Trump’s Mass Layoffs - America Dismisses Its Own Peace

On Friday morning, the White House set in motion a step that shook the foundations of the public service: the beginning of mass dismissals of federal employees. What is officially called a “reduction in force” is in truth a political instrument of power - calculated to create pressure and enforce loyalty. In the early hours, the president’s budget office reported that the so-called “reductions in force” had begun - bureaucratically disguised but devastating in effect. Donald Trump left no doubt that this time it was not about savings but about retribution. “We’re going to give the Democrats a little taste of their own medicine,” he said in the Cabinet Room. The wording was cynically chosen: the dismissals are aimed directly at programs supported or defended by Democrats - from the Department of Education to health agencies to social assistance programs. The president spoke of efficiency, but the word sounded hollow at a moment when thousands of people received their termination notices by email.

The White House had meticulously prepared the offensive. As early as the end of September, Budget Director Russ Vought instructed all ministries and federal agencies to submit lists of which departments, in the event of a shutdown, were “not consistent with the president’s priorities.” It was a political selection process designed to turn administration into ideology. Since October 1, the day the government shutdown began, the plans had been ready - now they were being carried out.

The hardest hit is the Department of Education, which Trump has repeatedly and publicly put up for disposal. According to the union AFGE Local 252, almost all employees below the director level in the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education are losing their jobs. This office allocates federal funds to schools, supports regions affected by natural disasters, and organizes teacher training - the kind of foundational work one only notices when it stops. The department had already been halved after layoffs in March, leaving only a shell behind. The communications office is also being further reduced; one of its two remaining teams is to be eliminated.

Similar scenes are unfolding in the health sector. The Department of Health confirmed in the afternoon that furloughed employees are now being terminated - “as a direct consequence of the shutdown,” as stated in a press release. A spokesperson justified the measure by citing the closure of “inefficient, redundant structures” that did not fit the “Make America Healthy Again” agenda. Yet even at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, uncertainty reigned: many employees did not know by evening whether they would still have an access card on Monday.

In Virginia, where more than 120,000 federal employees work, Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine called the dismissals “a deliberate choice, not a necessity.” The president and his budget director, they said, are “reckless ideologues willing to inflict real pain on hardworking Americans to score political points.” In the language of Congress, it sounded like an indictment.

But resistance is not limited to words. The largest public service unions, including AFGE and AFSCME, filed suit in federal court in San Francisco on Friday. They are seeking an injunction to immediately stop the mass layoffs. The complaint speaks of an “unlawful abuse of power” that deliberately bypasses the safeguards of a shutdown. These safeguards are intended to prevent a government shutdown from being used as a pretext to destroy the civil service. That, the plaintiffs argue, is exactly what is happening now.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer spoke of “deliberate chaos.” No one, he said, is forcing the president to fire thousands of people. “They want to do it,” Schumer said. “They are deliberately harming those who protect our country, inspect our food, and help in disasters.” Even within the Republican Party, there was dissent. Senator Susan Collins, chair of the powerful Appropriations Committee, called the layoffs “arbitrary, cruel, and harmful to families in Maine and across the country.” Such words are rare in a party that in recent years has learned to confuse silence with loyalty.

Behind the political rhetoric lies a stark number: since Trump took office, the Department of Education’s workforce has been reduced from 4,100 to about 2,500 employees - now it is shrinking further. The pattern is the same everywhere: where public structures weaken, private interests grow. Education, health, research - everything that cannot be politically capitalized on in the short term is considered ballast. In economic logic, such a culling is irrational. In ideological logic, it is consistent. The administration wants to show that it is willing to hold the country itself hostage to push through its budget demands. The public service becomes a stage prop, unemployment a bargaining chip. The message is clear: the state is only worth as much as it serves the president.

What began on this October 10 is therefore more than a bureaucratic process. It is a turning point in American administrative history. Never before has a president laid off federal employees en masse during a government shutdown. Never before has the very idea of public service been treated so openly as an enemy. The tragedy lies in the fact that those who keep the state running - teachers, inspectors, scientists, administrators - are now seen as obstacles. And while the cameras in Washington are fixed on the president, people in Chicago, Atlanta, and Denver are losing their jobs - not because of incompetence or corruption, but because they work for the state.

This is the axis of the new politics: not administration, but dismantling. Not reform, but punishment. And when Trump says he wants to give Democrats “a taste of their own medicine,” he means a bitter one: a nation that forgets itself but will never forget him.