I’m so angry that I can’t see straight. I had conversations with so many trump supporters about things that he said he would do if elected. I did not get one response in return that said, whoa, maybe I should look into this further. Every single person said, he’s not really going to do that, he only says it to get you liberals riled up b…
I’m so angry that I can’t see straight. I had conversations with so many trump supporters about things that he said he would do if elected. I did not get one response in return that said, whoa, maybe I should look into this further. Every single person said, he’s not really going to do that, he only says it to get you liberals riled up because it’s so easy to do. They said, only the “bad” immigrants will be deported. He’s not going after abortion rights, he’s concerned about the price of groceries and gas. He doesn’t want to stop people from voting, only the ones who are fraudulent. Etc, etc, etc.. This is the caliber of people we are dealing with. I wish the blue states could be absorbed into Canada. The United States is an embarrassment and a joke and the people who voted for don have no character or morals.
The alarm bell that rang the loudest for me was back in September, when 111 former national security officials from Republican administrations and former Republican members of Congress, drafted a letter outlining why they would not be endorsing Trump.
While I understand frustration and a desire for change, I will never comprehend how some truly believe that they know more than decorated generals, foreign policy officials, former secretaries of state and defense etc.. Educated, experienced, dedicated professionals (who were in the trenches with him the first time around) take the time to issue a warning- outlining their observations and concerns, but so-and-so dons a hat and purports to know more.
This is very well said Nicole, and I will also never comprehend how the opinions of such dedicated public servants (not to mention the lack of support from the extremely conservative former Vice President) are simply brushed aside. It is very confusing to me.
I also have the same questions about the rhetoric around “bureaucrats” (which has become a slur it seems) - many bureaucrats hold their positions because they’ve invested immense time and energy into becoming experts on a specific topic, and often topics that serve the public good (healthcare, transportation, food safety, etc), but yet some would have us believe they’re all lazy, corrupt, freeloaders - where is the intellectual humility?
My feeling is that evisceration is quite simply far less cumbersome than introspection or consideration.
In much the same way that I find hypocrisy to be akin to sleight of hand. Insidious. Trick the eye and there follows the mind. Trick the mind and there follow the beliefs.
Unfortunately, neither of these are optimal conditions for humility to flourish.
This has not been my experience. While some federal employees certainly are wonderful, dedicated servants, others ARE incredibly lazy freeloaders with poor job performance. The difference between private and public sector is it can be EXTREMELY difficult to terminate anyone employed directly by the federal government. I work in patient care (an area where you'd think high quality work is required, no?) and have sounded alarm bells about an employee who downright refused to do his job properly. The response I received: "no one can make him do his job." He continued to collect a paycheck until retirement, and yes, he was a proud and loud Democrat.
Anecdotal evidence is just that though. There are plenty of poor performing Republican public sector employees as well. And while it's difficult to terminate an employee it's not impossible. It doesn't mean we need to eliminate entire agencies to get rid of a few bad apples. That seems like poor management as well.
While I just included one example, I could list many more. I had a conversation with my coworker about this very thing no less than an hour ago. Her words: "GS employees are allowed to get away with murder." I agree with you that anecdotal evidence is not necessarily indicative of a larger problem, but this trend has held true between the two government organizations where I've worked. These stereotypes exist for a reason. "Good enough for government work."
Hey, your experience sounds challenging. However, I just don’t know if firing ALL federal workers is the solution (and I do believe the intent is to fire the majority of them). A bit “throwing the baby out with the bath water” in my opinion, especially considering the enormous harm done to good workers, their families, the communities and business their salaries support. I don’t think anyone on the left is against reduction of waste, better investment of government dollars and in fact, I don’t think anyone on the left wants bad government employees to be un-fireable (as a lefty I desperately want good, effective programs to succeed and ineffective ones to be canceled). I take issue with the blanket rhetoric that bureaucrats are bad and government spending is inherently bad.
I'm very sorry you've worked for two poorly managed government organizations. While I have experienced a few bad apples overall that has not been my experience at all. The people I have worked with have been hard workers who care about their jobs and the work they do.
This is the caliber of people we are dealing with?
"If your party overwhelmingly comprises the federal bureaucracy, you hold onto the levers of power even through electoral losses. This has been the story of The Democrats for my entire life. It's also the best explanation for the Democrats' current desperation and hysteria." - Abigail Shrier
I don’t understand this comment. Can you explain? How does the Democratic party comprise the federal bureaucracy? Where is the evidence that Americans holding federal jobs are all Democrats?
It’s also worth nothing the republican party has been cutting gov jobs for sometime. Most of us that have dedicated our career to civil service and understand its value, aren’t going to give money to a party that doesn’t believe is us or our work.
Of course they're not all Democrats and there's no way to know definitively, but just follow the money. Upward of 95% of all political donations from federal employees are to Democrat candidates.
Can you share your source? I found an article mentioning 95% of donations going to Hillary Clinton in 2016, but in 2020 it was only 60% to Biden. The same source says 84% to Kamala Harris in 2024. How many donated? Is it 84% of 20% of the workforce or 84% of 100% of the workforce? The n matters.
If I am understanding Kayla’s comments correctly between this thread and the thread in the “Is Bipartisanship Dead?” article, this is the link she shared to support her claim:
I asked for clarification because I truly don’t understand it, but I never received a response. I’d really appreciate an explanation because I am genuinely curious.
Thanks for sharing. The numbers in that do not make sense to me with regard to the percentages listed. For example, in 2024 if the total is over 2.6 million given but Dems gave 96.39% why does it say Dems accounted for about 800K. 96% = 2.5 million. Regardless, if you have a workforce of 100,000, and 100 gave $ and all that $ went to Dems then you might think all federal workers support Dems. In reality 1% of the workforce supported Dems. The n matters a lot, and the source doesn’t share how many individuals the $ amount represents. Therefore, one cannot conclude anything about the political affiliation of the workforce. If we want to play the game of follow the $ we could take a deep dive into Elon Musk. That would tell us a lot.
We can extrapolate this data in the same way we use small sample sizes in political polling. I firmly disagree we "cannot conclude anything." Does it mean 96% of the federal workforce is liberal? No. But, even from your own research, you found most donations go to Democrat candidates. In what way could we possibly conclude the federal workforce is majority conservative when all available evidence suggests otherwise?
I did not say or imply it was majority conservative. If it was 60/40 for Biden is it all Dems? We can’t say that either. Maybe the Dem leaning ones like to give $ and the R leaning ones don’t. Your original message painted the federal workforce with a broad brush as all Dem. I still don’t see good evidence to support that claim.
I’m so angry that I can’t see straight. I had conversations with so many trump supporters about things that he said he would do if elected. I did not get one response in return that said, whoa, maybe I should look into this further. Every single person said, he’s not really going to do that, he only says it to get you liberals riled up because it’s so easy to do. They said, only the “bad” immigrants will be deported. He’s not going after abortion rights, he’s concerned about the price of groceries and gas. He doesn’t want to stop people from voting, only the ones who are fraudulent. Etc, etc, etc.. This is the caliber of people we are dealing with. I wish the blue states could be absorbed into Canada. The United States is an embarrassment and a joke and the people who voted for don have no character or morals.
The alarm bell that rang the loudest for me was back in September, when 111 former national security officials from Republican administrations and former Republican members of Congress, drafted a letter outlining why they would not be endorsing Trump.
While I understand frustration and a desire for change, I will never comprehend how some truly believe that they know more than decorated generals, foreign policy officials, former secretaries of state and defense etc.. Educated, experienced, dedicated professionals (who were in the trenches with him the first time around) take the time to issue a warning- outlining their observations and concerns, but so-and-so dons a hat and purports to know more.
It would be humorous if it weren’t so tragic.
This is very well said Nicole, and I will also never comprehend how the opinions of such dedicated public servants (not to mention the lack of support from the extremely conservative former Vice President) are simply brushed aside. It is very confusing to me.
I also have the same questions about the rhetoric around “bureaucrats” (which has become a slur it seems) - many bureaucrats hold their positions because they’ve invested immense time and energy into becoming experts on a specific topic, and often topics that serve the public good (healthcare, transportation, food safety, etc), but yet some would have us believe they’re all lazy, corrupt, freeloaders - where is the intellectual humility?
My feeling is that evisceration is quite simply far less cumbersome than introspection or consideration.
In much the same way that I find hypocrisy to be akin to sleight of hand. Insidious. Trick the eye and there follows the mind. Trick the mind and there follow the beliefs.
Unfortunately, neither of these are optimal conditions for humility to flourish.
This has not been my experience. While some federal employees certainly are wonderful, dedicated servants, others ARE incredibly lazy freeloaders with poor job performance. The difference between private and public sector is it can be EXTREMELY difficult to terminate anyone employed directly by the federal government. I work in patient care (an area where you'd think high quality work is required, no?) and have sounded alarm bells about an employee who downright refused to do his job properly. The response I received: "no one can make him do his job." He continued to collect a paycheck until retirement, and yes, he was a proud and loud Democrat.
Anecdotal evidence is just that though. There are plenty of poor performing Republican public sector employees as well. And while it's difficult to terminate an employee it's not impossible. It doesn't mean we need to eliminate entire agencies to get rid of a few bad apples. That seems like poor management as well.
While I just included one example, I could list many more. I had a conversation with my coworker about this very thing no less than an hour ago. Her words: "GS employees are allowed to get away with murder." I agree with you that anecdotal evidence is not necessarily indicative of a larger problem, but this trend has held true between the two government organizations where I've worked. These stereotypes exist for a reason. "Good enough for government work."
Hey, your experience sounds challenging. However, I just don’t know if firing ALL federal workers is the solution (and I do believe the intent is to fire the majority of them). A bit “throwing the baby out with the bath water” in my opinion, especially considering the enormous harm done to good workers, their families, the communities and business their salaries support. I don’t think anyone on the left is against reduction of waste, better investment of government dollars and in fact, I don’t think anyone on the left wants bad government employees to be un-fireable (as a lefty I desperately want good, effective programs to succeed and ineffective ones to be canceled). I take issue with the blanket rhetoric that bureaucrats are bad and government spending is inherently bad.
I'm very sorry you've worked for two poorly managed government organizations. While I have experienced a few bad apples overall that has not been my experience at all. The people I have worked with have been hard workers who care about their jobs and the work they do.
I see you edited your comment to add the snide and condescending remark at the end. Way to stay on brand, Krause Kim.
This is the caliber of people we are dealing with?
"If your party overwhelmingly comprises the federal bureaucracy, you hold onto the levers of power even through electoral losses. This has been the story of The Democrats for my entire life. It's also the best explanation for the Democrats' current desperation and hysteria." - Abigail Shrier
I don’t understand this comment. Can you explain? How does the Democratic party comprise the federal bureaucracy? Where is the evidence that Americans holding federal jobs are all Democrats?
It’s also worth nothing the republican party has been cutting gov jobs for sometime. Most of us that have dedicated our career to civil service and understand its value, aren’t going to give money to a party that doesn’t believe is us or our work.
Of course they're not all Democrats and there's no way to know definitively, but just follow the money. Upward of 95% of all political donations from federal employees are to Democrat candidates.
Can you share your source? I found an article mentioning 95% of donations going to Hillary Clinton in 2016, but in 2020 it was only 60% to Biden. The same source says 84% to Kamala Harris in 2024. How many donated? Is it 84% of 20% of the workforce or 84% of 100% of the workforce? The n matters.
If I am understanding Kayla’s comments correctly between this thread and the thread in the “Is Bipartisanship Dead?” article, this is the link she shared to support her claim:
https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/american-federation-of-government-employees/totals?id=D000000304
I asked for clarification because I truly don’t understand it, but I never received a response. I’d really appreciate an explanation because I am genuinely curious.
Thanks for sharing. The numbers in that do not make sense to me with regard to the percentages listed. For example, in 2024 if the total is over 2.6 million given but Dems gave 96.39% why does it say Dems accounted for about 800K. 96% = 2.5 million. Regardless, if you have a workforce of 100,000, and 100 gave $ and all that $ went to Dems then you might think all federal workers support Dems. In reality 1% of the workforce supported Dems. The n matters a lot, and the source doesn’t share how many individuals the $ amount represents. Therefore, one cannot conclude anything about the political affiliation of the workforce. If we want to play the game of follow the $ we could take a deep dive into Elon Musk. That would tell us a lot.
We can extrapolate this data in the same way we use small sample sizes in political polling. I firmly disagree we "cannot conclude anything." Does it mean 96% of the federal workforce is liberal? No. But, even from your own research, you found most donations go to Democrat candidates. In what way could we possibly conclude the federal workforce is majority conservative when all available evidence suggests otherwise?
I did not say or imply it was majority conservative. If it was 60/40 for Biden is it all Dems? We can’t say that either. Maybe the Dem leaning ones like to give $ and the R leaning ones don’t. Your original message painted the federal workforce with a broad brush as all Dem. I still don’t see good evidence to support that claim.
Can you share where you're getting 60/40 Biden? That seems to be an outlier.
https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2024/11/federal-employees-donate-42m-presidential-race-mostly-harris/400760/