The Twitter outburst shows just how privileged the liberal laptop class really is

It is estimated that hundreds of Twitter employees have quit after their new boss, Elon Musk, sent out a memo demanding “long hours of high intensity” as a condition of their employment. Musk had already laid off half of Twitter’s employees, leaving only about 3,000 when he then sent out a team email giving Twitter employees a choice of going “extremely hardcore” or leaving. Many apparently chose to leave.

That drama follows weeks later, including Twitter workers using the site to denigrate their new boss, refuting his claims and condemning him for “starving” them after taking away the $400 lunches , to which no one turned up to eat.

The latest outrage came from a series of emails in which Musk said he would consider firing managers who allow employees to work remotely. “You are also expected to have face-to-face meetings with your colleagues at a reasonable frequency, ideally weekly but no less than once a month,” Musk wrote.

Ah, the terror! You need to appear to work once a month to collect your paycheck!

Twitter employees get a lot of affection and sympathy on Twitter from the blue check brigade, who are appalled at the idea that you can get fired for publicly humiliating your boss or refusing to, you know, show up at all.

But it’s hard to explain to people in the laptop class how bizarre this all sounds for workers. You’re asked to show up for work and you tell your boss no – and you’re the victim here?

That’s just not stuff we could imagine getting away with. We have to get dressed and drive to work – and pay exorbitant gas prices for it. We have to get stuck in traffic in the morning or take criminal public transport. We don’t have the luxury of sitting at home in pajama bottoms.

Throughout the COVID response, we workers have been showing up for work every day. There was no such thing as “stay home to save lives”. We risked getting sick while these people had to work at home while watching TV in their pajamas.

So it’s hard for me to feel sympathy for them that this trend is coming to an end.

That’s not to say that I see Musk as some sort of free speech hero or someone trying to save America. He is a man trying to run a business and make a profit.

But for workers like me, it’s startling to see a company go up in flames because workers refuse to go back to work after being privileged to stay home for three years.

We’ve paid for the work-from-home and work-from-anywhere trend in other ways, too. I live in Texas, which has had an influx of pajama-class immigrants. They came and drove up the cost of housing, giving many city dwellers the opportunity to live in the city they love. And now many of those cities look very different.

Craziest of all, if you spend any time on Twitter these days, it’s clear that the left hopes Twitter fails under Musk. They vehemently opposed its takeover and now seem poised to implode the site.

That’s because they’ve gotten used to Twitter taking their side politically. And under Musk there is another real ideas competition. The Conservatives were again given the opportunity to speak. It’s almost as if the liberal and left-wing elites feel that if they can’t control Twitter, nobody should have access to it.

On Thursday evening, in the face of mass terminations, thousands of accounts began to bid farewell to one another in dramatic fashion, certain that the site would be gone by morning. But it was wishful thinking, a chance to “stick” it to those on the other side, or perceived as such, who finally got access to Twitter.

Some are even saying the quiet part out loud, asking Democrats to “nationalize Twitter,” like Hillary Clinton’s adviser Peter Dao, who tweeted the idea — you guessed it. They don’t want a public square open to debate; They want a public square controlled by Democrats, which was Twitter until Musk took over.

People who bemoaned the end of Twitter under Musk wanted him to fail. Twitter was a propaganda arm of the DC establishment and they want it back under their control. That’s what this uproar has been about since Musk bought this company.

The drama surrounding employees who quit because they were asked to behave like employees not only shows the class divide that separates the knowledge industry, technology and other elite professions from us workers, but also how deep Twitter is in the democratic machine anchored and how connected was to the same elites of the knowledge industry.

Whatever happens next, at least now we have evidence of it.

Charles Stallworth is a union railroad worker.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own.