Good Work If You Can Keep It

Before Trump dismantled the bureaucracy, working for the government was an honorable job

Recently laid-off State Department employees. Credit: Getty Images.

For many years, American public servants were celebrated for their altruism. Non-military government jobs were a good living, a steady paycheck, and a chance to contribute, to be a part of a greater good. My, how far we’ve fallen.

Today, the government, our democratically elected government, is driven by fear. It’s being used by the Republican Party to oppress Americans rather than raise them up. Just look to Chicago or Portland or Los Angeles as masked federal agents wield unchecked force, instill fear on our streets, and threaten some of our most vulnerable populations.

The president is using his power to openly, even gleefully, punish his perceived political foes, opposition donors, and anyone who threatens his agenda. And now we have hundreds of thousands of government workers who are in fear of losing their livelihoods permanently. The government shutdown has become yet another tool to help further his tactics of intimidation and control.

The Republicans control the White House and Congress. The Supreme Court is as good as a rubber stamp on Trump’s agenda. But somehow, the don’t-look-at-me party in power is blaming everyone but themselves for the shutdown.

And let us state it clearly: shutdowns matter. And this one is like none we’ve witnessed, because those serving the public are now pawns in a seemingly interminable political game. Our economy is about to get sucker-punched when all these workers fail to get paychecks.

At this point in our up-is-sideways, the-sky-is-green political reality, it is almost quaint to believe our elected officials should want to govern, never mind govern effectively. It used to be that no matter what letter was beside an elected official’s name, he or she wanted to be a part of a political system designed to improve the lives of their constituents. You might disagree with their means to that end, but the end was not in question.

The Republicans are no longer working toward that end. If their recent actions are any indication, they do not care about a majority of the electorate — they care about bestowing favor on America’s wealthy, privileged class, and that includes themselves and their families.

When they do manage to govern, they make staggering and dangerous mistakes. The administration had to walk back two big whoppers in recent days.

On Friday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the United States was building a Qatari Air Force facility at the Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho. After a not surprising hue and cry from both sides, he offered a clarification… on social media, “[T]o be clear, Qatar will not have their own base in the United States — nor anything like a base. We control the existing base, like we do with all partners,” he wrote.

Trump’s strategy to force an end to the government shutdown dovetails with his disdain for governing. He is making good on his threat of massive layoffs across the board, at the Department of Justice, the Office of Management and Budget, even the Department of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services.

On Saturday, the Trump administration fired hundreds of scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Accidentally. According to The New York Times, a “substantial procedural lapse” led to laying off leaders of the federal measles response team, doctors working to control an Ebola outbreak in Africa, and members of the epidemic intelligence services, among others. Within 24 hours, many had been recalled.

Those at the Department of Education weren’t as lucky. Trump’s March executive order and subsequent staff reductions all but closed the Department of Education. On Friday, he aimed to finish off the job, laying off almost 500 people, about 20% of the remaining staff. The new round of layoffs was mainly in the special education department, which will disproportionately affect the country’s most vulnerable students.

Over on Capitol Hill, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson had his own way of dealing with the shutdown: sending everyone home.

He did it, in part, to avoid seating the newest member of the House, Arizona Democrat Adelita Grijalva. She won a special election on September 23 in a landslide. Johnson doesn’t want to swear in Grijalva because she will be the final signature needed on a petition to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files. All roads seem to lead back to the Epstein files.

Johnson is more interested in protecting Trump, and whoever else is in those files, than he is in trying to end the government shutdown. Let’s be real— at least until billionaires’ private planes can’t take off due to a lack of air traffic controllers, Republicans are happy to let the shutdown continue.

Enter the Democrats, who have their first real opportunity to strategically challenge the president and the Republicans since Trump took office, again. They saw an opening and are choosing to fight rather than capitulate, as they have done before. And they chose what has been a winning strategy in the past, healthcare.

It is not a hard sell. If the subsidies are not extended most people who get health insurance through the Affordable Care Act will see their premiums skyrocket. An estimated 20 million people will lose coverage because they will no longer be able to afford it. Even a majority of MAGA Republicans want the Obamacare subsidies extended.

Some have argued that the Democrats should have demanded more than just subsidy extensions. Pick an outrage: inhumane immigration enforcement, obliteration of the Bill of Rights, taking food assistance away from millions of hungry children, etc. The mind boggles at the number of potential and righteous political battles to be fought

There are two big problems with forcing the administration to accept any curtailment of these policies. One, Trump is far less likely to accept a deal that contains any checks on his amassing power. And two, allowing Trump to own these very unpopular policy stances could help in the midterms.

While Republicans may not want to govern, or see the value in governing, the American people have grown accustomed to their government providing things like disaster relief, help for children with special needs, scientific expertise on infectious diseases, and government-backed student loans.

If Republicans in Congress are unwilling to or have no desire to provide even the minimum of services, more than a few of them may see themselves out of a job in 13 months.

The shutdown is not about blame or about winning or losing, and it shouldn’t be framed as such. Any government shutdown is a loss, period. It is a loss for federal workers and for the American people.

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Dan