Elon Musk pulled one of his “super manager” moves yesterday by “inviting” all federal workers to send an email explaining their productive week. The kicker is the “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”, which of course is illegal and comically silly.
The context behind this Tweet is the continued promotion of the Unitary Executive theory, which argues that the President of the United States has sole oversight over the executive branch of the US government. No rational person believes this to be true. It is a right-wing power fantasy.
Musk writes “consistent with President [Trump’s] instructions…” for this reason. Trump is leaning into this theory hard. He wants to eventually force a legal action to be heard before SCOTUS, hoping his pals Roberts, Thomas, Gorsuch, Alito, and Kavanaugh conclude that he can rule unimpeded by those irritating laws of the United States.
It seems like a terrible idea to have millions of people spending taxpayer money to write an email justifying their existence. But I love terrible ideas, so I contributed my own on Bluesky.
Difficult Opinions will always be free, but I also make my living creating this content. If you enjoy the app and the site, and want to support my work, any contribution to my Patreon, or a website membership is greatly appreciated!
