Sounds valid to me. We know for a fact that this was the case with the protests when Trump was in Philly.
Yeah, they’re taking “personal time” off to agitate. One of the worst things that ever happened to the American taxpayer was allowing Federal employees to unionize. And I say that as someone who isn’t unconditionally against all unions in all industries.
From inside a government office, I can tell you the unions there are hysterically anti-Trump (actually with good reason because he’s already freezing hiring and cutting places like the EPA). Wouldn’t surprise me at all if government workers are part of the marches but I’m inclined to think most of it is Soros-paid rabble-rousers who couldn’t get jobs in Obama’s economy.
If I’m chronically unemployed, the idea of being paid $15/hr to stand around with a sign and scream obscenities can be quite appealing. They probably don’t declare it as income either.
If you look at the crowds (say over the past couple of years), it falls into three categories. First, there’s the feminist or BLM groups. Second, there’s the hired folks who saw some ad on a Craiglist page and will get $75 cash to just show up and carry a sign. Third, there’s the college kid group who get talked into this by some agenda recruitment thug at the college.
Most working class people don’t have the time to take off and do something like these protests. I went to the DC anti-Wall Street tent episode in 2010 to examine the two groups. The news media could never explain why there were two totally separate anti-Wall Street encampments existing in DC...roughly a mile apart.
So, you walk around and find group one is mostly an odd combination of college kids from the local region who were recruited by someone for an agenda, and out-of-work guys who had a drug habit. This camp was full of rats, very unsanitary, and was fast becoming a problem for local businesses because customers were refusing to enter the district. Note, this camp was about 8 minutes walking north of the White House.
So, camp number two was ten minutes east of the White House. This was oddly run by folks over the age of forty. Their camp was clean, no rats, and orderly. They had peopled detailed to pick up trash, sweep up, and well-maintained. These were mostly long-term protesters who’d done protests for decades and basically were the type that would get a job for six months, and run off to some next protest. They’d return to their relative’s house, restart their coffee shop job or pizza job, and then a year later....go off to another long-term protest. They were leftovers of the 1960s.
Oddly, when I asked the older protest crowd why not merge the two groups together...they just laughed. The younger group as far as they were concerned....were unfocused, and unable to maintain order.
Over the last few weeks here in January I bet a high proportion of the protesters/rioters were college students.
They get most of January off between semesters.
smaller government = smaller protests
I’m thinking with our new MAN in the White House these “workers” will soon have lots of extra time on their hands.
I worked for a public employee union for years and I can verify that what you said was true there. Any liberal cause and they got their members out to protest.
I was going to ping you! :)
“If the media would do its job, we would have documentation.”
I have a problem with that statement, as the media is doing it’s job, very very well. Almost to perfection.
A few decades ago, it was widely believed the media did unbiased jounalism, where they’d actually investigate newsworthy items and get to the bottom of it and write an accurate story. This is all history.
Today’s job for the media is to back the DNC 100%. Omit embarrassing facts, and create positive ones, where the seriousness of a created scenario outweighs the actual facts. Today the media is the left, they are the dems, they are the commies.
My point is, it’s silly to even expect the truth from them. And it’s only going to get worse now that they have genuine opposition.
If they are on valid leave time and not trying to represent themselves as government employees, they have every right - as long as they don’t break the law and have it tied to the government, thereby bringing discredit to their service.
I think it’s worse than that. A lot of federal employees have “slack” jobs, some of them working only 4 hours a week for full pay.
Making it worse, some of the real slackers are double and triple dipping. That is, they retire, often from the military after 20 years, and take another government job, getting both their retirement and full pay. And though it’s less common, some collect two retirements, and also get full pay.
So in any event, if you only work 4 hours a week, you have plenty of spare time to golf, or protest.
They have the most to lose.
Here’s Trump’s opportunity to Drain the Swamp. Fire any government employee caught protesting against policies of the government. Clear out the career libs working for taxpayers and make them get real jobs.
I think you are right on this. Remember one of Trump’s goals is to make the government more efficient, so that would be a threat to government unions.
bttt