Asahi

Hello Bluesky. I am a chronicle of the twilight of the administrative state. A diary of a federal civil servant documenting in somewhat real time the promised assault on the bureaucracy. An introduction on anonymity: notesontheputsch.substack.com/p/on-anonymity

Now that D.C. is finished being sidelined by the sad parade, and the Tontons Macoutes appear to have no intention of backing off, I hope we will begin standing up with Los Angeles -- and now New York. notesontheputsch.substack.com/p/swan-lake-...

In D.C., we were excluded from the #NoKings protests on Saturday. But the pageant of violence didn't materialize either. So we quietly went about our business.

"We cannot build bananas in America" is an all timer

From guest writer Annie Blackburn, who remains a federal employee: "Those of us who remain in the federal workforce have to wade through the carnage of a poorly planned smash and grab, all the while carrying on with daily tasks."

On behalf of all federal employees who merit nary a word in this garbage, a hearty fuck you. I'd rather be a worker than a visionary, and I'd rather keep writing for my friends than for the New York Times.

"Now the same security personnel with whom I exchanged a few pleasant words every morning were posted above us at the top of those steps, not menacingly, but their positions a declarative fact: you don’t belong here anymore."

Lots of good Elon post-mortems out there today, like this one. Lots of terrible ones. Here's just one more, from one former federal worker whose career he wrecked. Plus, a protest.

All of us know to some extent what every one of these federal workers is going through. It's so important to try to understand those feelings before we become isolated and overwhelmed. Writing helps a lot.

What it all kind of boils down to for me is I don't know how to walk out my front door and behave normally in a world where millions of people thought to themselves, "you know what, I think I will be an enemy of Miss Rachel and Bruce Springsteen."

How do you begin to accept the end of your career in federal service? "I feel great about leaving the haunted carnival, but also bad about feeling great."

Ok, state it openly then. Or state that you think he shouldn't have dropped out. It would be nice if it's what you really think. But beyond that, nobody cares. It matters approximately 1 billion times less than whether you think Musk, Rubio, Noem, Vought and every ICE agent belong in prison.

"Given the choice, I’d rather have cancer.”

Also the country club manners tradition of Congress laundering one another's heinous behavior with constant vague deferrals to a private mystical sphere just should not be fucking operative during a putsch.

It is actually insane how appropriate this illustration from an 87-year-old Dr. Seuss book is for the latest moves by this administration to capture and control the federal workforce:

How long post-resignation do we think it will be before this kind of thing stops putting me in a day-ruining funk?

"If federal employees can wear the double MAGA hat and pin and build a gaudy gold ofrenda to the Leader on their desks, then it instantaneously follows that they must."

It very much feels like what happened here is we created this huge smokescreen of culture issues to placate and distract the masses so they wouldn't notice the oligarchs invading every aspect of our lives and pillaging every single thing we owned. Then the oligarchs were the ones who fell for it. 🥴

Monday morning. April 28. A new phase as the Carrie Bradshaw of the purges begins... Day 1 on the other side. notesontheputsch.substack.com/p/goodbye-to...

Another guest author, on the crisis among career department leadership.

In which your author transcends the membrane between current federal employee and former federal employee: notesontheputsch.substack.com/p/goodbye-to...

In which your author transcends the membrane between current federal employee and former federal employee: notesontheputsch.substack.com/p/goodbye-to...

We thought an agency-destroying cut might come today. It didn't happen, but still, it feels like this week is going to involve a lot of murmuring Joan Didion quotes to myself like a lunatic. "It is distinctly possible to stay too long at the Fair." notesontheputsch.substack.com/p/exodus

It's a big decision day for a lot of us federal employees. I wish for you to take the path that will bring you peace.

On waiting through the final hours of a functioning federal agency.

It costs zero dollars to side with your fellow workers instead of with the billionaires stealing from us all.

I'm already at the point where if you're not willing to commit unequivocally to the forceful pursuit of criminal accountability for Trump, Rubio, Bondi, Noem, Musk, etc., I won't support your ambitions to lead this country. You're going to threaten me in 2027 with what? Trump getting elected? Nah.

I take one look at the social media posts we put out now and I want to walk into traffic.

This kicked into an even more dire register today, but the general nausea is consistent and inescapable.

They came for the very best of us last week. They're coming back for more.

bsky.app/profile/note...

They came for the very best of us last week. They're coming back for more.

Ahem, there are obviously people at the highest levels of government who need to see that there's a solution.

On sobriety in a time of all this bullshit.

Time for jury nullification on EVERY criminal case until Trump, Musk and Rubio (at minimum) are locked up.

IRS could also give ICE the addresses of every one of these immigrants' employers, too, no? So DHS can arrest them and send THEM to El Salvador? I'm sure that's also part of it. The law and punishing lawbreakers is very important to these people.

I've also just spent another day amazed at how it's always the people to whom America has given the most who want to destroy it. The people America treats like garbage are the ones who defend it, and they will again. It's been said before, but I don't know if it's ever been truer.

Children in London had to leave and stay with relatives in the country... because of Nazis. Today for the first time I started wondering when I should start thinking about sending my children to stay with relatives in the country... because of Nazis.

One thing I did not mention here, and I saw it on display today in a way I had not seen before, is exasperation/eye-rolling by Trump political appointees about DOGE actions.

Boycotting Tesla, which I can't afford anyway, while I keep tweeting all day long.

"When you are a superpower, you do not get to make a fuck-up go away by offering a drink coupon or free credit monitoring." notesontheputsch.substack.com/p/mistakes-h...

DOE workers, you don't deserve this. Let's see how mainlining supplement podcasts and Libs of TikTok and ignoring their kids works out for them when there's nobody to pick up the slack.

What if DOGE is already dead? notesontheputsch.substack.com/p/mistakes-h...

I resent this deeply. Yes, the same people who've failed us over and over are failing us again. They'll be fine like they're always fine. But LOTS of people with A LOT to lose are speaking out. Federal employees are speaking the truth. Some of us are anonymous? Sorry. We wish we didn't have to be.

The one positive is that for 99 minutes, they were distracted from sending out after-hours emails nuking our agencies or making us send progress reports to a random Denny's manager: notesontheputsch.substack.com/p/the-rise-o...

"It’s at the point now where I long for the midnight email that simply ends us. That wipes us from the record. I do not want to choose anything. I’m fatigued of choosing." notesontheputsch.substack.com/p/the-rise-o...

No suits. "I will wear a [suit] when this war will finish." If you're blocked from entering, even better. Then the rest of the American public can follow, er, suit. Solidarity with Ukraine. No suits until this war -- ours -- is finished.

A guest post from a fellow federal worker. On the destruction of employee affinity groups. We welcome others to contribute. DM for Signal info. notesontheputsch.substack.com/p/from-a-gue...

It really is starting to seem like everywhere Trump, Musk or Vance goes, the Seattle WTO protests need to be there too.