Within hours of being returned to the White House on Monday, Donald Trump set his America first agenda roaring into motion, predicated on a network of snitches to rout out the “enemies from within”.
With the firm stroke of each black fountain pen, the new US president signed a series of executive orders aimed at granting him more control over the federal bureaucracy and dismantling what he calls the “deep state”.
In addition to piling on the legislative pressure, Mr Trump is encouraging federal employees to turn on those that disobey his decree and snitch on them.
Memos sent across agencies this week encouraged staff to report any colleague continuing to pursue now-banned diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes, warning of “adverse consequences” for federal workers attempting to continue their so-called ‘woke’ work.
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“We are aware of efforts by some in government to disguise these programmes by using coded or imprecise language,” the letters read.
“These programmes divided Americans by race, wasted taxpayer dollars, and resulted in shameful discrimination.”
During his first term, Mr Trump encouraged bosses to snitch on employees who were refusing to return to the office after the pandemic.
As it did then, the decree has struck fear in workers who face being put on paid leave “immediately” and eventually laid off if their job is connected to DEI work.
But the ‘mob boss’ playbook, which relies on touts to stamp out disloyalty, may be counterproductive to the very blockade it tries to remove.
“It is a huge time sync once you encourage employees to start complaining about each other, “ Peter Cappelli, professor of management at the Wharton School of Business and director for the Center for Human Resources at the University of Pennsylvania, said.
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“If you are reporting people, employees doing something wrong, the manager has to look into it and looking into it is incredibly time consuming.
“You basically have to be prosecutor, jury and judge all at the same time. You have to also think about if the person complaining is making this up.”
According to Axios, the new president is also rolling out “loyalty tests” as part of his quest to reshape the federal workforce.
Before setting foot in the oval office, his administration was sounding out National Security Council (NSC) employees to gauge their political affiliations and determine their loyalty to the incoming president.
But as the president’s campaign for vengeance and loyalty enters second gear, the true effectiveness of his snitching decree remains unclear.
“You could imagine a context where asking employees to look out for malfeasance is a perfectly reasonable thing to do,” Prof Cappelli added.
“What’s different here is that it is almost impossible for an individual employee to see a violation of a policy and it creates a tone of work for the organisation. It slows everything down.”
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