Do Not Go Gentle Federal Workers

I will never judge, but can only ask. Federal workers, do not go gentle into that good night. Rage against the dying of the People’s light.

Rage because a monstrous abomination, midwifed years ago by Ronald Reagan, now tears at the very notion that we, as a people, may perfect our union. The cruelty and disregard you endure today is meant, not just to drive you from federal employ, but to destroy the very essence of public service and discourage others from ever joining. Trump and his masters desire a country unregulated and unable to protect anyone but the privileged. They seek accomplices in federal service, and aim to cast out anyone who actually respects their oath of office and cares for anyone or anything outside the ruling junta.

Trump and MAGA acolytes now force you into tragic dilemmas and subject you to terrible abuse. Ending work from home for those who once balanced caregiving with public duty. Imperiling pensions for workers counting months from eligibility left in constant worry if they can survive until dignified retirement. Snatching the livelihood from both spouses in a family who had the now misfortune to meet at work and fall in love. Destroying programs built through decades of constant, rewarding labor, then allowing only 15 minutes to clean out an office of 30 years. Trampling hard-won childhood dreams of protecting our environment at the Forest Service or reaching for the stars with NASA. And just committing permutations of so many other sins that exceed space here to describe.

Apartheid Afrikaner-friendly Elon Musk, who would sooner get his labor from an auction block than treat any worker with dignity and respect, is just one manifestation of deeply rooted evils in our country. Without a union contract, private sector workers have no rights on the job. They are guilty until proven innocent and have to establish an employer discriminated before any reinstatement or laid them off instead of firing to receive unemployment benefits. What Trump, Musk and their ilk want is a federal workforce they can treat as arbitrarily and callously as in their private sector. Just people who will serve as cogs in their kleptocracy and nothing more—or be fired for resisting.

What drives these perpetrators mad is you swore an oath to the constitution. An oath little different than for military service. The entire notion of civil service is it benefits the People by honoring the constitution and U.S. law first. The bureaucracy must follow lawful directives of an administration, that is how a democracy actually can do work everyday. The cruel existential challenge now is Trump demands you abandon your oath, years of training, and the people you serve to blindly follow him, or lose your livelihood and pension.

It is said Dylan Thomas wrote this poem to exhort his father to live, not pass into the night of death. There is little anyone may do when another faces what can only be faced alone—encourage, assure, but nothing more. All I can say to a federal worker reading this is that Trump wants the principled to leave so the vacuum can be filled with MAGA. Instead, make the bastards fire you. Work to rule. Be sand in the cogs. Rage against the dying of the People’s light.

Federal workers have much at risk today and my concerns are not staked near as high as yours. Everyone must balance their obligations and I would not judge any decision—except those of enthusiastic collaborators. I do call on the balance us, not in federal employ, those who care for democracy and respect our civil service, to affirm we will all contribute our utmost to restore as much as possible to every worker injured by the Trump administration as they endure its calamity. While every injurty cannot be repaired, but, as workers keep to the light, we all must commit to finding you through the dark and repel this attack on our democracy.