Date: 2025-05-01 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00028177
TRUMP AND MUSK
A CHAOTIC GOVERNMENT RESTRUCTURING
I’m a Government Worker. We’re Still Terrified Friday Is D-Day.
A CHAOTIC GOVERNMENT RESTRUCTURING
I’m a Government Worker. We’re Still Terrified Friday Is D-Day.
A man with eye glasses stares in the dark at a screen.
Waiting. aerogondo/Getty Images Plus
Original article: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/02/musk-news-federal-worker-purge-terror-update.html
Peter Burgess COMMENTARY
I cannnot stand Trump ... and not a fan of either Vance or Musk!
The damage that is being done by these 'clowns' is monumental, yet their American supporters just don't seem to see it.
Scary!
Peter Burgess
Written by Denise Cana
Feb 07, 2025
Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily.
Over the course of the past two weeks, headlines have swirled with dizzying speed around Elon Musk’s efforts to remake the federal workforce through his Department of Government Efficiency.
While it’s been hard for the press to keep up with every move and countermove, the swirl has certainly left the public in rapt attention—whether with delight or despair. And there have actually been a few headlines in the past day or two that have been worthy of celebrating.
On Thursday, for instance, a federal judge issued a temporary stay against Musk’s potentially illegal contract buyout offer.
Earlier in the day, another judge partially blocked DOGE’s access to the Treasury Department’s computer systems they had hastily invaded. Of course, one of the DOGE employees who had retained access under the judge’s ruling, Marko Elez, was immediately revealed by the Wall Street Journal to have pronounced himself “a racist before it was cool” and backed up that sentiment with various racist posts.
But then came the good part of the headline: Elez, who had been granted access to the private data of millions, had resigned due to the revelation.
While we may take solace from dribs and drabs of news that the worst Musk excesses are finally facing some pushback, the overwhelming mood from within the halls of the federal government is one of mourning.
We mourn our colleagues. Many have already been informed they no longer have jobs serving the American public. We wait with bated breath to hear about others apparently in the crosshairs of would-be “efficiency” cuts.
The buyout shopped to federal workers was scheduled to expire at midnight on Thursday, though now it’s in litigation limbo.
Still, probationary employees across the country were bracing themselves for termination letters as soon as Friday morning. Not because the administration has been explicit about this plan, but because everyone expects new management will want to stick their tongue out at people the day after the buyout expired just to say, “I told you so.”
No matter that the offer was of dubious legality at best. No matter that the administration’s own various FAQs about their buyout contradicted one another.
No matter that the offer was rushed out the door and forced employees to rush their decision. And no matter that many of these probationary employees had recently uprooted their lives to pursue their dream job in public service.
Everyone knows that their new bosses are small minded and petty, and everyone expects tomorrow to be worse than today.
I’m a Federal Worker. Elon Musk’s Government Data Heist Is the Entire Ballgame.
We also mourn our projects. Across the government, science has been upended, cases have been halted, humanitarian aid has been withheld, and all manner of public-private partnerships have been cast into doubt. Or worse. And for the most part, it’s clear that the recklessness of the restructuring is driven—not by efficiency—but by ignorance.
They say silence is a chef’s best compliment. By those lights, government workers have always worked like kitchen staff, hoping for a quiet reception to their efforts. Stable markets, regular Social Security checks, secure borders, transportation without tragedy, civil rights, drinkable water, and breathable air—if we’re doing our job, you don’t have to think about these things. They can slip into things we all take for granted—without comment. Sit back, enjoy your dinner.
Federal workers rarely tout our successes. There is always more we could do to protect and preserve the rights, security, and resources of our nation. But that humility has had a cost: Criticism of federal workers for partisan political games usually goes unanswered or ignored. And that silence has been received as aloof or elitist, drawing new criticism, fomenting new anger.
But to be blunt: Politicians picking on the federal workers doing their job is like a trench-coated creep picking on nannies at a playground. We might make side comments to one another—it’s weird that he’s so obsessed with which bathrooms we use, right?—but our main concern is how we can protect our charges: the littles over on the slide; the people, the democratic values, the human-support infrastructures that have been entrusted to our care. Having to abandon our charges is our last, most desperate act, one that tens of thousands have felt forced to undertake in recent days, according to reporting.
But we also mourn our democracy. In the wake of the Jan. 6 riots, I listened to two lifelong civil servants debate which was in worse shape—the global climate or our constitutional republic. The civil servant worried for the climate claimed society was in a car speeding toward the edge of a cliff, its brake lines severed. The colleague concerned with the state of civil rights said, bluntly: “We’re already in free fall. We’re just waiting to see if we survive.”
Trump’s attacks on independent agencies, Musk’s intrusion in private data and payment systems—these are assaults on the separation of powers we all (used to) quietly take for granted. They are cartoonishly unconstitutional. No mastermind, Musk is more Scaramucci 2.0—an addled and overcaffeinated whirlwind that we all hoped would be one more chapter to which we could say: “Whoa, that was wild. Next.” But treading so obviously and greedily on the constitutional framework will force a response from the courts. And on the horizon looms the very real possibility that this administration will refuse to comply with an order it doesn’t like.
We’re in free fall. Waiting to see if we can survive the crash.
As the headlines swirl, I receive more and more concerned notes from friends and family outside government service. Is the FAA really that understaffed? Would the administration really cut that many jobs at EPA? Would the administration really silence public health scientists? Will probationary workers really be terminated after the buyout expires—even if they wanted to keep working for the public? Did DOJ really establish some sort of thought police?
To these questions, I can only shrug.
So comes the inevitable next question, asked with soft concern: What will you do?
Here’s what I will do: I will do my job as best as I know how. I will read each new directive from my political leadership and clack away at my keyboard to implement it as best as I can. And I will polish my résumé and apply for other jobs and hate myself for doing so.
But before I do any of that, I will put on a brave face and go to one more farewell party for a dedicated but departing public servant.