Russell Sprouts

“In a 2023 recording surfaced by ProPublica, Trump budget director Russell Vought said, ‘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.'” For many former federal workers, this strategy has worked. There are two negative outcomes related to this strategy. First, the government is losing good people and expertise and other good experts will be less likely to go into service in the future. Second, there are the human costs. Both are part of the plan. WaPo (Gift Article): White House officials wanted to put federal workers ‘in trauma.’ It’s working. “Federal workers describe struggling with panic attacks, depression, suicidal thoughts. ‘Why doesn’t anyone care?'”

+ “Some of the damage Trump has inflicted can be repaired by future administrations, but repairing relations with American allies, the restoration of lost government expertise and a return to productive research may take years, even with a new and determined president and Congress.” Thomas B. Edsall talks to the experts about Trump’s unprecedented reign of destruction. The President Will Destroy You Now. Paul Rosenzweig, a deputy assistant secretary for policy in the Department of Homeland Security under George W. Bush fears that “the damage is permanent. Not because it cannot be fixed — it can be with effort. But rather because nobody will ever trust the United States again that something Trump-like won’t recur. Would you as a young person take a federal job today? Would you as a foreign student trust that you could attend university in the United States safely? Would you as a European government trust the United States to maintain the security of your secrets?”