Is malicious compliance what pushback looks like?

by liberal japonicus

in facebook comments (which is the only place, for the most part, I see any political discussions in the wild), I've seen something interesting crop up. Obviously my facebook feed is pretty heavily weighted towards liberal opinions, though I do have some friends from high school who are MAGA types, but more often than not, I'll just snooze them if they go off. So I get a lot of liberal posts that discuss the latest Ubu roi dumpster fire and a fair number of them are about the latest military DEI bullshit. And in those, every so often, a opposite voice pops up and says 'oh, this is just malicious compliance' and that made me wonder a bit.

Wikipedia has this about malicious compliance (emphasis mine)

Malicious compliance (also known as malicious obedience) is the behavior of strictly following the orders of a superior despite knowing that compliance with the orders will have an unintended or negative result. It usually implies following an order in such a way that ignores or otherwise undermines the order's intent, but follows it to the letter.^[1][2] It can also describe a willful act of regulatory interference, for example when a corporation releases a compliant but inferior version of a product in response to new legislation. A form of passive-aggressive behavior,^[3] it is often associated with poor management-labor relationships, micromanagement, a generalized lack of confidence in leadership, and resistance to changes perceived as pointless, duplicative, dangerous, or otherwise undesirable. It is common in organizations with top-down management structures lacking morale, leadership or mutual trust. In U.S. law, this practice has been theorized as a form of uncivil obedience.

I may be overthinking this, but when someone says 'oh, that's just malicious compliance', I assume that they are accepting that things like deleting black medal of honor recipients, the 442d Regimental Combat Team and Navaho code talkers are mistakes and these malicious compliers are liberals in military clothes. An excuse that doesn't get offered is that this is an auto purge, which may be why these folks didn't pop up when the Enola Gay photos and information was deleted.

If this is the case, it reveals some interesting contours. People offering up this excuse are admitting the things listed above are wrong, but it is somehow the fault of people following orders rather than the people giving the orders. And what does it say if there is this kind of subterrrean effort in the military to sabotage these anti DEI efforts?

The last line of the wikipedia excerpt has me wondering. Has it been set out that malicious compliance is illegal? If so, it would be the perfect looking glass outcome: prosecuting people for taking down information when they were ordered to.

Comments

[wj]

It seems like it may be challenging to distinguish malicious compliance from someone using AI (and stupidly written directions) to generate a ToDo list from an (inevitably badly drawn) Executive Order.

[Hartmut]

Next we will hear that Hegseth is a mole to explain his decision to remove the official portraits of blacks and females from the walls (together with the ones of those who fell out of grace with His Orangeness).
Btw, the Austrian painter had not the slightest idea either what the chicken farmer did to his Jewish best buddies in Poland because he got deceived by the Red Cross (who were in on it because Switzerland needed the dental gold to stay afloat economically).

[hairshirthedonist]

I'd guess is just as likely as malicious compliance that these seemingly misguided anti-DEI purges are purposeful distractions to take up people's attention bandwidth so the administration can do things like hobbling social security without too many people noticing.

I'd also guess it's more likely than either of those things that it's what wj described - unintelligent artificial intelligence.

[Marty]

My guess is that Ukraine, DEI, the Education Department, generic layoffs of probationary employees, are all just distractions while he consolidated control of the military and Justice departments. They are the only two entities that could forcibly enforce a judges order. He has those, he's President for life.

[bobbyp]

"I may be overthinking this"....well, I tend to think you just might be.

For an analogous case, see."Work to rule action". It's an old labor resistance tactic, but I wager that is not the case here.

I would agree with hsh and Marty...the fascist gang is throwing up (to borrow a term) a lot of smoke and mirrors to go after bigger game.

[russell]

They are the only two entities that could forcibly enforce a judges order.

DOJ is pretty clearly in the bag, ISTM.

IMO the military career officers take their oath pretty seriously and would resist doing plainly unconstitutional or unlawful stuff, and I don't see Hegseth as having the personal juice to change that culture. I suspect he's seen as a clown.

That said, it also looks like Trump is perfectly happy to fire anyone who doesn't want to play.

So, who knows where this is all gonna land. I sincerely do not have the slightest idea.

[wj]

IMO the military career officers take their oath pretty seriously and would resist doing plainly unconstitutional or unlawful stuff, and I don't see Hegseth as having the personal juice to change that culture. I suspect he's seen as a clown.

That said, it also looks like Trump is perfectly happy to fire anyone who doesn't want to play.

That's my sense as well. Overwhelmingly, they know that their oath is to "support, protect, and defend the Constitution". And they care about it.

Unfortunately, there are doubtless a few (see Gen Flynn) who do not. And Trump seems fine with firing generals until he gets ones who will submit. Even if he has to work down to colonels and promote them.

[Michael Cain]

Overwhelmingly, they know that their oath is to "support, protect, and defend the Constitution". And they care about it.

If they'll do little things, they'll eventually work up to big things. This week the Air Force stood up and announced, with a straight face, that they had awarded Boeing a contract for the F-47. Supposedly all of sixth-generation stealth, brand new engine design (no contract yet), AI-enabled, greatly superior to the F-22 it will replace, cheaper than the F-35, and first delivery during Trump's term. So far as I can tell, actual design work hasn't progressed past an artist's rendering, front view, with everything aft of the cockpit obscured by darkness and dry-ice fog.

Also that the F-47 will have a human pilot, so dedicated weight and volume to support that, as well as accept the performance limits imposed on flight maneuvers by human limitations. Some hand-waving about maybe a drone wingman craft.

I hope to see at least some officers retire and denounce this as a fantasy based on Trump talking points.

[Hartmut]

Let's give it the official working designation "Trump-O-Line" but use "PP-47 Lolcat" internally, alternatively "FU-47 Rapist".

[wj]

So far as I can tell, actual design work hasn't progressed past an artist's rendering, front view, with everything aft of the cockpit obscured by darkness and dry-ice fog.

Could do something similar for the initial delivery. Fancy front, with most of the plane (specifically , all the parts that are still not built, let alone working, yet) totally obscured. Plus a fancy podium out front, of course.

Might even get a complement from Trump for the production values. Especially if he gets to do the break a champagne bottle on the nose thing.**

** Yes, I know that's for ships, not airplanes. But does Trump know? Not the smart money bet.

[nous]

Our new Boeing stealth fighter will blow the doors off of the competition.

No one knows blowing off doors like Boeing does.

[JanieM]

Some time ago I saw a link to the website of an outfit that does trainings for ordinary people on how to be useful in public, e.g. if someone is being harassed in public for being ... you know ... *different* in whatever way....

I'm sure I bookmarked the site, but I bookmark way too much stuff without putting it in category folders, so now I can't find it. It didn't have anything obvious in its name (like "peacemaking" or "training"). And I don't actually think I came across it here.

But does it ring any bells for anyone? I am feeling rather useless right now in the face of current events. (Though I won't be too hard on myself; I do have responsibilities that I'm fulfilling where I would be hard to replace.) This group did online trainings, which would make them more within reach than anything where I had to go somewhere in person.

And FWIW, I'm leaving next week for a month in California. Not thrilled about taking plane rides right now, for various reasons, but it's too far to drive. ;-) I won't be completely out of touch, but will probably (hopefully!) be busy with adventures and not spending too much time online.

[Priest]

Safe flying, Janie.

[JanieM]

Thanks, Priest.

[wj]

Hope you enjoy it out here in paradise, Janie.

For the journey home, have you considered the train? Vastly more scenic than flying. Less effort then driving; faster, too. If you've got the time, and it goes anywhere near where you want to go, it can be a great option.

[JanieM]

wj -- I would love to take the train, but I don't have time, and anecdotally my impression is that it can be very erratic about being even remotely on time.

I took the train from northeastern Ohio to Los Angeles (and back) in December/January of 1961-1962. Got to stay out of school and spend a month with my aunt and uncle, being shown around places like Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm. Also the farmer's/outdoor market in Hollywood.

I was 11 years old, and traveled with my Italian grandma and her 2 old Italian lady friends. (The "old" ladies were about ten years younger than I am now, LOL.)

They each brought grocery bags of good food (sandwiches...with fried green peppers and I dn't remember what else). I was the pet of our train car. I had a blast!

But I am already running out on my babysitting gig for far too long, so....not this time.

If I had more flexibility I would suggest that we meet up, but that's not in the cards this year. Maybe if I keep making these trips each spring we could do it one of these years.

(And as far as scenery goes -- I made cross-country trips by car in 1972 and 1974 and partial trips in 1976 and 1984, all with long stops for hiking. Whatever its faults, it is a stunningly beautiful and varied country we live in.)

[GftNC]

Have a good trip, Janie. I have bo doubt that many wonderful photographs will result from it.

[Nigel]

The F47 name is pitiful stuff, but think the aircraft itself is likely real.
They've been flying prototypes for several years.

Cost estimate are always wrong - but unlike the F35 it among be navalised, so that will make it cheaper to develop.

[Nigel]

"So, who knows where this is all gonna land. I sincerely do not have the slightest idea."

The midterms might be the last chance to avert what's coming. If the GOP still control Congress beyond that, then I think there's an evens chance that's it for democracy in the US.
The Democratic leadership don't seem to have woken up to that. Or much else.

[Marty]

I just continually wonder if the people who voted for him are content with him becoming President for Life.

It seems that anything he does can be justified, the amount of moral hypocrisy and level of mental gymnastics required gets bigger all the time, but are they really ok with a new form of government for their kids and grandkids.

It is a stark reminder that there is no such thing as cultural memory.

[JanieM]

Thanks, GftNC. I do hope to take some pictures...it has been a slow winter in that respect.

[Michael Cain]

I just continually wonder if the people who voted for him are content with him becoming President for Life.

Not all of them. Some of them would be content if it were simply liberals and the Democratic Party excluded from government forever.

[Marty]

Michael,

While I do hear some complaints about individual things they are doing, SSA in particular, I get almost no sense they object to the way it's being done. I'm not surprised but disappointed nonetheless.

[wj]

I just continually wonder if the people who voted for him are content with him becoming President for Life.

I just keep having this eerie feeling that Trump is just an alias for Nehemiah Scudder. Definitely hope that's just my imagination running amok. 2100 is so far away.

[Michael Cain]

Marty,
Yeah, the rank and file seem to be eager to have it happen. OTOH, during the first Trump administration, when he threatened the Dept of Education, governors in small poor red states like Mississippi were the first to scream, "But don't stop the money, because our school systems are very much dependent on it." Alabama's in a world of hurt if Trump turns space launch services over to Musk completely.

[russell]

Janie, have a *great* trip and safe travels.

Having been cross country on US trains a couple of times, I can confirm your sense that their compliance to schedule is... notional. You can't be in a hurry, and everything might not work quite right. But it can also be really fun - people socialize.

Favorite train stories: traveling from Indiana back to New York, my train car included four older sisters ("older" meaning "the age I am now") who were on their way back to Ohio from a ladies' weekend away in Indianapolis. They had been a family singing group when theyr were younger and they serenaded us with hits from the Great American Songbook all the way to Cleveland.

On a trip from Boston to AZ with my wife, the guy in the "roomette" next to ours was an Al Jolson imitator (which I did not realize was a thing). We had just gotten engaged and he treated us to a version of "The Bells Are Ringing For Me And My Gal" complete with the full Al Jolson stage business - down on one knee for the big finish.

There are also less fun train stories, mostly having to do with aging rolling stock and the fact that passenger rail in the US shares track with freight trains and the freight companies are responsible for upkeep.

It can be fun but you can not be in a hurry to get there.

I get almost no sense they object to the way it's being done.

Me neither.

My thought is that the necessary conditions for a Trump supporter changing their mind are (1) Trump's policies need to bite them on the ass, personally, good and hard - like "I lost my job and my house" hard - and (2) there needs to be a credible alternative, someone or something (of whatever party) that gives them a sense of connection and confidence that their lives will actually get better.

Bernie and AOC seem to be making some solid connections in some surprising places, in spite of being a cranky old Vermonter with a heavy Brooklyn accent and weird hair, and a Latina from the Bronx. People can surprise you.

But I think we're in for a few years of total shit, no matter what. Hang on to whatever and whoever it is in your life that brings you joy and peace.

[GftNC]

I just continually wonder if the people who voted for him are content with him becoming President for Life.

The thing is, most people who voted for him just don't think that's what's happening. The NYT runs regular checks with a panel they got before the election, and for them most of what he's doing is just fine. They seem amazingly oblivious to the implications of all these events.

I've just read the transcript of the Tucker Carlson-Steve Witkoff conversation, particularly the Russia Ukraine part. That's the level of information lots of Trump voters are getting, including about domestic issues. It's really hard not to despair.

https://detector.media/in-english/article/239318/2025-03-23-transcript-of-steve-witkoffs-interview-on-the-tucker-carlson-show/

[JanieM]

Thanks, russell. I'll do my best. :-)

As to this: My thought is that the necessary conditions for a Trump supporter changing their mind are (1) Trump's policies need to bite them on the ass, personally, good and hard - like "I lost my job and my house" hard

Those may be necessary conditions, but I gloomily think they're not necessarily sufficient. There's also the part where they somehow come around to understanding that what happened to them was actually because of Clickbait's "policies" -- He seems (they seem) to have a magical ability to make people believe that it's all Biden's fault, or the "woke" people's fault, or various minorities' fault. I hate to be unhopeful even about hypotheticals, but ... I'm unhopeful.

Despite the Wyoming town hall....

[JanieM]

Found the link I was looking for.

If anyone knows anything about this outfit, I'd love to hear some thoughts about their work.

[Michael Cain]

My son and his significant other are at the U of Wyoming. He does graphic design for the extension service, she runs one of the climate change groups. Despite what makes the national media, the legislature knows that they have to deal with how does the state benefit from its rich wind resources, where is the North American Monsoon going to flood, what wheat strains do they need to plant in a warming climate, what parasites are going to kill the forests. U of Wyoming buys a considerable amount of time on NOAA super computers, and is scared of what Trump/Musk may do to that resource.

[wj]

their [Amtrak's] compliance to schedule is... notional.

My experience has been that they're pretty good about starting on schedule. It's staying on schedule that's the problem.

For example, take the run from Oakland to Chicago. If I'm heading east from here (maybe 2 stops east of Oakland), say up to Reno, the train will arrive within minutes of the scheduled time. Coming back from Reno? The train will arrive in Reno somewhere between 2 hours and 2 weeks late. (Figure roughly 2 standard deviations, for those who follow such things.). Some of that can be attributed to weather, e.g. snow on the tracks in winter. But only some.

[wj]

I hate to be unhopeful even about hypotheticals, but ... I'm unhopeful.

One thing worries me about the hostile reception that Republican Congressmen are getting in deep red districts. It could encourage the MAGAts in power to try to cancel elections in 2026, rather than assume they can wait until 2028. The longer they hold off, the better the chances to build roadblocks, especially at the state and local level. Which is really where the rubber meets the road.

[nous]

JanieM - I don't know anything specific about Right To Be. I have put out a question to my FB community (such as it is, post exodus) to see if anyone has feedback.

I know on campus they do some bystander intervention training through:

https://stepupprogram.org/

...but, again, I have no direct experience with it.

[JanieM]

Thanks, nous.

[GftNC]

A natural response, I would have thought:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/24/french-university-scientific-asylum-american-talent-brain-drain

Interesting comparison with e.g. Werner von Braun which immediately provokes this memory

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEJ9HrZq7Ro&list=RDQEJ9HrZq7Ro&start_radio=1

[GftNC]

And, Alex Massie in today's Times on Starmer and Trump:

Why we should back Starmer’s strategic lies
Take PM’s statements on Trump with a pinch of salt: it pays to play along with the pantomime

Alex Massie
Monday March 24 2025, 12.01am, The Times

Sir Keir Starmer has become a strange kind of liar. That is, he is willing to say he believes things nobody can seriously think he really believes. Even more oddly, his lies are sensible ones and we should not wish him to tell the truth or say what he really means. This is an unusual position for any prime minister but it has become a necessary fiction for this one. So much so, in fact, that we should welcome it.

Let me explain. Speaking to The New York Times, and hence to a largely American audience, the prime minister goes all-in on nonsense. Talking about President Donald J Trump, Starmer says: “On a person-to-person basis, I think we have a good relationship. I like and respect him.” Oh, come on. He then says: “I understand what he’s trying to achieve.” Oh, come off it.

Nor is the prime minister done there. The untruths continue. “I think we have a really good relationship. I do believe that he absolutely wants peace in Ukraine. That’s what he is driving at. I do believe he is committed to Nato.” Well, I do not believe the prime minister really believes this and I also believe he does not even expect you, the voters of Britain, to believe it either.

There is no evidence that Donald Trump is committed to Nato and plenty to support the contention that he doesn’t give a bucket of warm spit for the Atlantic alliance. Nor is it in any way obvious that Trump’s vision for an end to Russia’s war on Ukraine has anything in common with the analysis shared by Ukraine’s true friends, that the only acceptable peace deal is one led by, and acceptable to, the Ukrainians themselves. Indeed, all the evidence available to us indicates that Trump’s vision for “peace” requires the dismemberment of Ukraine and the carving up of its assets between Russia and, remarkably, the United States itself.

Starmer’s lies about Trump are so obvious they now have a kind of pantomime quality. We know that the prime minister knows he is not saying what he truly believes. It is a performance and in its way an audacious one.

Far too many people desire a so-called Love Actually moment in which an exasperated British prime minister finally snaps and calls out a bullying and abusive American president. When Trump ambushed President Zelensky in the Oval Office, these people rushed to social media platforms to complain that neither Starmer nor any of his colleagues had posted anything on their own personal or official accounts deploring the American president’s actions. Starmer acknowledges that pressure but insists that a certain stoic silence is more practical and valuable.

Instead of tweeting, Keir Starmer worked the phones. Britain’s ability to repair the relationship between Kyiv and Washington may be limited but the effort still counts. Starmer may well fail but he must be seen to have exhausted every opportunity there is of salvaging something from the Trumpian wreckage. Some things are more important than an excellent tweet.

This refusal to give people what they demand feels almost transgressive in an age of over-sharing and over-emoting. Here again, Starmer seems like a politician from another time. He is analogue in a digital age; black and white in a time of vivid colour. This is unusual to the point of seeming almost courageous. Starmer declines to give the crowd what it claims to want and the more they demand this release of emotions, the more buttoned-up and reserved he becomes. In this respect he is a counter-cultural premier.

The lie is important and risky and dangerous and, in the end, perversely admirable. Flattering Trump is unpleasant but more rewarding than telling the truth. The reality is that Trump is a man of negligible moral value whose administration is a shameful exercise in degrading the US on a daily basis. This truth is self-evident and hardly needs to be amplified by the prime minister.

For you deal with the president you get, not the one you dream of. Britain is not Athens to America’s Rome — and never was — but if Britain’s place is to be a kind of bridge between Europe and the US it follows that Britain cannot blow up the bridge itself. If you accept the prime minister’s strategic analysis, you have little choice but to accept his tactical untruths too.

For Starmer is not a newspaper columnist and the King’s ministers are not social media pundits. There is no need for Starmer to say what we know he must truly think about Trump, for doing so cannot advance the national interest. So the fiction is to be swallowed, though it must also be digested without any accompanying illusions.

The difficulty is that Trump will test Starmer’s patience to destruction. At that point the vibe will shift and prudent restraint in the national interest, which is the present approach, will seem deplorably craven.

The prime minister has played a limited hand as well as can be expected but his success is only relative and depends on voters understanding his motives. It is fine to reject choosing between the US and Europe right up until the moment when the bridge collapses. Push always comes to shove and the British people understand that this American administration cannot be trusted. They are not enemies yet but nor are they the friends they were.

For the time being though, Starmer’s noble lies still stand. They are in such plain sight, after all, that they can hardly be misunderstood except — the prime minister must hope — in the Oval Office itself. If you must lie, and sometimes you must, it may be best to lie bigly. This is a strange form of leadership but it is leadership nonetheless.

[nous]

I can confirm that US universities are in a financial pinch over all this crap. My own institution has put a hiring freeze in place and I know several people who have had to edit the language in their grants and proposals to exclude any words that might get them tossed out automatically by the crude filters that this administration seems to rely upon.

I think I am safe for the moment, and I continue to teach what I have always taught. Am putting together a new syllabus around climate change and ecocentrism.

To be clear, the American university system was facing a squeeze even before this wanton vandalism of the engines of research. The number of available students was shrinking and academia was facing a contraction. This, however, is not an orderly disassembly. We are probably looking at the loss of a generation of research and serious damage to even the most productive institutions of higher education here.

America is sundowning.

[JanieM]

Sundowning? Asphyxiating? Dying in a fire? Probably not phoenix-like, either, at least not on any hopeful timeframe.

[Hartmut]

Sundown towns might also make a comeback. First steps are taken to make segregation legal again. Just read that His Orangeness has signed an EO exempting contractors from anti-segregation rules.

[GftNC]

Meanwhile, I knew I'd be glad I'd resubscribed to the Atlantic. Gift link:

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/03/trump-administration-accidentally-texted-me-its-war-plans/682151/?gift=cx0iluuWx4Cg7JjlT8ugCa5EWyq4OgMzuwBlx6Q8yt0&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

[russell]

Re: the Atlantic piece.

These guys are, in addition to being a bunch of nasty hateful bastards, pretty clearly the JV squad of foreign policy and governance in general.

I can't figure out if it would be better if they were really competent, or.not.

Long ago I read a collection of translations of Diogenes and Heraclitos by Guy Davenport. One of the Diogenes bits was:

Real men nowhere, but in Sparta, real boys

That quote often came to mind during the W Bush days. And now it does again.

[GftNC]

Real men nowhere, but in Sparta, real boys

This made me chuckle, not quite laugh, out loud. Gallows humour, of course. I'd never heard it before.

[wj]

These guys are, in addition to being a bunch of nasty hateful bastards, pretty clearly the JV squad of foreign policy and governance in general.

No way! These guys aren't even close to JV level. In fact, they couldn't make it thru tryouts for the freshman team. Pathetic barely begins to describe their level of (non)accomplishment.

[russell]

Or, in the immortal words of Mark Felt aka Deep Throat:

Forget the myths the media's created about the White House. The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

[wj]

these are not very bright guys

Wow. The man does have a gift for understatement.

[wj]

Well, one thing about the (utter lack of) security fiasco. It appears that it might just have been egregious enough to inspire some members of Congress to start holding some senior administration officials' feet to the fire. Possible traces of spines being detected.

Whether they'll actually do anything is another matter. But it was amusing to hear the DNI and the CIA director try to claim none of the information in the text thread was classified (self-evidently nonsense). And simultaneously why they couldn't possible make the whole text thread public (which they damn well shouldn't).