Trump and Musk Have Created a New Kind of Opposition in Federal Workers
Posted on: Apr 05, 2025 16:30 IST | Posted by: Nytimes
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edgar albert guest Essay
By Micah L. Sifry
Mr. Sifry writes a newsletter about democracy, organizing and tech.
Ever since Donald Trump returned to the White House and turned Elon Musk’s chain saw on longstanding federal programs and agencies, Democratic voters have been asking: Where is the opposition?
Democrats are still furious at Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, for helping Mr. Trump keep the government open; many find the public style of Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader in the House, too buttoned-up to meet the moment. And while more Democratic politicians are jetting to town hall meetings and rallies, list-building and maneuvering to run for president in 2028 aren’t the same thing as organizing. Even Senator Cory Booker, who took to the Senate floor this week with a 25-hour speech, capped his heroic effort with a volley of texts and emails asking for money. That’s not how you build a movement.
Democrats have been looking for the next resistance in all the wrong places. Instead of waiting for some politician to say the right words and catch fire, they should look to the people who are already on fire: federal workers.
America’s 2.4 million civilian federal workers are, by their nature, generally patriotic and politically moderate. Nearly 30 percent of them are veterans. They all take an oath to defend the Constitution. Also, unlike many politicians from both parties who went to elite schools, are worth millions and have to talk about their parents’ or grandparents’ humble beginnings to claim a connection to their constituents, most federal workers are just like the people they serve: working and middle class.
All this makes them uniquely well positioned to lead a new kind of resistance — more mainstream and grounded than the last one, and powerful enough to mobilize millions of Americans under its banner.
It’s a truism that Americans do not realize how much good the federal government does in their lives. But now there’s an army spreading out to remind them. In March, off-duty park rangers led demonstrations in more than 100 locations, from Abraham Lincoln’s home to Zion National Park. Postal employees, who work for an independent federal agency and number about 635,000 nationwide, held similar rallies in more than 200 places.
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