Downsizing Happens

Chelsea Milburn is a disabled veteran of the United States Navy who, until recently worked for the United States Department of Education. She has lost her job as part of cuts from the Elon Musk led Department of Government Efficiency. On Wednesday, she appeared on the news and lamented, “They don't care about how this impacts me or people like me. And to me, it's inhumane. It feels like they're ignoring our personhood and not respecting us as human beings or as American citizens.” She is not wrong.

President Trump and Elon Musk have channeled their inner Miley Cyrus and came in to office like a wrecking ball. Musk’s private sector ideal of move fast and break things has become the ethos of the new administration. No, they do not care about Ms. Milburn’s personhood or that she is a human being. They care that she is a line item in a spreadsheet and not just an employee of the federal government, but an expenditure of federal taxpayer money.

The Erickson Rule of Media Coverage is very simply that when Democrats run Washington, the press highlights beneficiaries of policies. When Republicans run Washington, the press highlights victims of policies. When Joe Biden canceled the Keystone XL pipeline and the parent company of the pipeline finally threw in the towel, the national press touted the benefits to the climate. Very few, outside Fox News, covered the loss of jobs.

On December 30, 2019, Joe Biden said, at a rally in in Derry, NH, that he would be shutting down fossil fuel production in the United States. He explained to the crowd, “Anybody who can go down 3,000 feet in a mine can sure as hell learn to program as well… Anybody who can throw coal into a furnace can learn how to program, for God’s sake!” Progressives justified the loss of jobs in the fossil fuel sector explaining that those laid off could “learn to code,” a line amplified by sympathetic voices in the media. Perhaps federal workers can take President Biden’s advice.

The infuriating thing about the coverage of these layoffs is that they happen all the time in the private sector. Employees are often cogs in wheels and numbers in spreadsheets and they get laid off. According to the Department of Labor, job layoffs in the United States averaged 1,916,490 a year between the year 2000 and 2024 in the private sector. People lose jobs and people get jobs. But those people do not get to cry on television. They are in the private sector where layoffs happen all the time.

President Ronald Reagan once quipped, “No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!” The left would have you believe the jobs within those bureaus are sacrosanct and inviolable. The only government jobs that are seemingly disposable are jobs in the military.

Both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama engaged in military force reductions. Perhaps there was copious media coverage of employed soldiers after those force reductions, but I have been unable to find such coverage. Almost every media outlet has, in the past two weeks, covered civilian federal employees out of jobs. 60 Minutes covered outside contractors whose jobs were affected by USAID cuts. The New York Times, MSNBC, and must of the rest of the media has as well.

Over the course of the past four years, the elite told Middle America that people were better off than they thought and the economy was fine. When government bureaucrats passed regulations that put Americans out of work, the elite insisted Americans would benefit with a cleaner, greener economy. Now, instead of Americans losing jobs because of regulators, the regulators and bureaucrats are losing jobs. The elite are angry, but a large segment of the population might be excused for feeling like a little justice has happened.

We can and should sympathize with displaced workers, particularly those let go by email. But also, we should note how often the currently loud voices of objection are silent when the private sector downsizes.