime, the Ds need to oppose every last thing the Rs are trying to do…no nominees, no legislation, and lawsuits aplenty for his EOs)
trumpov made a lot of noise as MAGA America’s shadow president during the Obama and Biden years. Let’s hear from ours.
Steve LaBonne
@Jeffro: I wish we had one.
Gloria DryGarden
@Chris: in a sense, he was a shadow president all during Biden’s presidency. He commanded congress to do his bidding, he was vocal and insistent that he won, etc. He had lots of time to deepen his coalitions, create new allies , bully all kinds of folks.
eta Jeffro already said it.
Lobo
@Hilbertsubspace:
That is it in a nutshell. Our betters assuring us that they had it. Thinking that intelligence would be a match for action. The whatever dimension chess they were playing never worked because it was always disrupted by the immediate action of the Republicans. Actions and timing counts!
Elizabelle
@Jeffro: Agree.
Get out in front of this. They are trying to break the government and civil society. Stop them.
Steve LaBonne
@Elizabelle: They will not be able to stop a lot of it. So just as important is denouncing it frequently and keeping the receipts.
scav
@Baud:
The other thing about this quote to remember is we’ve already got the next set of groups to blame everything on, only this time we’ve the matching white males, white females, evangelicals et cetera et cetera to pit against the coastal elites and damn Yankees. So there’s likely another half century or so of broken civic relations to look forward to, and that’s if we technically hold things together enough to make it through.
Shalimar
Who could have guessed that a team with an 887-page plan would know what they want to do and how to do it?
Gloria DryGarden
This might be a dumb question. Are they trying to make it illegal to hire anyone who is disabled or not white? Or just make it so no one is trying to be diversity inclusive on purpose, but it’s fine to hire qualified people, (no matter their ethnicity or color)?
I thought that’s s how you had to be to get hired. Qualified.
Belafon
What made Trump the shadow president is that the press paid attention to him.
Citizen Dave
Hmmm, I wonder if they would like to receive Instagram links of cats, stretching exercises, what books to read, and jazz.
Belafon
@Gloria DryGarden: If you try to hire a black person, or LGBTQ+, and eventually I suspect a woman, someone else can accuse of you of DEI hiring. That’s how they’re hoping people react.
Suzanne
@Jeffro:
Agree. Agree so hard.
Belafon
@Citizen Dave: The Sermon on the Mount.
zhena gogolia
@Belafon: We keep coming back to this. The press is not going to treat any Democrat the way they treated Trump (unless, of course, the Democrat is sabotaging the Democratic party, as we saw last summer).
Steve LaBonne
@Belafon: 🎯
gene108
@Tim C.:
Since they are incapable of admitting mistakes, who are they going to lash out at when their policies fail to Make America Great Again?
I’m assuming their fuckery is a setup for anti-immigrant pogroms and the eventual race war some of Trump’s most fervent supporters have been wanting for decades.
Citizen Alan
@Steve LaBonne: I think the judiciary is protected from the hiring issues. We’ll see. I know I would be terrified if I worked anywhere in the judiciary branch.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Hilbertsubspace:
That describes so many on our side. Thus is why I keep saying we have to stop calling him and them stupid. It leads to arrogantly underestimating them.. which so many keep doing. There’s no excuse for getting caught flat footed by what they do at this point.
Steve LaBonne
@Citizen Alan: Good point, but I meant to say we can’t count on the Supreme Court to strike even the most obviously illegal and unconstitutional parts of the EOs. We will lose a lot of fights but we need to keep the receipts for the day when the principle that the president is not above the law can again be enforced. Abandoning that principle would be fatal.
Tim C.
@gene108: The good news is that their voters are frequently lazy entitled degenerates who imagine it will be “someone else” who does the fighting for them.
ArchTeryx
@Gloria DryGarden: That’s *NEVER* been what hiring’s been about, anywhere, any time. Humans do the hiring, and are subject to every human flaw.
Notthatproud
@Steve LaBonne: what I mean is, what are we attempting to defend by freaking out about this EO? Are we attempting to defend federal employees who might be terrified into quiescence? Or is there something else? If it’s federal employees, I’m sorry, but that’s part of the job they signed up for. I don’t think the Coast Guard press office really wants to use Gulf of America, but they have to do it because this shitbag won the election. This EO is a bunch of show with little effect. Federal employees are protected from discrimination by law. All companies are subject to equal opportunity and harassment laws. Most DEI training in companies was about avoiding violations of those laws. They have a responsibility to ensure they are not creating a hostile work environment. And yes, the judiciary sucks. Being in litigation is awful. It’s also the ultimate way to resolve disputes. If a federal employee or applicant is discriminated against, they can ultimately go to court, and they don’t even have to reference this EO in their complaint. This isn’t a situation where I am concerned about the Supreme Court or a rightwing appellate court finding against a litigant. It’s small potatoes and they’re likely to just follow the law.
The Thin Black Duke
@gene108: I don’t think you can terrorize climate change.
Gloria DryGarden
@Belafon: to the great fury and chagrin of many democrats. JFC.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
So simple, so direct.
Soprano2
@ArchTeryx: I agree with this, I laugh any time I hear anyone say hiring is done based on merit and experience. I ask what world they’re living in, because it certainly isn’t the real one.
Gloria DryGarden
@Belafon: ok, so if i hire someone who is not a white cis straight male, they can ACCUSE me of it. Not that I can’t. Cool. So people can hire each other across color and gender and orientation lines, whoever’s a good fit. And more aware people can do their inner work to watch out for unconscious biases.
My life has been enriched, as my circle got bigger, and I knew more people who didn’t look like me, or who had different backgrounds. More on that some other time.
Steve LaBonne
@Notthatproud: I truly don’t know what this word salad is meant to convey, but opposing and keeping receipts on the damage has nothing to do with “freaking out”.
Gloria DryGarden
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: reframing to think of him as a charismatic cunning and skilled conman and performer/ demagogue, with massive blind spots about a number of things.
Belafon
@Gloria DryGarden: Yes. Did you read the email. A DEI hire will get fired. You, who did the DEI hire will get fired. And if you know someone did a DEI hire and you didn’t report it, you will get fired.
I think a group of smart people could override it to a point, but Rufo already made a list of people that the admin let go, and it mostly consisted of trans, blacks, and the people heading DEI initiatives.
Gloria DryGarden
@Soprano2: i dont think you’re necessarily laughing at me. You run a business, and hire people, so I’m guessing you know a lot about it.
Of course merit and experience aren’t the whole picture, it’s also soft skills, and a sense of getting along, communication, and of liking, or vibes, or a feeling of familiarity. No? Am i in the ball park?
That’s my understanding of how I’ve gotten jobs. What are you and archteryx getting at? What am I missing? I’m genuinely asking.
And, If you’re just preferring to laugh at me, then never mind.
Gloria DryGarden
@Belafon: i read the example email above, that’s why I had the question. It sounded very extreme at the worse possible interpretation.
It does sound like hiring people who are black or trans or seem gay, might get you accused of DEI hiring. IANAL, but I’m banking on lots of people being smart to get around it. Because maybe you didn’t hire them to have a balanced inclusive workplace per se, YOU WERENT doing quotas, you just chose people who were a good fit, and could do the job.
I’ve never worked in DEI department. just a peon in the public schools. Ive appreciated your replies this morning.
at it’s most extreme, it’s making it illegal to hire certain people. Like the anti Jewish laws in Germany in hitlers time.
glory b
@Belafon: We are forgetting that there are civil service laws, the Merit Systems Protection Board and the unions many government employees are members of.
Under Civil Service, an employee to be discharged has to be performing inadequately or the government must prove that there is no longer a need for their services.
“Because Elon said so” isn’t sufficient to meet the government’s burden of proof.
Ryan
The one upside I hope for is that we’re getting a president who isn’t being advised well, and we all know about Trump’s self-destructive tendencies. My hope is he self-destructs in some meaningful way. These pardons might in a week turn out to be that!, drive his numbers into the ground.
Betty
It’s a more virulent strain of the disease that is Trump world.
Paul in KY
@Old Man Shadow: Darn, that would be a shame…
LAC
@Gloria DryGarden: Hi, Gloria – The focus is on the DEI programs and staff that many agencies have. The programs focus not only on issues of race and gender in the workplace, but gay and transgender rights, and disabilities. These were awareness and education programs, not forced trainings. The EO is to throw these staffers out and shutter all these programs. And our “job” as federal employees is to report anything DEI.
With the hiring freeze in place, we are not hiring anyone for now. But as it “ends” in the same month as the CR expires, I am sure the continued implementation of this twisted EO will be a part of whatever leverage they will use.
Motivated Seller
obligatory Bill O’Reilly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vu2NK5REvWM
Alce _e_ardillo
@Another Scott: Another example: the EO attempting to define genders was so sloppily written that it inadvertently defined all persons as female. It stated that a person was the sex that they were at “conception “, not realizing that sexual differentiation of the embryo doesn’t begin until Week 7, thus we become female by default.
different-church-lady
Welcome to day four of Every-Bit-As-Bad-As-You-Thought-It-Would-Be.
Alce _e_ardillo
@LAC: At best, this EO will force everyone hiring to double dot their “i’s” and double cross their “t’” to avoid the appearance of DEIA . That will slow down the hiring process. At worst it will lead to mass firings of qualified workers, and chaos in the government. And we know what Trump’s minions are hoping for…