Unfortunately, they will be replaced with those sympathetic to the nerd reich takeover and thus ultimately reduce friction and for those in charge looking to wield the wrecking ball. It feels like half the goal of DOGE and similar measures is to purge those with a conscience and loyalty to public service and replace them with those willing to do almost anything asked of them.
I think the idea is that they are some of the ones that know where all the procedures (and skeletons) are buried, so the DOGEkids will be slowed down because they'll be trying to examine and audit systems they don't understand.
The answer is the working class folks who voted for Trump?
The same answer applies to who will be hurt the most by tariffs.
Amazingly, lots of ordinary folks were hoodwinked into giving rich billionaires more control --- over themselves and their lives. Stupid is as stupid does.
Presumably, they already tried pushing back internally, and it didn't work. So they're resigning, publicly and loudly, which is the best available option.
As opposed to being fired though? I'm just spitballing here because I don't work there and don't know their workplace dynamic, but staying in the job and refusing to do the specific acts you find repugnant, forcing their boss to fire them, is another way to go about it. The precedent is set by county clerks refusing to sign marriage certificates for gay people despite the law explicitly saying that's allowed.
“We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the constitution across presidential administrations,” the 21 staffers wrote in a joint resignation letter, a copy of which was obtained by the Associated Press. “However, it has become clear that we can no longer honor those commitments.”
When a federal employee is directed to do things that they feel violate their oath to the constitution, they have a few choices: 1. Violate their oath, 2. Refuse to follow the directive, 3. Resign.
In my view resigning, especially a large coordinated resignation that receives at least some media attention, is often the best of those options.
They swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution from enemies foreign and domestic, 5 USC 3331. The oath is not to a president. If staffers think the administration is ordering them to conduct in illegalities, they're obligated to resign.
IANAL but that statute doesn't protect them from remaining in the job and actively thwarting the administration's policies even if they are illegal. There are whistleblower laws that might provide such protections. But as this regime has asserted the concept of the unitary executive, it's likely the case that whistleblower laws are in abeyance for the duration of the regime.
I still don't understand the question. Resignation because you don't feel you are able to fulfill the commitments of your job is a pretty standard way to publicly resign from some public service position in protest? There's probably a couple of hundred of years worth of examples.
Resigning in protest has been common over the years. Of course (like reading the TFA?). I don't see it being effective besides bringing attention to the problem. In this case, it's not like there isn't enough attention. There's already plenty of attention.
During the first Trump round, there seemed to be an effort to resist and obstruct from the inside. In some cases pretty effective. That also seems to be something Trump is trying to fight this time around. He noticed. Still an option.
A third method would be to remain in place, mitigate as possible, but mostly maintain the knowledge and experience in place to rebuild things at the next opportunity.
I'm sure more ways can be dug out from history too.
This is what you're missing. No there isn't. The more people who publicly pay a high personal cost to bring further attention to these problems, the more awareness there will be among the electorate.
The "effort to resist and obstruct from the inside" was largely driven from the top, cabinet officials and agency heads pushing back, not from people at the edges ignoring or countermanding direction.
It's not misleading. The article states they were originally USDS employees. Nonetheless when DOGE came into being, it became the USDS and changed its name, therefore all those USDS employees are DOGE employees and are resigning from DOGE not the USDS (which no longer exists). So the article is correct.
The misleading detail on the holdovers, the lack of acknowledgment that these people are just not doing their job, the lack of context on how big or small 21 is - all of it is intentional. The outlets that run these stories, like the guardian, and the people who work at them, have a bias.
