Given the chaotic, capricious and callous way that Musk is laying off thousands of federal government employees I am surprised that nobody has “gone postal“ yet. During my career as a manager, I fired a much smaller number of employees and still had a couple where I wanted security involved to head off any violent responses.
This DOGE decimation of the federal workforce is an entirely different level. Entire departments, branches and, I suspect, communities will be devastated by these unexpected layoffs.
Going from being employed and secure to being unemployed in a financially precarious position is hard. I’ve been there – desperate to figure out how to find another job as the bills stacked up and debt mounted.
It makes me wonder if some people will respond with violence.
I think about historical uprisings from the masses against their oppressors like the French Revolution and the American Revolution. I think about coups, resistance fighters and guerrilla rebels who take on the oligarchs and elites once they’ve been pushed too far.
Have we reached that point yet?
I don’t know.
But I think if hundreds of thousands of people find themselves unemployed and their families and communities suffer, we’ll be getting closer to that point – or at least to the point where some people are going to react violently.
I’m not calling for violence. I’m not predicting it.
But I won’t be surprised if it happens.