Frankly I don’t want to know –yet. It will become clear to all Americans, to all the developed world soon enough. What I will do is to(briefly)comment on what’s going on in the Administration and on what the effects may be.

Previously, I commented some on Trump and domestic affairs. I was going to to do foreign policy next but I need to make a brief stop off here. Domestic matters have gotten worse and more and more they affect the issues of foreign policy and national security.

The biggest news of late is the further behavior of Elon Musk and the attempt by him and the President to more or less dismantle the federal government. As you no doubt know, a couple of days ago Musk ordered an e-mail message to ALL federal employees,. That is what reports are saying–ALL. That would mean Marco Rubio got one–well, maybe not but this “all”would include not just “probationary” employees who had already been taken on, but everyone who works in a federal office.

Musk’s message was that every employee should, no later than 11:59 PM EST tonight, send an answer to the government. They were supposed to delineate exactly what they had done at work in the week just ending and the powers-that-interfere would decide if they were necessary and should be kept. Also it was added that failure to send this message of self-justification to the top would be considered a resignation and mean automatic termination from their government job.

Remember that Musk and his unofficial DOGE had already “laid off” several million “probationary” employees, some of whom had to be hired back immediately because their jobs(looking after nuclear materials, for example)involved national security in the most immediate way.

Now I have a little knowledge of this myself. I am a retired federal employee. For 28 years I was a Claims Representative with the Social Security Administration. I worked in two Social Security Offices, mostly in Ravenna OH, about 20 miles from where I was born and raised, and a dozen miles or less from Kent State where I went to school. In other words I was not an “entrenched bureaucrat” in Washington. Like about 80% of federal employees I worked miles away from the DC area.

Now if I had gotten that e-mail asking me to report on what I’d just done I would have had several reactions to it. The first, I think, would have been that the President and whoever was helping with this had no idea what a Claim Rep did and what my job tasks were, and an effort to explain it to them would likely have been unsuccessful. I am sure that that is the case with Musk and Trump. They have no idea of what these people do, nothing in their background to help them relate to it and therefore no business pretending to be in a position to decide (or even supervise those deciding) who stays and who goes.

I would easily have put together an answer that would have been truthful as far as it went, and would also convey some of my feeling. I could have said something like,”I have several different tasks–every Claims Rep does–and we don’t keep a personal list of all of them. But with reasonable certainty I can tell you this–in the past work week I interviewed thirty, forty or more people. Some of these interviews were very short. Some took well over an hour, occasionally two hours. I took applications for Social Security benefits and I tried to explain to those approaching 65 what their Medicare would and wouldn’t cover;.

I would have explained to many dissatisfied and sometimes hostile people why their disability claims were denied and what we could do(file a Reconsideration Request)to purse the situation further. I answered the phone about an hour a day and during that time was responsible for answering all sorts of questions about all of the above matters and doing other things–particularly, I spent time explaining how to get or replace a Social Security card and doing changes of address or direct deposit for social security payments.

These would all have been legitimate answers and would have all been beyond the comprehension of most of our top officials, who dealt with POLICY rather than the practical implementation of policy. There is usually no reason why the people at the top need to know the details of such things as inputting a change of address. There is also no reason to think that my explanation would have given them an accurate idea of what it was like to work in a Social Security Office. One brief statement I could have made is that it seemed to be almost always a matter of being understaffed and short of time.

The main reason for opposing these threatening, unprecedented and I’m sure mostly illegal attempts to drive people out of their jobs is that they, without good reason and with apparently little if any forethought, would be stripping government employees of their rights and their livelihood. Another rather serious one is that they would be doing so, well illegally, as previously stated. Since these went to virtually every federal employee, there was no question of “probationary” or not involved here as far as I can tell. It’s just a naked attempt to get rid of employees without regard to the hardships it would impose on the employees and their families and even worse, no regard to the damage it would do to the US government, particularly in the matter of protecting our national security interests.

This is apparently dawning on some, even in the stiff-necked and usually leader adoring Trump administration. It was at least encouraging to hear earlier today that several Trump appointees to the cabinet were advising their employees not to reply. (One of them, interestingly, was Mr Patel at the FBI–Pete Hegseth was not among this group, however). It seems to be occurring to these people that we are on the verge of a national crisis, maybe several of them, including both domestic and foreign matters, both military and financial security, and perhaps the security of democracy itself.

The US could shortly find itself without a functioning government run by people who know what they’re doing. It could also wind up with fewer and fewer reliable allies in what looks very much like a crazier and more dangerous world. OK, I think that’s enough for now. I will, I hope, shortly have a few additions to make to this. Maybe I can work in a book or movie or two in between. It would be nice to be closer to a world where things made sense.