GOP Congressman: It's OK if Elon fires you since "God has a plan and purpose for your life"
Republican Congressman Mark Alford of Missouri offered thoughtless religious platitudes to his constituents
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During a meeting with constituents on Monday, Republican Congressman Mark Alford of Missouri attempted to defend Elon Musk’s slash-and-burn strategy of firing as many people as possible in the federal government despite not knowing what they do or how vital their jobs may be.
He couldn’t do that, of course, because there is no good defense for firing thousands upon thousands of people who have dedicated their lives to doing thankless jobs, then rehiring many of them back due to backlash or realizing they were actually really important. It causes chaos and impedes the vital work these people do. Republican ignorance is not a valid defense for decimating government agencies.
So instead Alford told attendees at the meeting that they should just trust in God that everything would work out in the end.
(Video below via Daniel Scharpenburg)
“Just because you have a government job doesn’t mean it’s a lifetime appointment like a Supreme Court,” Alford, who represents a wide swath of Missouri southeast of Kansas City, said at one point during the town hall at a coffee shop in downtown Belton.
“So I would encourage anyone who finds themselves in this situation to realize that we are going to get this economy turning again. There are jobs available. God has a plan and purpose for your life.”
That’s a wildly idiotic thing to say when roughly 30,000 people in Kansas City work for the federal government, according to the Kansas City Star, especially when nearly all the people losing their jobs did nothing to deserve it. It’s also a reminder that Republicans can’t defend what the Trump Administration is doing in their name, so they’re trying to deflect responsibility from themselves.
Alford wants his constituents to blame God instead of him. Or at least assume this is part of his God’s Master Plan. He is cosplaying as a pastor when he’s supposed to be a member of Congress. He’s suggesting he has no role to play in what the administration is doing when his party is actively propping up the people causing the pain.
God isn’t going to pay fired workers’ mortgage. God isn’t going to provide them with health insurance. Hell, if God has a “plan and purpose” for the people who just had their livelihoods destroyed, then the same God apparently caused that senseless suffering and isn’t worth worshipping.
The only reason God and Elon should be lumped together in the same thought is because neither one of them was elected.
It’s almost unbelievable how many times Republicans want everyone to trust someone else’s “plan” when they have no ability to articulate the specifics. Elon doesn’t know what he’s doing, but they want you to trust him. God has a “plan” for you, but the details are purposely unknown.
Alford’s heartless response is the same one Christians give when talking about a school shooting or about children in cancer wards. “God is looking out for you” isn’t comforting when, by their logic, God wanted to screw you over. The government should never be in the business of thoughts and prayers.
It wasn’t comforting for the people in the room, either, and they let Alford know it:
At that, the crowd exploded into yelling and screaming. “We don’t want your God!” a woman screamed. “Our God is Christian!” yelled another.
…
In an interview, [local union leader Daniel] Scharpenburg said federal workers “don’t need thoughts and prayers.” What workers need, he said, is for people to stand up for them and make clear that Musk, the billionaire who Trump put in charge of the Department of Government Efficiency initiative, isn’t the president.
“His answer was not a real answer,” Scharpenburg said.
These are not necessarily atheists. These are people who believe elected officials have a duty to represent their constituents instead of making excuses for their party leaders’ incompetence because they don’t have the guts to push back themselves.
Alford isn’t in danger of losing his job, though. He won re-election last year by a comfortable margin in a ruby-red district. Which means he’s even less likely to give a damn about all the lives he’s helping destroy by supporting the Trump agenda. Unless the conservatives in the district realize it’s their votes contributing to the suffering, nothing will change.
There is an unintentional consequence of what Alford said, however. By merging harmful Republican policies with appeals to Christianity, both of those labels may become more toxic in the years to come. When the backlash eventually, hopefully, comes for the GOP, it could lead even more people to distance themselves from the Christian label.
But none of that will help the people whom Alford doesn’t care about because he thinks giving power to Trump and Musk is worth sacrificing his own constituents.
In response to local news coverage of his flippant remarks, Alford dismissed the criticism and blamed attendees for not being more civil towards him:
That… doesn’t make anything better. The workers who are losing their jobs due solely to the Republican fetish for destroying the government are victims. And while they might find new jobs elsewhere, it’s the rest of us who will suffer when they’re not replaced or replaced by less experienced, less competent buffoons whose only qualification is pledging loyalty to wannabe dictators.
If Alford gave a damn about his own job, maybe he would understand that. Instead, the only person who should be losing his job is the one who doesn’t care as long as it happens to everyone else.
"God has a plan and purpose for your life"
correction...
"God has concepts of a plan"
Christo-fascist pricks. Maybe they should lose THEIR job next election.