Since Inauguration Day last week, Donald Trump has been trying to do everything, everywhere, all at once, and none of it good. He vowed to reclassify tens of thousands of civil servants as political appointees serving at the will of the president (and vowed to fire many of them). He sent to Capitol Hill for cabinet confirmations a parade of hardline ideologues whose unifying characteristics seem to be their lack of experience for the role, character flaws that would have been immediately disqualifying in any other era, and/or disdain for fulfilling the basic functions of the department they’ve been nominated to lead. And on Monday of this week, he suddenly and chaotically halted all federal grantmaking.

On Wednesday, Robert Kennedy Jr. testified at hearings for his nomination to head Health and Human Services, a department he appeared to know very little about. A social media post called Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail 2024 recounted Kennedy’s arrival at the hearing: “Robert F. Kennedy Jr. walked into his Senate confirmation hearing like a man stepping onto an ice rink wearing banana peels for shoes. He had one job: convince the world that he was not a bug-eyed conspiracy theorist who once hoarded a whale head and left a bear carcass in Central Park.” Kennedy couldn’t recall whether he said Lyme disease was “a militarily engineered bioweapon,” but said he probably had. He didn’t recall saying pesticides turn children transgender, but he didn’t rule it out, either.

Following forceful grilling from Senators Sanders, Wyden, and Warren, RFK Jr. finished the first day of his hearing seeming like a wounded animal—the kind of wounded animal that might end up in the cargo hold of a van driven by RFK Jr.

On the same day these Senators were standing up to the Trump administration, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees and the American Federation of Government Employees filed suit against the Trump administration’s effort to politicize the civil service through executive orders.

This week, Democratic Governors called on Senators to fight even harder against Trump.

Also this week, nonprofits, labor unions, political activists, and everyday citizens fought back, and the freeze on federal funds was rescinded, throwing the Trump momentum off course.

Outside of Washington, a cadre of National Parks workers have formed the Alt National Park Service, which they call “The official “Resistance” team of U.S. National Park Service,” “to stand up for the National Park Service to help protect and preserve the environment for present and future generations.” There are countless other civil servants  across all areas of the federal government equally dedicated to their jobs, and to resisting Trump’s extremist agenda. Federal workers appear to have found their anger, and are digging in.

The pushback has begun and people everywhere are joining the fight. No one thinks it’s going to be easy, but they are doing the work, the day-to-day work of democracy, the necessary work of the nation.

Jeff Hagan
Communications Director

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