“You’re hired. No, wait a minute, you’re fired. You just said the wrong thing!”
Okay, so that’s an over-simplification, but the Trump administration has perfected the art of hiring someone and then letting them go as soon as they sneeze in the wrong direction.
Sneezing here means saying something that goes against the administration’s zeitgeist of the moment.
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Now, I’m all for the changing of the guard in D.C. from top to bottom. If you could fire everyone in the bureaucracy and shut down for six months to get the right people in place, I’d be delighted. But obviously, that’s not possible.
However, in Trump’s remaking of the government, it seems to have reached the point where a phrase by Jacques Mallet du Pan (I know, who he?) comes into play.
During the heyday of the French Revolution — when the guillotine was the height of entertainment for the masses as whoever falls out of favor soon finds his head falling to the ground — the aforementioned du Pan coined the phrase, “The revolution eats its own.”
No guillotines in play this time during the Trumpian revolution, but televised reports of a new firing have replaced the spectacle of the guillotine.
Case in point, most recent anyway: This week, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), was unceremoniously let go when she appeared too vaccine-friendly. Susan Monarez had been on the job for less than a month when the pink slip arrived.
Or did it? She claims that no one ever officially fired her. Whatever….
Case in point number two: Billy Long, recently approved new head of the IRS, was removed after less than two months on the job.
To say the least, Long was a bit unorthodox in his management style, claiming he was running the agency like a Taco Bell or Pizza Hut to revolutionize “the culture.” He also encouraged staff to leave early on Fridays to take long weekends, sending emails such as this one:
“With this being Thursday before another FriYay, please enjoy a 70-minute early exit tomorrow.”
At least the terminated Long was promised an ambassadorship, which prompted him to joke on X that he was “excited to take on my new role as the ambassador to Iceland.”
You get the picture? If you take a job under Trump, you might not last long, especially if you disagree with him or come across as funnier than the Jokester-in-Chief.
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