Washington DC—The mega-billionaire Elon Musk and his posse of 20 something year-old DOGE “special government employees” are inside government agencies and departments right now slinking through the halls, taking control and taking it down, piece by piece. They’re removing Federal employees, occupying their offices, accessing the personal information of millions, copying or transferring it, shutting down the computer systems that shepherd the data, and 404ing vital government websites providing important government services we all depend on.
They’re not vetted government employees and they certainly haven’t followed security standards ordinary Federal workers adhere so let’s just refer to them as the ordained Trumpian crap weasels and muskrats stinking up the halls of our government.
By stopping congressionally-approved transfer of payments from the Bureau of Fiscal Services (BFS) they’re about to make life much more difficult and expensive for millions who depend on services. By blocking agencies such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) from providing important oversight and stopping the regulation by other agencies of programs millions more depend on, many Americans will suffer, as well as many abroad. Even the MAGA voters who helped put Trump in office in the first place will suffer although it’s not likely to dawn on them until later.
If you want to you can go online and throw shade and vitriol at those in your circles in the MAGA vote pool or jab word darts at anonymous MAGA voters you don’t know. It may make you feel better for a minute but that won’t improve the situation much and it won’t get us where we need to be—dragging the Musk rodents by their smelly hind parts out of venerable government agencies and kicking them back to their Elon owned dungeon corporations where they spawned.
Elon Musk and his DOGE gigachud rat-bastard basement dweller wannabe gangsters may make you feel disempowered and hopeless. They want you to believe there is nothing you can do to stop their government interference and malfeasance because, in the words of Elon Musk at the Oval Office today they have a “mandate” from the voters to eliminate most Federal employees and their agencies, take away services we all depend on, rewrite and eliminate vast portions of government, and replace it with…whatever surprise solutions he has up his sleeves. He said the DOGE actions are “transparent but a visit to the DOGE “official government” website takes you to what looks like a Visual Basic beginner’s project from a computer science 101 class. It begs the question: who is actually the president because it looks like Elon Musk is the one running things in the Oval Office.
Here’s the catch: by making you feel disempowered, anxious, and confused about how this unfolding government crisis could happen, they want you to feel and be unable to act. They think that disempowering citizens keeps them from getting involved and therefore green lights their lawlessness to break and sideline even more agencies as they choose.
But here’s the other catch: the law is on our side. The Trump ordained muskrat despots keep losing in US District court lawsuits, at least at the initial stages. Court cases filed by States Attorneys General and Unions against the Trump Musk presidency are resulting in injunctions and keeping these wounded agencies intact by threads for the moment. The US District courts are going to buy agencies time and delay Federal employe reductions but for only so long.
But there are more of us than them—they know this so they’re rushing their gangster plans through quickly, on the weekends and in the dark of night in the agency buildings where they’ve locked out regular Federal employees.
In the meantime there’s much you can do to help. But you must get involved and you can help, even if it’s just a little bit.
Things You Can Do To Empower Yourself And Others
Necessity is the mother of invention so says the old proverb. But if something is already invented you’re halfway there. Here are a few things you can do to empower yourself and share with others. The time is short. Hitler only required 53 days to take down the Weimar Republic and convert it to a fascist state in 1933. If at this stage of our government crisis one doubts we are heading in that direction then listen to the words of Holocaust Survivor Marione Ingram.
Tactic One: Save Your Resources
The University of Virginia has created a website of archived government websites—bookmark it—you’re going to need it later.
Link is here.
Tactic Two: Call Your Representatives and Congress Persons
Five Calls Organization created a website to connect to your representatives. It connects you to them so you can tell them about issues important to you. Call them. Engaging with them makes a difference. Tell them what you are thinking and what you think they should do.
Some are saying Congress isn’t acting decisively enough or isn’t working to stop the government infiltration by Elon Musk and his DOGE government takeover. This is defeatist thinking. It’s going to take actions by everyone to work within their capabilities to defend democracy. This is one tactic.
Tactic Three: Get Involved
Want to get involved in an action? The Movement Infrastructure Project created a website to help you find an event, time, and place. You can meet others and plug into the organizations of the event with your resources. It is also empowering to get out with others to challenge those trying to destroy our government institutions. You will meet others with your shared interests and you can exchange information. That is the key to movement building.
Tactic Four: Provide Resources to Existing Organizations
If you are limited in what you can do because of lifestyle or life conditions, consider sharing resources with organizations on the front lines fighting the court battles.
Electronic Frontier Foundation website here. EFF is suing DOGE and the Office of Personnel Management to Halt Ransacking of Federal Data.
Fight For the Future, a digital rights advocacy group of artists, engineers, activists, and technologists who have been behind the largest online protests in human history, channeling Internet outrage into political power to win public interest victories previously thought to be impossible.
The National Treasury Employees Union 335 is presently leading a coalition of unions, representing hundreds of thousands of employees, in filing a lawsuit challenging the administration’s dangerous efforts to gut the federal workforce.
Idavox a grassroots civil rights organization educating communities about oppression, racism and fascism.
The National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE) has filed suit on behalf of Federal employees locked out of their workplaces and/or fired. Support their efforts by donating to their union to cover attorney costs or join the union if you are a Federal employee. The NFFE site offers helpful tips on advocacy and other advice such as guidance for new Executive Orders and Deferred Resignations. (Note: the Fork In the Road email IS NOT a buyout as is being reported in mainstream media.)
(More will be added as we find links for the organizations working together to see us through this crisis.)
Tactic Five: Take care of yourself.
During times of high stress one thing often overlooked is self-care. It is easy to overlook this vital link during difficult times such as the events going on around us now. It is natural to feel anxious, restless, and lose a sense of balance. A self-help guide published in Psychology today lists a few ideas one can take for maintaining balance of the Self. Take breaks, breathe, move-even just a little, eat wisely, and doing something nice for yourself, are a few subcategories of this tactic.
