Should I be looking for a different job?
Yes.
Schindler couldn’t do it alone.
If you quit another will take your place. Possibly a conservative. You’d do more good holding that seat than giving it up.
What is the difference between a rebel and a revolutionary?
A plan?
Maybe, but I think it may also be possible they mean the same thing but from different perspectives or maybe whether you are willing to cross some line like dying or killing for a cause. There was a disagreement around 100 years ago when WW2 ended between philosophers Sartre and Camus about how to be free and whether violence and murder can be justified for political goals. Camus supported the French in WW2 but did not support political violence outside of war, in The Rebel he rejects revolutionary violence as it undermines/betrays yourself and is utopian and absolutist. Sartre thought violence could be justified for the right cause like communism to build and maintain a system for justice and freedom until it was obvious the tankies had taken over during the revolution reaction in Hungary. Sartre became an apologist for Soviet revolutionary violence until '56 and Camus was an advocate for nonviolent rebellion. I don’t know what the answer is or if there is one.
The answers to both of your questions are probably yes it’s okay, and yes you should probably be looking for another job.
Are you morally/ethically okay with your agency’s mission? With your role in it? If you are, then the new administration’s policies may not be reason enough to leave. You pretty much have to work somewhere. If the answer is no, you probably would have already been looking for another job.
Should you be looking for another job? Probably, depending on what your agency is and it’s mission. If TFG and Project2025 have their way, many federal government agencies will be defunded and/or privatized, and pretty much toothless when it comes to enforcement. We already saw what happened to the EPA under the first Trump administration. If yours is in danger of that you should be preparing a backup plan. I wouldn’t want to give up a government job, but I would want to be ready if I got RIF’d, or if I got fed up with the bullshit.The resistance infiltrating the enemy base in disguise can get a lot of work done. Especially if it’s long term and you don’t even need to sneak around.
Even just a low level functionary who’s not a nazi or a terrible person makes my time dealing with a government agency better. There’s not an automatic moral imperative to bounce.
You work for the government, not for whatever yoyo happens to be President at any given time. You wouldn’t necessarily leave a private sector job if the CEO changed.
OTOH, this administration has been making a point of wanting to make government so small they can drown it in the bathtub. Unless you work in one of the very few Project 2025 priorities, they will probably eliminate your job eventually. So keep a keen eye out for alternatives.
I’d leave my job if Musk would become CEO at my job.
Bro I may sabotage it until I get dismissed and use that insider information to short his stock. See how elmo likes being on the losing end of stock manipulation.
No one can answer that question but you.
Of course. But one can hope for insight and help in answering it, no?
Maybe you should leave the country if it upsets you that much
That’s not out of the question yet.
Just leave! Hit da bricks! Who cares what you need to leave behind, emigrating is super easy anyway. Just decide to go, every country in the world would love to have another American within their borders.
A few months ago a german activist (I think it was Arne Semsrot) wrote a book about how low and middle positions in government agencies can work against the governments intentions in case of a extreme right wing takeover by the AFD. Though I don’t know, if it was translated to english or would be 1 to 1 applicable to the USA.
Yes it is - you can continue to do good in the ways you can manage.
Until they get purged for not towing the party line.
Better to do the work they can to help until they’re forced out.
Hopefully they are financially stable and have good enough job prospects to just be able to find a new job of equal pay in their area fairly quickly on a timetable of ‘i have no idea when i am going to be blacklisted’.
Also - government jobs often have to offer severance for non-performance related termination.
No quit
I know this is cliche as hell, but only you are going to be familiar enough with your position to be able to know if you can effect change, prevent harm, or if your labor won’t be able to do much but perpetuate things you stand against. Id wager it wouldn’t happen all at once, but eventually you may see a red line you don’t want to cross. Use the time you have now to keep an eye out for a job listing that looks like a Cinderella slipper, and if you start seeing that red line coming up before that happens, then start to seriously consider whatever offers you can find that seem workable to you.
See if you can gum up the works, and if you feel yourself changing, get out.
We need people like you to resist when you feel like it’s the right thing to do. You took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution from enemies foreign and domestic. As cringe as it may sound, we need you and others like you to do that now more than ever…because there is an obvious threat.
I work for the USPS. We took an oath to the constitution and it’s very easy to understand why. The Postal Service is a necessary component of democracy as long as it remains true to what its supposed to be, which is a pipeline of information between any two points in the world. We can debate the legitimacy of that need after the internet, but there are vital services the USPS provides that the internet can’t.
I don’t like the direction things are going, but i still want to be a part of that. All i can do is make sure the mail I get is getting where it’s supposed to be.
If you believe in what you do and that’s important to you, then stick it out. If it’s not, then that’s fine, but you may want to get out for your mental health.
Thank you for your service
Haha, i never served and this is just a job. It just happens to be one that i feel has some contribution to democracy and i try to hold on to that.
Thanks, though, if this isn’t meant in jest.
You’re a public servant. That’s cool
Delivering the mail is every bit - if not more - important than killing foreigners for oil
Drag doesn’t know how they do things in America, but in drag’s country, the post is full of spam. No decent person uses it, it’s all just corporations and politicians trying to advertise. It’s a vector for capitalism to inject more BS into our lives. On that ground drag opposes the existence of the post office. It would be okay if they had controls against abuse of the system, but they don’t.
drag opposes the existence of the post office.
If speaking in the 3rd person didn’t show the caliber of mind you’re working with “opposing the existence of the post office” definitely would.
Thank you. That’s a very considered response.
