We the people are totally and horribly complacent with keeping him in office. There are MANY way he could be removed. The longer he remains, the worse the the consequences get.
That the Dem 8 in the Senate allowed the government shutdown to end without extracting any concessions made federal workers' pain for naught. Letting the regime's "work" fester and sputter out as we held firm would have been the beginning of the end for government shutdowns. WE NEEDED THEM TO END.
We have spent more than a decade in perpetual stress, looking ahead to the next potential shutdown, putting off purchases and repairs and upgrades to our own safety nets, along with the diminished morale of working for an entity that would use its employees this way. The stress has damaged our physical and mental health, and we are all one health crisis away, like the author and friend, from destitution. How could any employer--let alone a government meant to increase public cohesion and function--operate like this?
Thank you so much for your courage and candor to write about this so honestly, and thoughtfully, capturing the painful experience we witnessed in horror. This administration amputated the limbs of what has allowed government to run for decades, in service of the public. Overnight, DOGE transformed a government "of", "for" and "by" the people into a mafia-style group of thugs controlled by oligarchs focused on their own betterment at the expense of public good. I ached profoundly as this was occurring, frustrated by how little our protests impacted those in power. It seemed sheer cruelty, not even focused on the bottom line -- DOGE cuts, I believe, cost most than a fully-functioning, operational government would! The effort to transform our government into a profit-making business for the president, and his oligarch cabinet, has stolen something priceless, that can never be repaid, and will take years to restore: trust and confidence that government's purpose is to serve the people it represents, and that an oath of office and the rule of law cannot be discarded by elected public servants (lest Congress forget who they are), or "reinterpreted" by a court that does not deserve to be labeled "supreme." Civil servants SHOULD be protected under the law, just as it was written; a president should have no power to fire, or downsize our public servants, certainly without Congressional authorization (as the law was written!!). You work for us, not him!! I am SO SORRY for what you had to go through. I can assure you, our country felt the pain, the loss, even as you are still probably going through it. That is no way to repay exceptional, exemplary service, representing so honorably our nation!! And a Notre Dame alum!! Serving others runs through your blood. I hope you and your friend are managing okay, in the wake of this manmade disaster!!
Public service is the best profession! You get to have that feeling you get when you help others. You feel satisfaction that you are improving society, not tearing it down. When people are dedicated to a calling higher than their own personal gratification and ambitions, they cannot be as easily manipulated and deployed by authoritarians.
I will never forgive this Congress, but Democrats and Republicans for failing to rise up in defense of the civil service. The professional civil service instead of the old spoils system is what makes our country strong.
Thank you for your service. And I will be using my vote to find and support candidates who will restore it.
"... this happens in the private sector" is one of those ignorant dodges that make me ill. Civil servants are not like private sector at-will employees.
Go to budget.gov and navigate to the most recent Analytical Perspectives volume. (I don't think there was one this year, which is not unusual in a transition year.) Go to the "Strengthening the Federal Workforce" chapter. You will see that feds are significantly more experienced and better educated than the average worker. At higher levels, they are also significantly less well paid. Their pensions and medical benefits are also pretty standard -- not at all the Cadillac programs that Congress gets.
Feds give up a lot of privacy. They are banned from much political activity that the rest of us take for granted. They are also locked into the GS ladder and can't go for jumps in pay outside the progression. Their jobs are somewhat protected to shield them from political pressure, though it is not true that they can't be fired for cause. It happens all the time. Many are limited by law in what jobs they can take after leaving federal service.
Politicians have never liked the Civil Service. By law, they can't pressure feds to do their political bidding by threatening to fire them. And they can't fire them to give their jobs to friends, relatives, and supporters.
This whole administration with the blessing of the felon, the biased Supreme Court, the governors of red states, are incompetent, unqualified, looking to line their pockets with tax[payers money. They are also looking to making a name for themselves with the thoughts of running for congress.
As soon as they are sworn in, hands on a bible, they forget that they are suppose to work for us, better our lives, not theirs.
Thank you for your service as a federal employee and The Contrarian. All that you suffered from the Trump regime deserves all our sympathy and concern.
Excellent, though sad as hell, article. Thank you, Ciera.
You bring us into your workforce. The tension and anxiety are palpable in ways that most 'by the numbers' reporting misses.
I'm sorry for what you and your colleagues across the government are still going through--and the ripple effect of impact to you, your families and communities.
In our many protests as a Country, I think many are standing with you all, lamenting that soulless firings done by the regime's ghouls. I hope one day, they get their due.
Thank you. I enjoyed your writing! We all need to be reminded of the ongoing assault on federal employees and decimation of the federal workforce.
I got stuck on this:
Non-federal workers gave me unsolicited advice that “this is life, and life isn’t fair” and “this happens in the private sector!”
What to say? It’s not only lacking in empathy (my first thought), it’s completely lacking in awareness. I do not believe the private sector intentionally treats employees like sh*t. Whoever says this is buying into “waste, fraud and abuse” excuse and is accepting as normal what shouldn’t be accepted as normal. It’s probably easier for them to do that than use their human faculties to think and feel.
“We’re just one drop in a bucket of millions of people who work so hard to get where they are, who try to do the right thing, and the people who are making all the decisions are just ransacking and leading the government and treating federal workers like they are enemies, that they are not citizens, and that they should be attacked. And I take personal offense to that,” she said.
That must have been extremely stressful and frustrating to have to deal with. No way did your friend need that kind of stress. I hope she’s OK and recovering nicely. Take care.
Thank you for writing. What a horrendous experience to go through. Sure, many agencies could stand some cuts for efficiency. But any needed cuts should be made with a scapal rather than a sledgehammer. And this was done with a sledgehammer. The attacks on DEI initiatives were the worst. Our administration seems obsessed with eliminating DEI initiatives at ALL costs, to the point of being ridiculous.
We the people are totally and horribly complacent with keeping him in office. There are MANY way he could be removed. The longer he remains, the worse the the consequences get.
Remove and impeach him now!
Update:
He just announced a blockade of Venezuela! We continue to play with fire.
That the Dem 8 in the Senate allowed the government shutdown to end without extracting any concessions made federal workers' pain for naught. Letting the regime's "work" fester and sputter out as we held firm would have been the beginning of the end for government shutdowns. WE NEEDED THEM TO END.
We have spent more than a decade in perpetual stress, looking ahead to the next potential shutdown, putting off purchases and repairs and upgrades to our own safety nets, along with the diminished morale of working for an entity that would use its employees this way. The stress has damaged our physical and mental health, and we are all one health crisis away, like the author and friend, from destitution. How could any employer--let alone a government meant to increase public cohesion and function--operate like this?
Thank you so much for your courage and candor to write about this so honestly, and thoughtfully, capturing the painful experience we witnessed in horror. This administration amputated the limbs of what has allowed government to run for decades, in service of the public. Overnight, DOGE transformed a government "of", "for" and "by" the people into a mafia-style group of thugs controlled by oligarchs focused on their own betterment at the expense of public good. I ached profoundly as this was occurring, frustrated by how little our protests impacted those in power. It seemed sheer cruelty, not even focused on the bottom line -- DOGE cuts, I believe, cost most than a fully-functioning, operational government would! The effort to transform our government into a profit-making business for the president, and his oligarch cabinet, has stolen something priceless, that can never be repaid, and will take years to restore: trust and confidence that government's purpose is to serve the people it represents, and that an oath of office and the rule of law cannot be discarded by elected public servants (lest Congress forget who they are), or "reinterpreted" by a court that does not deserve to be labeled "supreme." Civil servants SHOULD be protected under the law, just as it was written; a president should have no power to fire, or downsize our public servants, certainly without Congressional authorization (as the law was written!!). You work for us, not him!! I am SO SORRY for what you had to go through. I can assure you, our country felt the pain, the loss, even as you are still probably going through it. That is no way to repay exceptional, exemplary service, representing so honorably our nation!! And a Notre Dame alum!! Serving others runs through your blood. I hope you and your friend are managing okay, in the wake of this manmade disaster!!
Public service is the best profession! You get to have that feeling you get when you help others. You feel satisfaction that you are improving society, not tearing it down. When people are dedicated to a calling higher than their own personal gratification and ambitions, they cannot be as easily manipulated and deployed by authoritarians.
I will never forgive this Congress, but Democrats and Republicans for failing to rise up in defense of the civil service. The professional civil service instead of the old spoils system is what makes our country strong.
Thank you for your service. And I will be using my vote to find and support candidates who will restore it.
"... this happens in the private sector" is one of those ignorant dodges that make me ill. Civil servants are not like private sector at-will employees.
Go to budget.gov and navigate to the most recent Analytical Perspectives volume. (I don't think there was one this year, which is not unusual in a transition year.) Go to the "Strengthening the Federal Workforce" chapter. You will see that feds are significantly more experienced and better educated than the average worker. At higher levels, they are also significantly less well paid. Their pensions and medical benefits are also pretty standard -- not at all the Cadillac programs that Congress gets.
Feds give up a lot of privacy. They are banned from much political activity that the rest of us take for granted. They are also locked into the GS ladder and can't go for jumps in pay outside the progression. Their jobs are somewhat protected to shield them from political pressure, though it is not true that they can't be fired for cause. It happens all the time. Many are limited by law in what jobs they can take after leaving federal service.
Politicians have never liked the Civil Service. By law, they can't pressure feds to do their political bidding by threatening to fire them. And they can't fire them to give their jobs to friends, relatives, and supporters.
I wish I had your response handy every time I heard that!
This whole administration with the blessing of the felon, the biased Supreme Court, the governors of red states, are incompetent, unqualified, looking to line their pockets with tax[payers money. They are also looking to making a name for themselves with the thoughts of running for congress.
As soon as they are sworn in, hands on a bible, they forget that they are suppose to work for us, better our lives, not theirs.
Trump failing to put his hand on the bible as he was sworn in was our first sign...
I didn't realize that. At the time I refused to acknowledge that he had won again and didn't watch after the race was called.
Did he put him hand on anything?
Well, whether he did or didn't I hope he burns in hell for all eternity!
He did not...his hand hung by his side. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-inauguration-hand-bible-swearing-in/story?id=117897715
Thanks for the link. :)
Three more years of this nightmare! :(
And now we know one of the tolls of those DOGE cuts. For the first time this century deaths among children under five have increased.
https://www.npr.org/sections/goats-and-soda/2025/12/05/g-s1-100881/child-mortality-aid-cuts
Thank you for your service as a federal employee and The Contrarian. All that you suffered from the Trump regime deserves all our sympathy and concern.
Excellent, though sad as hell, article. Thank you, Ciera.
You bring us into your workforce. The tension and anxiety are palpable in ways that most 'by the numbers' reporting misses.
I'm sorry for what you and your colleagues across the government are still going through--and the ripple effect of impact to you, your families and communities.
In our many protests as a Country, I think many are standing with you all, lamenting that soulless firings done by the regime's ghouls. I hope one day, they get their due.
Thank you. I enjoyed your writing! We all need to be reminded of the ongoing assault on federal employees and decimation of the federal workforce.
I got stuck on this:
Non-federal workers gave me unsolicited advice that “this is life, and life isn’t fair” and “this happens in the private sector!”
What to say? It’s not only lacking in empathy (my first thought), it’s completely lacking in awareness. I do not believe the private sector intentionally treats employees like sh*t. Whoever says this is buying into “waste, fraud and abuse” excuse and is accepting as normal what shouldn’t be accepted as normal. It’s probably easier for them to do that than use their human faculties to think and feel.
Here’s a Guardian article that hits similar notes as your piece: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/dec/16/federal-worker-trump-administration
“We’re just one drop in a bucket of millions of people who work so hard to get where they are, who try to do the right thing, and the people who are making all the decisions are just ransacking and leading the government and treating federal workers like they are enemies, that they are not citizens, and that they should be attacked. And I take personal offense to that,” she said.
How sad that these stories are not only common, but more common than people think? I hold all these civil servants in my heart.
That must have been extremely stressful and frustrating to have to deal with. No way did your friend need that kind of stress. I hope she’s OK and recovering nicely. Take care.
All, thankfully, is well. Thank you for your kind words.
Thank you for writing. What a horrendous experience to go through. Sure, many agencies could stand some cuts for efficiency. But any needed cuts should be made with a scapal rather than a sledgehammer. And this was done with a sledgehammer. The attacks on DEI initiatives were the worst. Our administration seems obsessed with eliminating DEI initiatives at ALL costs, to the point of being ridiculous.
Thank you and exactly! When there is no method, we descend into madness.