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This kind of behavior would require actually committing to have one's own skin in the game, quite literally. That is not something most people who do white collar work are accustomed to or desiring of. If they lose their comfy government jobs, maybe they have to go on welfare or whatever at the worst case - though that seems likely to be rare, and I'd guess the median and modal result is finding a less desirable job that pays less/offers less security/offers less status. If they storm the DOE or chain themselves to their desk, the worst case is getting killed while being arrested, and I'd guess the median and modal result is spending some time in jail or even prison. The proportion of people who work comfy white collar jobs who believe so much in their principles that they would risk the latter when the former is right there as an option seems likely to be very small, from my experience living among such people.
You misunderstand. The government job is the welfare.
It is in the best interests of the people receiving the welfare that a significant fraction of the public perceives them to have been removed from the dole without cause to maximize the chance of being back on the dole if and when welfare is expanded again. That's a much harder sell if they're removed for cause.
This is instinctual behavior, which is why it doesn't require any tho(ugh)t-leader on Twitter to say "just comply with it, don't resist". Compare parents who tend to be cowed into submission should CPS threaten to take their children away.
This is also partially why removing the probationary welfare recipients is probably a sounder tactic than it would seem at first- people who aren't used to it yet are [politically] easier to wean off of it than people that are.
And the people that have been there for a long time aren't going to be employable once they're fired because, like a coal miner in his late 40s, his skills won't transfer no matter how smugly you say "learn to code"... which is why, when the mine's shutting down, you offer the motivated ones several months' severance so that they may buy and attend training for a different job, move to another area, or leave the workforce entirely- the other reason being that, because they're competent, they can throw their weight around much more effectively if the reason the mine's closing is a political decision on the owner's part; if you're going to purge a group, and the group will 100% find out before it occurs, it's best to offer favorable terms of surrender to the ones that could make a real mess before the purge occurs (obviously blind-siding everyone costs less, but democratically-elected politicians can't do that for obvious reasons).
Or use as a threat ‘CPS says we’re hitting you too much, you’d better start behaving or they’ll take you away.’.
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I have a feeling this calculus is understood by the Trump team and is the fulcrum of their attack: ain't nobody gonna do nothin about it!
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