Can We Still Govern? - The Weaponization of Trauma

[Dennis Donovan]

Can We Still Govern? - The Weaponization of Trauma

The human toll being being paid by public employees

Rachael Dietkus
Feb 21, 2025

I am a current federal employee with the United States Digital Corps. I was required to be interviewed by a member of the DOGE team and am also on the termination list of employees due to probationary status. I wrote this in my personal capacity, but the perspectives I share are deeply connected to my professional responsibility to advance ethical, trauma-informed practices in public sector innovation.

TL;DR: The forced mass terminations and agency restructuring under the Trump administration have activated psychological and emotional distress among federal workers. Employees report hypervigilance, institutional betrayal, physiological symptoms of stress, loss of identity, grief, and collective trauma.

The administration's rhetoric explicitly frames these actions as an intentional effort to induce trauma, as evidenced by Russell Vought’s statement:

We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains.



/snip

[Irish_Dem]

1. They want people to be afraid and traumatized.

To be afraid to work for the government.
To be afraid to speak out.
To be afraid to do their job.

This is to create a compliant work force and docile populace.

[FakeNoose]

2. If "we" means "Republicans" then no ... they never could govern

But I rather suspect that many of the lifelong professional government employees - the ones who are being fired right now - those people aren't Republicans. How could they be? Anyone who answers the call to public service is usually motivated by higher principles, like the aim to serve the country, to do good, to help people in need. To uphold the Constitution and the laws of our country.

Those are the selfless people who are losing their jobs. Are some of them Black? Well yes. Are some of them women? Of course. Why should that matter, as long as they meet the same professionally-trained requirements as the white males?

These mass firings are so short-sighted and stupid, and it's all going to backfire spectacularly in a very short time. But the MAGAs will never see that, until it's too late and country burns to the ground.

[suegeo]

3. The GOP is conducting psychological warfare on Americans

All of us are being attacked by the radical GOP. Fuck those guys for this trauma.

[Passages]

4. Horrifying.

I don't recall ever despising a human being as I do Trump.



This writing is an excellent resource, thank you.