Fighting fascism – Day Fourteen – fighting the takeover of our government

For those of us who have worked or currently work for government, international organizations, or NGOs that receive government funding, you have probably heard from friends and colleagues or are personally experiencing what is going on now and know how scary it is. It is destructive — both in terms of the lives of people currently working for the government and government-financed institutions (who may lose their jobs or be forced to radically change the way they conduct their jobs), as well as what it means for the American people. The administration is attempting to transform government into a party machine, and in such cases, loyalty is much more important than competence or patriotism. The witch hunt is on. The administration is essentially trying to put in place mechanisms of control and centralization that can ensure a “smoother” implementation of its agenda – an agenda, as you well know by now, that I depict as establishing fascism in America.

Someone who works in the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) shared the following: “… there’s a hostile takeover of the federal civil service…. The [OPM is the] very backbone of American Government, the HR of all HR in the U.S. Government has been taken over by outside politicals. In just five days, they managed to push aside dozens of non-political, career civil servants who were there specifically to prevent the civil service from becoming the President’s henchmen…. they’ve sent numerous requests to all the agencies to collect information on gov’t employees that they see as a threat to their agenda. Instructions say to send these lists to (A.S.). But (she) is not actually an OPM employee, she works for Elon Musk… The non-political civil servants here at OPM are watching helplessly as our government is being systematically dismantled bit by bit. Even the IGs are being fired to prevent them from investigating the numerous whistleblower complaints we’ve filed.”

How do we communicate our furor over this? And confront it? It is a bit trickier than protesting specific executive orders regarding tariffs, immigration, LGBTQ+, or other issues and may be harder to get people to organize around. However, I think that it is important that we voice our concern about this as well as the more front line issues that are under attack.

There is a link at 5calls.org that addresses this. Also, they have the following template for voicing concerns that anyone could use to call their congressperson or senator. As discussed in yesterday’s blog, phone calls may be the best way to express our concern to our representatives in government.

• Hi, my name is [NAME] and I’m a constituent from [CITY, ZIP].
• I’m calling to express my outrage over Elon Musk’s unlawful and undemocratic takeover of the federal government, and I ask that [REP/SEN NAME]…
• [Choose 1-3 reasons:]
• — Forcefully speak out against an unelected billionaire having undue influence on and control over our government’s data, personnel, and payment systems;
• — Refuse to cooperate with Musk’s private enterprise masking as a government agency;
• — Support any legal challenges or investigations into Musk and his organization’s activity;
• — Halt all work in Congress until the unconstitutional power grabs stop.
• Thank you for your time and consideration.

A friend shared this website, Civil Service Strong, that provides advice to American civil servants who are under a lot of unnecessary pressure these days.

Also, here is a list of phone numbers of senators, sent to me by a friend.