Will Federal Employees Create an American Fallujah?
They're fighting mad at Trump and the MuskBrats as the sprawling scope of attacks against America continue
As the Dow falls 800 points, I’m reading this Reddit comment from a federal employee. It is chilling, ominous, and remarkably ironic:
"They’re going to be really surprised when they find out a lot of the people whose lives they’re destroying are former military with combat experience, who have a plethora of mental issues, a grudge and, nothing to lose…"
It’s a reference to someone entering crazy town and taking out their frustrations, and so now we’ve entered that mental and spiritual territory where we have to hope nobody hurts someone, but probably will.
The comment came from a federal employee on r/fednews, a subreddit1 originally designed to be, in their words:
A secure platform for US Federal employees to discuss work-related topics, share perspectives, and stay informed.
During the last month and a half, the subreddit has morphed into a rage machine against the regime’s attacks on the American government infrastructure, and, of course, on Americans in general, since we are the beneficiaries of a motivated federal workforce, a workforce that is now gripped by an epic level of despondency and despair.
The mood on the subreddit reflects a workforce that is well beyond the stage of poor morale you’ll witness in a poorly run company or organization. A scan of almost any topic in the subreddit’s recent archives reveals an almost incomprehensible level of fury, hurt, and, often, hopelessness. Some of it borders on open rebellion.
Reading through it can feel like reading a Russell Banks novel about the wreckage of families afflicted by actions beyond their control.2 The subreddit provides an hourly update on the ruthless actions of the MuskBrats, who have taken over the government in a coup d’etat and engaged in a purge using psychological terror as their key assault mechanism.
Like most blitzkriegs, the assault began with shock and awe. In that respect, it is similar to the Iraq war when all the American military had to do was roll in with their tanks and warthog aerial gunships.
The Iraqi military collapsed, leaving American policymakers cocky and happy, and declaring their mission accomplished.
Then came Fallujah.
Fallujah, for those who have left the Iraq war in their personal dustbin of history, was the center of two major battles with Iraqi insurgents after the American military’s initial successful military sweep into Iraq that toppled Sadaam Hussein to the cheers of Iraqi citizens in Baghdad.
When I say, “toppled,” I really do mean toppled. Iraqi citizens helped pull down a statue of Sadaam before the military found the real guy hiding in a makeshift bunker.
Fallujah changed the essence of the war from being one of a seemingly benign nation state justifying an illegal invasion of a large, sophisticated sovereign nation on the pretense of popular demand into a crass invasion in violation of international law.
Fallujah became an urban hellscape of house-to-house combat. Some of the brave American troops who survived that ordeal are now probably under direct assault from the MuskBrat coup.
To the smallest degree possible, the Trump administration was able to take office by sort of claiming popular demand, despite the slimmest electoral margin since Nixon’s historically narrow one.
Just as America’s legitimacy was paper thin when it invaded Iraq, so was the current American regime’s.
If we were to continue the Iraq analogy, the American response to its razor-thin popularity would have been to nuke Iraq and make it uninhabitable for a hundred years.
The process of the MuskBrat’s nuking of America has not left any radioactive fallout (yet), but the results haven’t been much different than a full-scale invasion from a foreign military.
Let’s take a look at some of the comments on the fednews subreddit to get an idea of the devastation. I’ve purposely left off links and references. You’ll have to just trust me that I didn’t make this stuff up (because, as the saying goes, you can’t make this stuff up).
r/fednews Accounts of the MuskRat devastation
These snippets from r/fednews posts are incomplete in most cases. They shouldn’t need context aside from understanding that the MuskBrat firing spree is forcing a large number of federal employees, many who have been serving for a long time (see footnotes),3 out of their homes.
Most notably, this is not a thoroughly researched collection. You can drop into almost any r/fednews thread and find similar sentiments. That’s all I did for this, which doesn't even scratch the surface of the hurt, pain, and suffering the MuskBrat coup d’etat has caused.
Even more notably, you can join the subreddit even if you’re not a federal employee. It’s a great way to show your support and help the process of communicating mass protest events when they begin this spring.
The structure of the quoted posts works like this:
Headline followed by initial post or part of the initial post, followed by in-thread replies in italics preceded by one em dash (—) for a reply to a topic or two em dashes for a reply to a reply.
What follows is a few randomly selected threads.
We are all going to have PTSD
As I lay here unable to sleep I realize this administration is liable for all mental health diagnoses and lives lost during this time. As of yesterday I’m pretty sure I now have a full blown stomach ulcer. At work I could barely function, and was fully disassociating. My meds have been doubled but the face-numbing anxiety and c-PTSD symptoms are returning after the years of talk therapy and EMDR I did to heal.
All I wanted to do was my job. When I look in the mirror I have aged so much since all this shit began. I fear I’ve stayed on this ship for too long and am going down with it. If I get spat out on the other side, I doubt there will be any jobs left in the private sector, since we know the market is already flooded. I have nothing profound to say, just that I’m sure this stress has cut years off all our lives.
— “We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected,” Vought said in a video revealed by ProPublica and the research group Documented in October. “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. We want their funding to be shut down … We want to put them in trauma.”
— — Unfortunately it’s working. I started antidepressants this week. I’m binge eating the worst foods for me. I ate an entire bag of potato chips for breakfast. They have seriously impacted my entire life. The hardest part is acting ‘normal’ at work and calming down fellow workers (or trying to) while you’re freaking out yourself.
— It’s hard trying to be tough, I cry some days and some days I’m like no fuck this I’m going to keep fighting. I have a team of three, One person in our team voted for trump and it’s hard not looking at her without being so angry. She also has the audacity to be worried about being let go, causes the BIGGEST drama at work. It’s exhausting dealing with the government and her.
— I got into a heated exchange with a lady in the cubicle next to mine when she was trying to say something nice and provide some positivity. But she messed up saying “look on the bright side, you’ll get to spend more time with your daughter”. My reply was “yeah in a homeless shelter maybe.”
— In nearly 20 years of service, never once did I think of myself as a “bureaucrat”. Even after reading his statement, I was confused - aren’t the “bureaucrats” the politicians? It’s been really eye opening to how little we (perhaps always have been) regarded or cared about as public servants.
— They're absolute psychopaths, I hope everyone sees that. They get off on the suffering of others and the thought of someone in pain causes no negative reaction in them.
I lost it today — can’t stop crying
I have 15 years in as a fed. Love my job, love my agency, and today I just broke. I had to take the afternoon off because I couldn't stop crying and ended up with a migraine. It's so mean. It's all just so mean and horrible. Yes, I'm still employed, and SO grateful for that. But every day o wake up wondering if today will be the day I get fired. And every day I see dedicated, wonderful federal colleagues get let go only because of one man's ego. This is trauma. I want it to stop. Now I'm crying again. Sorry for the pointless post, but I know some of you are in the same boat. I see you and I appreciate you.
— I saw someone pretty high up in my agency cry on a call a few weeks ago as he voiced support and appreciation for us…It felt incredibly validating and humanizing to see how upset he was and it made me feel more connected to him. It also made me realize that all of this bullshit is trickling down from on high, and even our management is confused and reeling. Knowing that I'm getting agency information off of reddit (and in some cases, the literal news!!!) before management is informed by our agency head is just wild.
— I have same feelings. BIG feelings, vascillating from rage to despair. Wanting to wake up from this nightmare. You are definitely not alone. Use your sick leave. Take the time you need.
— I'm a fed, I feel you. I cry a few times a day. Not because I'm likely to lose my job, 6yrs military and 20+ DoD, I'm numb to the inevitability, but because of the traitors that spit on the very people who are not perfect but for one reason or another, have dedicated their lives to protecting this country without any expectation of recognition or thanks.
— I'm not a fed worker, but I was a fed contractor for VA until they cut all training contracts (and laughed about it), and I, along with a lot of others, was cut loose last week. I'm with you, OP. It's just such unnecessary cruelty with the compassion of a mean little kid burning ants or pulling the wings off of flies. It makes me cry several times a day. I don't know when we will all be able to start feeling safe again.
— I’m taking a mental health day on Friday. Too much work right now that I need to get off the books but I think I can dip out for one day at the end of the week before we all RTO. It sucks to know 100% that this is all being done to terrorize us, yet I still can’t stop letting it bother me all hours of the day.
— It's a constant thought. Will they erase my appraisals and say I did something wrong? Will they let go my mentor that I adore because she is a SME and makes too much? Are there going to be armed homeland security at the office waiting for me tomorrow? I hope you have a long and peaceful Friday.
— Same boat. 15 years in. We had a happy hour with colleagues yesterday and one sobbed off and on as she worried about her son and her elderly mom. She’s an only child and a single mom.
— Right there with you. 15 years in, grateful to still have my job but it’s a brutal environment. No idea when the next shoe will drop, expected to act as if it’s business-as-usual when our fellow govies are getting illegally fired. I am so angry for these folks. And angrier still at those of us who voted for this 🤬
— Not a fed worker but mom to one. This is his first real job and like the rest of you guys, he gets dosed with stress on top of already working at full tilt-wondering when the ax will fall next. I say: keep this tight grip on your soul. I admire you!! Honestly, these emails that are real/not real and legal/not legal and ignore/do as priority… they are meant to disrupt your focus and sap your spirit. The job cuts are senseless. Cry and gnash your teeth as you need to. But fight the intrusion with righteous, furious certainty — you KNOW you and your colleagues are dedicated and hardworking, and that this is a huge injustice that harms blameless folk all down the line.
— They said they want us to suffer. For doing our jobs, we deserve to suffer. For helping a scared parent protect their child. I have clearly offended the hard right. So I deserve to be terrorized by the biggest insider threat we have ever seen in this country.
— Fellow supervisor (for a very small team). It might come back to bite me in the butt, but I’ve been mostly transparent with my team about my stress level. We are all in the same boat since none of this is following proper chain of command protocol. It’s ok to honor how you feel and if your team sees some of it, that’s okay too.
Promotions being paused might be my final straw
I work in the DoD. I got word that promotions are paused. If they skip over this year completely, I genuinely might quit and go get a contractor job. I already work for comparatively shit pay, and with all of this horseshit going on, I am running out of reasons to stick around.
It's so crazy to me that two morons can make a system that worked lose all of its trust as an employer within a few weeks.
— I respect anyone’s decision, but I’m sticking around purely out of spite. My bills are paid at my current salary. I can outwait all these fuckers. Fuck ‘em.
— — I can do all things through spite, which strengthens me.
Programming note: I’ve seen “I can do all things through spite, which strengthens me” frequently from federal employees. It seems to have become a rallying cry of sorts.
— That's my sentiment as well. Malicious compliance.
— — Same here. I felt defeated at first, but now I'm angry. I'm not letting them have their way so easy. They will have to force me out, and I will pursue every legal remedy if they do. I didn't spend 29 years toiling away for them to ruin my career 6 years before I can retire.
And on and on it goes. Dozens of threads with the same sentiments. Some with levels of anger and expletives I’ve chosen to leave out.
Americans who voted for the positive, caring side of the presidential election have been concerned that MAGA would go all military on us, that militias would become prominent and be allowed to take swings at us without consequence.
But MAGA voters did not anticipate Project 2025 and its army of lawyers and sycophants to launch a blitzkrieg against them.
70,000 Veterans Administration personnel are next in line. Many of them are veterans. The VA reported positive feedback under Biden for the first time in decades from veterans seeking assistance. Destroyed instantly. Boom. Veteran care nuked out of existence with one slash of the knife.
If militias grow as a result of these actions, they won’t be directed at us.
They’ll be turning on the very people they voted for.
Notes
The thread examples I chose were a tiny portion of what is out there.
Thanks for reading!
Footnotes
A subreddit is a topic-based group forum of people with similar interests on Reddit.
Russell Banks characters, of course, often suffer from self-inflicted wounds. In the case of federal employees who voted for Trump, this tracks, because their votes are contributing to the loss of everything they hold dear while victimizing innocent people around them as well as their colleagues in their federal agencies.
“Affliction.” 2025. Moonpalacebooks.com. 2025. https://www.moonpalacebooks.com/item/2QHtVTCGJR-85cwFy_P69g.
The initial rounds of layoffs consisted of so-called “probationary” employees. But a probationary employee is not what most people think of when they think “probationary” employees. If you switch positions, you become a probationary employee even if you’ve been a federal employee for ten years. Often, people who make these kinds of switches are the most desirable employees, and have been promoted accordingly.
With the assault on the Veteran Administration, which includes the firing of 70,000 employees, it looks like more than “probationary” employees are being targeted.
Thanks for doing the heavy lifting in this piece.
"I can do all things through spite, which strengthens me."
This is my new mantra, damn it.
I have a friend who is a Fed Employee and her stress level is off the charts...she's smart, masters degree, and is busy preparing herself, working to find another line of work. This whole debacle is inhumane, infuriating, and could have been handled SO MUCH BETTER.
Charles, Thank you for getting these voices out to folks like me. I am not a federal worker, ( I worked with families for decades), their work and dedication supports everything that makes/made this country work!
Stop the coup 💙