Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
In 1951, President Harry Truman fired Gen. Douglas MacArthur for insubordination.
Thirty years later, when 11,000 air traffic controllers ignored his order to return to work, President Ronald Reagan fired them.
This year, when acting Attorney General Sally Yates refused to do her job, President Donald Trump fired her.
Individual federal workers have always had disagreements with their elected employers, and have resigned or left when the differences could not be resolved. That appears to be changing.
If you believe the major news organizations, two weeks into the new administration federal workers are in open rebellion against the president of the United States.
The resistance takes the form of workers regularly contacting political appointees from the Obama administration asking for advice on different ways to stall the current president’s agenda.
Federal employees are initiating anonymous leaks via social media to all and sundry concerning any changes Trump officials try to introduce.
In what comes dangerously close to treason, a Twitter account in the Defense Department using the handle @Rogue_DoD, has an unidentified service member accusing the commander in chief of insufficient consultation with Secretary James Mattis.
I am a firm believer that all employees have the right to determine whether or not they wish to continue that employment. Federal workers however, seem to believe they have the right to determine what projects they work on and to take steps to sabotage the programs they disagree with. These public servants seem to have forgotten not only who they work for but also what they were hired to do.
Although she is no longer a federal employee, the most outrageous scheme comes from Rosa Brooks, who served as counselor to the under secretary of defense for policy from 2009 to 2011 and was also a senior adviser to the Obama state department.
Brooks wrote about four ways “to get rid of a crummy president.”
Her final option to get rid of Trump is a military coup.
You read that correctly. Brooks writes, “The fourth possibility is one that until recently I would have said was unthinkable in the United States of America: a military coup, or at least a refusal by military leaders to obey certain orders.”
If ever a swamp needed draining, that swamp is Washington, D.C., and the time is now. President Trump believes the media is the opposition. He should re-think that to include the federal work force. Whether the workers understand it or not, they are forcing the president to make major changes as to how business is conducted in the Capitol.
Rube Render is the Curry County Republican chairman. Contact him at: