The Cold Incompetence of Elon Musk

The other day I needed a permit that allows me to harvest firewood in the Ottawa National Forest up here in the Upper Peninsula.

So I drove over to the nearest Forest Service office and bought my permit. The two women working the office were very nice and very efficient. They were also very professional as I took the occasion to go off on Elon Musk and his stupid and bungling efforts to slash the Federal workforce. They directed our conversation in other directions. I got the hint and joined them in discussing more pleasant topics. No, i wasn’t making maple syrup this year, but maybe I’ll try next season.

But you and I can talk about it. Elon Musk, the richest man on earth, takes delight in trashing the careers, the livelihoods and the lives of people — about 26,000 of them at last estimate — just like the two women I encountered the other day. He actually says he’s “having fun.” He wields a chain saw as if he actually knew how to cut firewood himself. I seriously doubt that he’s ever used a chain saw in his life.

This is awful on at least three levels.

First, it’s stupid. People are being fired willy-nilly, without any thought given to what they actually do. Probationary employees in virtually every agency were the first to go simply because they didn’t yet have civil service protections. Didn’t matter what their jobs were. Didn’t matter how well they were performing. Musk fired them simply because he could. In some cases, when Musk’s minions discover that the employees, oh I don’t know, help keep us from blowing up the world, they scramble to reinstate them.

Second, it’s cruel. To provide themselves with some kind of legal fig leaf, many of the firings have come by email with a standard line that says the employee was let go because of, “failure to demonstrate fitness or qualifications for continued employment.” No evidence of this is offered because there is none. So, the procedure is to be fired — summarily, immediately and at a distance — via an email filled with lies. Nothing speaks louder about the character of Musk and Trump. They are liars and cowards.

Third, it should be illegal if not unconstitutional. Musk/Trump is acting to eliminate entire agencies and programs created by Congress without Congressional consent. In normal times, Congress would object and the checks and balances so brilliantly put in place by our Founders would kick in. But the Republicans are no longer a political party. They are just a group of Trump’s servants.

In an excellent story today in the La Crosse Tribune, the paper puts a human face on what Musk has done. The story highlights two young scientists who were excited to start their work with the government. They moved to La Crosse and were just settling in (one was pregnant) when they got the word, out of the blue, that they were being fired. No time given to ease into something else, no explanation beyond the lie that they were underperforming, no offer of any kind of due process or, for that matter, any gesture that hinted at the least bit of humanity. In other words, it was all pure Musk/Trump.

The Supreme Court ruled in Musk/Trump’s favor on this yesterday. Sort of. The Court blocked a lower court ruling that had ordered employees’ reinstatement. But it did so on the technical grounds that the groups which had brought the suit did not have standing. Even liberal Justice Elena Kagan agreed on that point.

This may be a strategy engineered by Chief Justice John Roberts to hedge his bets, buy time and avoid a major constitutional crisis. In three different cases now, the Court has taken a similar tack: ruling for the administration on technical grounds while leaving the door open to more challenges. Roberts understands that if the Court directly confronts Trump and Trump defies the Court… then what? The only real alternative is for Congress to step in and impeach the President and this group of Republicans doesn’t have the backbone to do that. I’m amazed that they can sit up in a chair.

Finally, it’s not like the Federal government — like any big organization — couldn’t use some improvements. That simple permit I bought took 15 minutes for the worker to process. It wasn’t her fault. To pay all of $20 for the right to cut up dead trees for firewood you have to sign a contract that looks like the Treaty of Versailles. The process, invented at some higher level, should be streamlined. In fact, there’s no reason I shouldn’t have been able to buy it online (you can’t — I checked).

On the other hand, if I had been able to do that, I wouldn’t have been reminded of the human beings that are the victims of the cold incompetence of Elon Musk.

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