The federal tech workers facing down DOGE

https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/the-federal-tech-workers-facing-down


Over the last few weeks, as Elon Musk and DOGE have infiltrated government agency after government agency, proclaiming their intent to slash budgets, cut jobs, and embrace AI, we’ve watched a brazen, extralegal effort to hollow out the state unfold in real time. Now up to 200,000 workers are being targeted in mass layoffs. Much of the collective horror has stemmed from the broader implications this campaign—orchestrated by an unelected tech billionaire who has enriched himself with government contracts—has for our democracy. It has after all been carried out with no congressional oversight and often in stark defiance of judicial orders. It’s been called a coup, or an autogolpe, a coup from inside, or American authoritarianism.

But it’s also happening to real people, who are experiencing it all in excruciating, real-time dread. For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been talking with federal tech workers about what’s happening, how they’re processing it, and how they’re pushing back. I’ve spoken to workers representing the full spectrum: From 10-year veterans to first-year tech workers in their probationary periods—and thus more vulnerable to termination—and from different departments across the government.

I wanted to share some of their stories, with their permission, because they help illuminate what’s going on at the personal level—even while we’re justifiably preoccupied with the ramifications for democracy writ large and the assault on our institutions. (I am, for the obvious reasons, keeping them all anonymous here, but have individually confirmed each of the sources.)

“I think maybe the thing that's not coming across in all the narrative so far is that federal workers are not just federal workers,” one veteran federal tech worker told me. “We are citizens and voters too, and we are targeted in many ways beyond just our work lives.”

*snip*