Performative Cruelty

 

    One thing that has helped me understand Donald Trump, both in his first term in office and now, is Josh Marshall’s theory of performative cruelty. The extraordinary cruelty of Trump’s time in office isn’t the lamentable excesses of an ideological zealot. Trump believes in nothing. The cruelty itself is the point. In Marshall’s words, “the heart of Trumpism is not any policy but performative cruelty, inflicting maximum harm on those outside the tribal fold, and extending the benefits of power and the powers of state for those inside the fold.” That gains extraordinary loyalty from those who regard themselves as being inside the tribe and the fear of those outside the fold. The end result is power for Trump.

     The lesson I take from this is to be unafraid or at least to not betray fear. Fear feeds Trump. Fight back as best you can. Of course it’s not hard for me to affect fearlessness. I’m in the process of retiring. (I plan to continue the blog.) I know it’s terribly difficult for those with legitimate fears of harm and that’s many, perhaps most, Social Security employees. 

     I will say that while the performative cruelty was ugly during the first Trump Administration and is much uglier this time around, it necessarily inspires great revulsion among many. Republican lawmakers are already facing hostile receptions when they hold town halls. Those matter. Remember the Tea Party? The Trump Administration is faring extremely poorly in court. Maybe the Supreme Court will bail out Trump every time but I strongly doubt it. The legal bad faith from this Administration is just stunning. I’ve been practicing law for almost 50 years. Bad faith is the kiss of death in anything other than the very short term. It may help you win one battle but it will definitely lose you the war. Any attorney who  represents clients in the way that the Trump Administration’s attorneys are doing will be extraordinarily unsuccessful. See Trump’s legal efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. It’s no accident that attorneys who went down this road were completely unsuccessful and some lost their law licenses and a few are facing criminal prosecution.

Office Of Transformation Closes; Employees Placed On Administrative Leave

      From a press release:

The Social Security Administration today announced the closing of a component within the agency, the Office of Transformation. Employees in this office will be put on administrative leave effective today. …

A Win For Government Employees

      From Government Executive:

An independent federal oversight agency has deemed at least some of President Trump’s mass firings of probationary period employees unlawful, creating a pathway for those employees to regain their jobs. 

The Office of Special Counsel, the agency responsible for investigating illegal actions taken against federal employees, issued its decision for six employees, each at different agencies. While the decision was technically limited in scope, it could have immediate impact on all terminated staff at those six agencies and could set a wide-ranging precedent across government. It has not been made public and was provided to Government Executive by a source within the government. OSC, which did not provide the document to Government Executive, verified its authenticity.  ...

 Trump earlier this month fired [Special Counsel] Dellinger from his job, but a federal court reversed that decision and reinstated him to his post. The Trump administration has challenged that ruling up to the Supreme Court, but justices there last week declined to overturn Dellinger’s reinstatement.  ...

After publication of this story, OSC released a statement confirming its findings and suggesting Dellinger is actively contemplating expanding them to include far more federal workers.

"The special counsel believes other probationary employees are similarly situated to the six workers for whom he currently is seeking relief," OSC said. "Dellinger is considering ways to seek relief for a broader group without the need for individual filings with OSC."  ...

Never Mind

 

Tense Times In Baltimore

     From the Baltimore Banner:

...  “Everything was smooth and very positive, and it seemed like this was a great place to work. But now, no one knows anything,” said a Baltimore-area Social Security employee who has been with the agency less than a year. “I still don’t know if I’m going to have a job.” 

 That employee, as well as other current Social Security workers, asked for anonymity out of fear of being targeted by the administration. ...

The Trump administration said it is terminating most probationary workers across federal agencies. About 4% of Social Security’s 58,627 employees nationwide had less than one year on the job as of spring 2024, according to the most recent federal data available. ...

    I can't copy them here but the photos that accompany this article are evocative and depressing, more so than the writing and the writing is good.

A Message To Staff

From: ^Human Resources Internal Communications 

Sent: Sunday, February 23, 2025 10:57 AM

Subject: Time Sensitive: 'Accomplishments' Assignment

A Message to All SSA Employees

Subject: Time Sensitive: ‘Accomplishments’ Assignment

You should have received an email yesterday from the sender “HR” requesting that you reply to that email with 5 bullets about your accomplishments last week. This email is a legitimate assignment and should not be reported as spam. You must take the action requested by the deadline.

Things to do:

Review your work over the last week and identify the most impactful mission-critical work accomplishments that advances our public service mission, as well as the Administration’s priorities. This is an opportunity to highlight the important work you do that helps impact the lives of those we serve.

Reply to the email from HR with 5 bullets describing your accomplishments:

Don’t include any sensitive or confidential information, including details that aren’t available to the public.

Where relevant, include the specific SSA programs or operational priorities that your accomplishments support.

Include your immediate supervisor in the cc line of your response.

Deadline:

Your response to the HR email is due no later than 11:59pm EST on Monday, February 24, 2025.

COVID Killed 1.7 Million In U.S.; Saves $205 Billion For Social Security

      From The Effect Of US COVID-19 Excess Mortality On Social Security Outlays, a study by Hanke Heun-Johnson, Darius Lakdawalla, Julian Reif and Bryan Tysinger:

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in significant excess mortality among the US population, impacting the future outlays of the US Social Security Administration (SSA) Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) program. This study aimed to estimate the net effects of pandemic-induced excess deaths on OASDI liabilities ... The pandemic resulted in approximately 1.7 million excess deaths among individuals aged 25 and older between 2020 and 2023. These premature deaths reduced future retirement payments, which increased the Social Security fund by $294 billion. However, this gain was offset by reductions in future payroll tax flows ($58 billion) and increased payments to surviving spouses and children ($32 billion), resulting in a net impact of $205 billion.  ...

     For better or worse, DOGE has probably ended this sort of research. 

Another Insult From Musk; Unions Fight Back

      From the Washington Post:

All federal workers will shortly receive an email asking what they did last week — and that if employees fail to respond, it will be taken as a resignation, Elon Musk wrote in a post on X Saturday. …

     From a press release:

AFSCME, Alliance for Retired Americans, AFT Challenge DOGE’s Access, Executed by Unconfirmed, Acting Official, to Confidential, Private Data of Hundreds of Millions of Americans  

 

Suit filed on heels of SSA Acting Head’s Departure Amid Concerns about DOGE Access to Data

Baltimore, MD —  In a new lawsuit filed on Friday night, retirees and unions sued to halt DOGE’s unprecedented, unlawful seizure of personal, confidential, private and sensitive data from the Social Security Administration, without any express authority. Such access has been granted by an unlawful acting official, installed at SSA with disregard for the rules governing such appointments. ..