When in the course of American events it becomes evident that the federal government has grown too large, too bloated, and too powerful, it is necessary to reform said government to protect the safety and autonomy of the people. It becomes especially necessary when people are warning that the fired federal employees could use the skills they learned at toppling foreign governments against their own.
This idea came to fruition in the last election, when the American people said “enough” to the wanton spending and politicization of the federal government. This has led to much-needed reductions in force and funding for programs that are not performing well enough for the American people, such as at the State Department, the Department of Health and Human Services, and others. It has also led to blatant political theater by the so-called “Resistance” in their relentless quest to garner sympathy from the American people so they can undermine their will.
The over-the-top videos of now-former employees crying on their way out of the government’s ever-spinning revolving door are, themselves, a problem, but they belie two greater issues. First is the politicization of the State Department that plays semantic games with charged terms like “fascism,” and the second, and real threat, is of angry former employees using their skills to undermine the change we voted for in November. (RELATED: The Rise Up Legal Defense Network Is About Obstruction, Not Justice)
As I’m sure many of us have read on social media, departing State Department employees left signs encouraging the remaining staff to “resist fascism” in their roles while receiving a “clap out” for leaving their taxpayer-paid jobs. While the signs are a lazy, last-minute middle finger to the Trump administration and the American people who duly elected them (and rely on the left’s tired trope of calling everything they disagree with “fascist”), they are a symptom of an overall problem in the federal government: self-important and self-absorbed individuals looking to preserve their jobs by any means necessary. (RELATED: As Trump’s Federal Layoffs Continue, Critics Miss This Crucial Point.)
Additionally, these same signs included a supposedly ominous leftist warning that these State Department career bureaucrats have been “just released” alongside “hundreds of their colleagues into the wild.” These wailings are nothing more than the prattling of drones who are headed to a cushy, left-leaning think tank job or another six-figure salary now that they are no longer on the taxpayer’s payroll. You would think that this would give these individuals the opportunity to drop the political pretense, but this behavior will likely only continue from their perches in the private sector.
If anyone truly has this inclination, then they are unworthy of the honor of serving the American people.
Make no mistake: the layoffs at the State Department and across the federal government are about accountability and streamlining the government, not a fascist crackdown fever dream by Beltway individuals who have spent so little time in the private sector they probably think it’s a bar name. (RELATED: Serving the Servants: Ending ‘Stakeholder’ Government)
Their ”resistance” against the American people’s mandate alone shows these now-former unelected bureaucrats were out of touch with those they served and are willing to attempt to deface the ship on their way off. The cries of “fascism” and reductio ad Hitlerum arguments against the State Department layoffs (as well as several other Trump administration moves, and the administration in general) both belittle the history of the murderous Nazi regime that slaughtered six million Jews alongside millions of other people and prove these are just theater kid LARPers who are afraid to get a job that requires them to not take extended lunches on the taxpayer’s time.
These individuals’ reaction to losing their jobs is not only unprofessional but also shows that they probably shouldn’t have been serving in the federal government in the first place. Hopefully, these outbursts are just bluster as they have been in the past. Still, whether they’re writing more-in-sorrow op-eds for legacy publications or chanting along in anti-MAGA marches, these former unelected bureaucrats will be around trying to “save” the democracy they abused within their governmental positions.
READ MORE:
The Rise Up Legal Defense Network Is About Obstruction, Not Justice
As Trump’s Federal Layoffs Continue, Critics Miss This Crucial Point.
A ‘War’ on the Civil Service or Controlling a Powerful Union Political Machine?
Houston Keene joined Democracy Restored after a career working in Congress and as a nationally syndicated journalist covering politics, including the executive branch and government ethics. Houston was born in Austin, Texas, and is a proud father, husband, and Baylor Bear.
