I honestly don’t think Americans understand how much their day to day lives depend on federal civil servants and now is the time for professional commentators to write op-eds explaining
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I think most Americans don't understand much about how the federal government and it's servants impacts their day-to-day lives, myself included. Rude awakening coming soon
A big problem is that a majority of people won’t know what they’ve lost until it’s long gone. Systems will atrophy, slow down, quit working eventually. Reagan did this to mental health care. Most people had no idea. Still don’t. Until, god forbid, they need it.
We need a lot more educational pieces or short public service documentaries. There are too many op-eds that are just opinion pieces. There is so much people should understand. They don't even know what a tariff is. Yikes.
Most Americans don’t understand that the water coming from their taps does not kill their children because of the expertise of government civil servants. That grifting cunt, Robert kennedy, is inviting cholera, diphtheria and all sorts of other water bourne diseases back into the family home
They absolutely don't. Anyone happy about DT shutting down Ed because they think it's hurting their kids is clueless. And each state is supposed to "take care of" what Ed's been doing — no one knows what that means. Also, with what money? My state cannot accept direct fed appropriations.
So true! I think moving some government agencies out of DC (as the R have proposed) could perhaps help with that. It would give more visibility to the work of civil servants in other parts of the country. UK has been doing this too.
They are HQ’d in DC because that’s the seat of government, but a lot of people are teleworkers or based in the myriad federal buildings around the country. Patent officers are all telework, for example.
“Only 15 percent of the 2.19 million civilian full-time federal employees in the United States work in the Washington metro area …The other 85 percent work elsewhere around the country.”
This doesn't make any kind of sense. Do you know that federal employees are disproportionately Black? Black people are going to be the ones who are finding out
The Murican people voted or didn't vote or voted otherwise. I feel sorry I hate this for them. But nothing I can do even with family & friends in fed. 🤷🏾♀️
At the very least you could refrain from being glib about the fact that these people are being attacked baselessly, or about the incredible harm that will come to the nation and especially to Black communities if nearly a million of us lose career employment at once because of fascist machinations.
This Black woman is tapped out after doing her #Blackjob nationally. Focusing my energies on my local county as a school board advisory member and my local community to regroup. There is hope there. 🤷🏾♀️🙂✊🏾
They won't read them. They don't care. Until it hits them in the wallet, they will not listen. And the hitting in the wallet will commence in 6 mos. I hope by the mid-terms they are crying for relief.
Professional commentators?? Like real journalists? Ha now that made me giggle. The only real journalist I can think of besides my @meidasmighty and DanRather
I fear that some of those op-eds, if they come from establishment newspapers, are gonna be full of “and that’s why they were so useless, anyway” (… with an old Victorian grumpy voice for extra gusto) 😥😔🤦🏽♂️
I *was* part of the government until I retired. I supported internal and public websites for an agency. My late father was an engineer and inventor for the Navy. We Feds do all kinds of work for our fellow citizens.
Absolutely! These are the people who make the things happen. Chief execs may or may not have any idea what the role of the agency even is, but there's going to be a person in a cubicle in that agency who can work miracles.
I mean, I have a trans son (who is ok with me saying this) and the employees in social security and passport offices could have made it hard for us or easy. Thankfully they chose easy but these microcosmic power-holders matter so much.
That people I know in the South voted against "Big Government" despite "Big Government" keeping their states from being absolute wastelands tells you exactly how much they don't understant how things work.
This book shows how crucial the civil service is to our day-to-day lives and how Trump’s efforts to undermine it in his first term could have been disastrous.
There are a great many things most Americans don't understand.
Unfortunately most of those same Americans don't read OP-eds. And those that do aren't going to be able to tell a good opinion from a batsht crazy one.
And even if they did, the election is in the rear-view mirror.
I feel like professional commentators got here in the first place. As a Fed worker I promise they tried doing this in the first term. They started by gutting Fed labor union powers, Covid detailed any further plans, but they are hell bent on finishing.
They’ve no clue how intertwined their daily lives are with the govt They think everyone is a “rugged individualist”(a myth)and everything from the safe food, drinking water & drugs just happens all by itself. Just wait until the incompetent shit hits the fan with the sycophants running things
Do you suggest we each deliver our own mail or process our own passport renewals? Inspect meat packing plants and nuclear reactors so we aren’t dependent on others to do those jobs?
Maybe they want us to create our own airplane tracking processes, or at least each airport to do it individually and without communication about weather, or from other airports, as guidance.
Nobody reads op-eds. Nobody reads news papers. While, sure, these things should be done they won't do anything by themselves. They need to be put in front of people's faces and held there. Use pictures and 3rd grade reading level.
The Federal bureaucracy with a profession civil service is something most Americans will not miss until it's gone. Of all of the off the wall SCOTUS decisions last term Loper-Bright presents a threat to health and safety every day. When those protections are gone people will ask what happened.
I am a low level Federal employee but that being said we are the backbone of the Government. Most agencies are top heavy but it is those of us in the trench who do the heavy lifting. I am worried about what is coming.
It’s genuinely scary. I’m glad my husband just retired from his civil service job. Also the Trumpists within were starting to make things difficult if you had alternative views even without knowing your political biases. If you were against anything remotely Trump-like it was difficult.
I live in a deep red Tennessee so I completely understand that. My only saving grace is the guys I work with everyday are Anti Cult also. I stopped trying to make friends at work in 2016. I have a long time till I can retire if that is even gonna be an option in the future.
Let’s hope for the best although I am worried. My husband’s last 2 bosses were Trumpers and even project that he was working on became difficult because he didn’t put the Trump side of things on it. In one instance he was working as a historian for the department of the army.
lol. My teens today made me watch TikTok’s on Balkan rage, winter arc, noradrenaline, still water, German state, and put the phone down this is for my safety.
And my 15 year old says he doesn’t even go to TikTok now bec they’re all cross posted to Instagram.
You're absolutely right. I dread what is coming. But most Americans are oblivious. Some won't even realize what has happened. Hete, I should include "before it's too late". But it is already too late!
This is what my wife does! It's so true! Also, the local office that matters the most is probably Drain Commissioner, if you have an election for that.
More op-eds won’t fix the erosion of trust in media. We need unbiased reporting, not opinions on what the truth should be. Trust is rebuilt when outlets focus on accuracy and fairness, not shaping perspectives.
lol oh yes, the left totally didn't get its shit pushed in because of a lack of preachy op-eds from completely disconnected idiots. If only another "professional" liar had set things straight!
Do you think the kind of person who blindly wants to defund important government departments is going to read an op-ed? Conservatives have been taught to hate the government. Their leaders want to defund the government and transfer state responsibilities to the 'free' market or the church.
It reminds me of that story about a husband who came home from work to find the house a disaster; dirty dishes & laundry, toys all over the house, empty food shelves, no dinner etc. He asks wife "what happened" and she responds "remember when you asked what do you do all day, today I didn't do it".
Are there books about this? I’d love to read more about it. I mean, I know, but having that more in-depth knowledge and stories would definitely boost what I know already.
mom is retired, but she did almost 30 years of service. she came home with the most horrible stories about what employers do to their employees. she worked in wage & hour, recovering lost wages for people. a lot of people don’t know how much soul is put into their work as a civil servant.
The idea that civil servants have to be noble, extra hard workers is stupid. If they show up and do a mediocre job, the job is still getting done. If they aren’t there, the job doesn’t get done at all.
That's not the way to look at it. Rather, if the civil servants would not do their job, it would incentivize a private actor to do the job - which would entail competition, thus driving efficiency. Thus it is reasonable to demand hard workers from civil servants OR open markets with competition.
These services aren't profitable. Sometimes, the fed's job is oversight of private actors. If you want to demand hard workers, you could try paying them competitively?
I agree, not all can be privatized and shouldn't. Your example of the oversight functions is a great one - that should definitely be public. However, I would argue that in that particular area, the workers (who oversight) should be hard workers (and yes, well compensated for it).
Private sector could never be incentivized to provide many services provided by public sector because the public value provided is not profitable. The OPs point was that civil servants shouldn’t be expected to work harder or be paid less than others because they work in public sector.
In a free market if one does not get enough salary on one job, they should switch to the job they get enough. And if it requires more education the worker now have an incentive to study or build experience on lower paid jobs. This in theory at least. So I agree they shouldn't put up with lower wages
The same thing we saw during Covid with medical staff: your career makes you a hero. Heroes don’t ask for fair pay, time off, or even safe working conditions.
If you don’t live up to being a selfless hero, then you must be a villain and can be discarded.
100% and as someone in a public sector union, the idea that civil servants have to be noble, extra hard workers is just an idea used to exploit us. Like why pay overtime for labor we “should” be doing anyways out of duty?
Like, all the staff, both career librarians and not, in public libraries everywhere, especially in so-called red states! They face abuse and death threats just for doing their jobs.
You may think firing federal employees is a DC problem but the person who delivers your mail is a federal employee. 85% of federal employees live outside the DC metro. In many places, they are around 10% or more of the local workforce. #giftlink
They also don’t watch to teach critical race theory because the more the kids know about the history of slavery the more likely they won’t want history to repeat itself and it will be less likely for them to stand up for the black community.
They hate funding public schools cause they want the “poor kids” to be less educated while the wealthy kids go to private schools and receive top education. Keeps the middle and lower class down while the wealthy kids contribute to his agenda.
The nonpartisan civil service is one of the great 19th c. accomplishments. Civil servants do SO MUCH, most of it absolutely necessary for the country to function.
There is so much uncertainty regarding federal employment now. Even if your agency isn’t one of the ones they said, they will shut down, major reductions in the workforce for every federal agency are possible
Even when there’s a temporary government shut down due to the budget, everybody freaks out because they’re not getting services and the federal employees aren’t getting paid
I know. It's going to hurt the economy and lead to a recession. It will lead to job losses in the service industries. It just ripples outward like a rock in a pond. It will be worse when they overturn the ACA. Unemployment is going to be high.
This. They think it will hurt bureacrats. Well guess what, our economy here in the DMV sustains the economies in PA, WV, DE. People from those states drive here everyday to their jobs in the DMV, from hvac to plumbing to fire depts etc etc. And lots of those ppl voted Trump. They’re gonna find out.
That deep red in northern California is Susanville, tiny place with a large federal prison. What are the odds that federal prison employees will lose their jobs? Actually, what are the odds that anyone in T's proposed administration has thought about this?
Jan 20
he will take an "oath" to
preserve, protect and defend
the Constitution of the United States
which
he has already SWORN to violate
HOW DOES THIS WORK ?
No one left to defend TRUTH ?
Hate to put it this way, but hard experiences create hard lessons. Many voters, however unwittingly, voted for hard experiences and they will get them. Then, they will learn the hard lessons.
Project 25 aims to gut the Veterans Administration of “nonessential personnel.” But these MAGAnuts don’t have the expertise to determine such a thing as nonessential. So they’ll just fire willy-nilly. And
The MAGAnuts plan to make it much more difficult to receive benefits.
Oh, it'll be "challenging" for sure. Not just the huge hit to local economies, but the inability of the federal government to fulfill its obligations. Good thing Elon Musk won't be one of the ones to suffer. Whew.
Not just federal government employees - thousands of corporations and small businesses that provide work on federal government contracts. Huge negative domino effect.
I live in the DMV. Half of my clients are fed employees, they’re actuaries who calculate your pensions, they’re DoD employees who do security clearances for new hires, they’re accountants who make sure rich ppl ain’t cheating on their taxes, they’re prosthodontics who teach at NIH. To name a few.
And a lot of these highly educated and qualified people chose government work over private where they could have earned so much more for crazy reasons like honor to country or healthier work/life balance.
I guess the question is whether hurting many people will drive them to oppose GOP or further radicalize them. The GOP has bet pretty heavily on “the more you make people’s lives worse, the more they will back your extreme politics and your racism and xenophobia”.
It’s pretty wild to read about the post office during the spoils system. New President? New crony who moves the post office to his general store—hope you like walking 5 miles over a mountain ridge to get there!
Over 200 million federal employees. Unemployment, less consumerism and will be in need of services to provide food, housing. But that will be taking funding away for that too
The nightmare to me is the Dept of Energy and their mission to contain uranium waste from permeating our watersheds.
I had no idea--I read it in a book called The Fifth Risk.
Almost 5000 people have liked this post and over 900 have reshared it, so it turns out writing something, even a small little op-ed in the shape of a BSky post, or a thread about it, matters. 🥰
Wow. It’s so frightening to think their jobs may be at risk. This new administration is really scary. I wish we could do something to stop this train wreck from happening.
A very sad thing all but impossible to say “out loud” w/out pissing off the masses but roughly 80-90% of Americans are functionality idiotic at best. They may know their job well enough to keep it but they know nothing else of value to them as voters. American Ignorance is the most deadly plague.
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https://www.statista.com/statistics/204535/number-of-governmental-employees-in-the-us/
and suffers from it
there’s a USA national shortage on IV fluids right now because hurricane Helene took out the plant that provides 60% of our fluids
we often have to suffer through shortages and slow response times and beurocracy
C.C @hcrichardson.bsky.social
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/09/27/where-do-federal-employees-live/
that’s the problem.
21% are illiterate.
DM if you like
Unfortunately most of those same Americans don't read OP-eds. And those that do aren't going to be able to tell a good opinion from a batsht crazy one.
And even if they did, the election is in the rear-view mirror.
https://wwnorton.com/books/The-Fifth-Risk/
We are too dependent on others
And my 15 year old says he doesn’t even go to TikTok now bec they’re all cross posted to Instagram.
Sorry but elections have consequences, sweaty!
6th grade level.
Trump got IQ of 72.
Do the math
Civil servants aka useless paper pushers.
I do what I do because pursuit of profit is not a concern. My only concern is the US Warfighter. Do you think Raytheon mgmt shares that belief?
If you don’t live up to being a selfless hero, then you must be a villain and can be discarded.
And what Anna said above about the nobility conferred on public service is probably also why "thank you for your service" feels so cringe.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/09/27/where-do-federal-employees-live/
Passports
Regulations of all kinds
Funding for highways & transit
Funding for ports
Funding for education
Etc etc etc
Jan 20
he will take an "oath" to
preserve, protect and defend
the Constitution of the United States
which
he has already SWORN to violate
HOW DOES THIS WORK ?
No one left to defend TRUTH ?
The MAGAnuts plan to make it much more difficult to receive benefits.
Schedule F will harm the national economy as well as health and safety.
https://www.marketplace.org/2024/10/31/schedule-f-political-appointees-federal-workforce-bls/
Do you get mail every day? That’s a federal civil servant delivering it
I had no idea--I read it in a book called The Fifth Risk.
but cleaving entire swaths of employees? that would be devastating and no one is addressing the severity of it.
https://bsky.app/profile/chanda.bsky.social/post/3lb5i6gce7u2k
Congress knows everything will just stop if Federal employees are just let go.
Everything that has been threatened is going to impact their own constituents and their own state's bottom line.