It’s bad enough that we’ve been treated to widespread temper tantrums, public meltdowns, violent riots, and all sorts of unseemly behavior from the left since Trump’s victory on Tuesday, but from career government employees, this kind of unprofessional nonsense is shameful. Period.
U.S. EPA employees were in tears. Worried Energy Department staffers were offered counseling. Some federal employees were so depressed, they took time off. Others might retire early.And some employees are in downright panic mode in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s victory.”People are upset. Some people took the day off because they were depressed,” said John O’Grady, president of American Federation of Government Employees Council 238, a union that represents thousands of EPA employees. After Election Day, “people were crying,” added O’Grady, who works in EPA’s Region 5 office in Chicago. “They were recommending that people take sick leave and go home.”EPA employees stand to see some of the most drastic changes under the Trump administration, and they may be taking things a bit harder than other government workers.The president-elect has vowed to repeal some of the rules they’ve toiled on for the last eight years during the Obama administration, including the Clean Power Plan rule to cut power plants’ greenhouse gas emissions.Trump has even suggested abolishing the agency entirely, although that would be an uphill political climb. Trump has picked a top climate change skeptic to lead his EPA transition team — Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute — and has promised sweeping reforms in the agency that’s long been a target for industry groups and Republicans who say its rules overreach.”If you look at the seven stages of grief, I’m still in denial. I will not look at the news. I will not read the news,” said an EPA career employee.
Personally, I hope Trump does get rid of the EPA altogether, but as that is unlikely, its “environmental justice arm” would be a good candidate for the chopping block. But it’s not just the EPA,
. . . . Some DOE employees are feeling glum, too.”I think it’s a sadness and a worry about just how far someone will go, especially when you never believe anything he says,” said one longtime Energy Department employee. “Many of us have worked in both the Bush and the Obama administrations, and I don’t think that we feel like it will be like just going back to Bush again.”
Happily, these emotionally unstable people are talking about leaving their federal jobs if Trump does “rotten things.”
In a section entitle “Mass exodus?”, E & E continues:
There’s been speculation that many of Trump’s critics in the federal workforce might opt to leave or retire early.”If [Trump] starts doing rotten things, then people will say, ‘Enough of this crap,'” said O’Grady. “You might see retirements from people who say, ‘Why bother working there anyway?'”Saracco worked at EPA during the Reagan administration. “There was a big exodus” then, she said.
And we somehow managed to live through it. I think we can again.
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