Scrambling to replace their health insurance and to find new work, some fired federal workers are running into another unexpected unpleasantry: Relatives cheering their job loss.

Summary

Recently terminated federal workers face not only unemployment challenges but also hurtful reactions from family members who support the government cuts.

Luke Tobin, fired from the Forest Service, and Kristin Jenn, whose Park Service job was frozen, describe relatives celebrating their job losses as necessary to “make the government great again.”

Former Park Service employee Riley Rackliffe encountered social media comments calling him a “glorified pool boy” despite his Ph.D.

Some workers report family members unfriending them on social media or dismissing their positions as “waste.”

  • @tehn00bi
    12•1 day ago

    I’m not convinced that is really the issue. I think we have a lot of people who’ve been programmed to be terrible people. Some one I’ve know my entire life was always a joy to be around, but over the last ten years, their news and media consumption changed to Fox then to ONN and down so weird rabbit holes. Now the last time I was around it was all about how this country is going to hell and we need a savior like Trump to bring it back.

    • @[email protected]
      6•1 day ago

      If you’re that easily manipulated into being terrible, then maybe you were never such a good person to begin with.

      • @tehn00bi
        4•1 day ago

        Perhaps. But I look at our current media-sphere as something akin to the Stanford prison experiment or the third wave experiment. Only that it is being waged all around you. I live in the heart of the old south, I am soaked in negative media and people who live in a feedback loop. At work, especially during Covid I had to endure some of the stupidest conversations and I had to give up even reasonable conversations about daily life.

        What I attribute my ability to disconnect from the local culture I’m surrounded by is the fact that I’m not religious. Religion in the US has taken quite a dark turn.

    • Queen HawlSeraEnglish
      1•24 hours ago

      Republicans have tricked people into embracing a “tough love”, the idea that empathy is toxic and that if you really care about someone you must push them to the breaking point so they’ll “Pick themselves up by their bootstraps”

      It’s disgusting