The Plan And The Punch In The Mouth

 The punch in the mouth:

According to GOP strategist Melik Abdul, an acquaintance of his lost his federal job in a rural community as part of the purge after only being on the job for six months. 

After CNN's "Table for Five" Abby Philip shared clips of Jesse Watters of Fox News "freaking out" about the federal worker purge after a veteran getting "DOGE'd," as the Fox host put it, after previously gleefully calling the mass firings "a blessing from heaven above," Abdul chimed in with a similar story.

Now multiply these anecdotes by hundreds of thousands:

The total number of federal government workers who will lose their jobs because of mass layoffs being pushed by the second Trump Administration and the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) remains to be seen. But according to reporting from the Washington Post and Newsweek, the number could be as high as 200,000.

In an article published Saturday, Salon's Daria Solovieva examines the layoffs' possible economic impact. And she warns that according to some economists, the layoffs could trigger a major recession.

At which point that punch in the mouth reaches millions. And all plans are over. Even Trump’s plans:

He went on, "You can see how much Trump's numbers have taken a dive, how much they've taken a dive since he's come into office. The bottom line is, a month in and voters are not liking what Trump is doing compared to how they thought they'd feel a month ago.”

But, he said, polls were most surprising when they asked voters about the economy.

“This to me is the biggest shocker of all of this because you can recall even when Trump was underwater during pretty much all of his first term, he was positive on the economy. Trump's net approval rating on the economy in February of 2017, he was five points above water in the average poll.

“Look at where he is now. The economy, which was once his bread and butter, has all of a sudden been something that is holding him back. He's actually doing worse on the economy than he is doing overall.

Trump is going to pay anyway. Unfortunately, the rest of us have to pay, anyway.

Too high a price to pay, so no smiling and rejoicing here. But you don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone. Over and over and over.

There’s a parody of a jingle for toothpaste (probably originating with MAD Magazine): “You’ll wonder where the yellow went, when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent!  But when your teeth start turning black, you’ll wish you had the yellow back!”

And here we are. Heading toward the brick wall we diverted ourselves to. Once again hellbound on finding out. But already wishing we had the yellow back. And knowing it’s going to be a long time before we can get it.