‘Feeling of dread’ spreads across federal workforce as second Trump term looms

Much of the federal workforce is on edge and bracing itself for the likelihood its ranks will be purged when President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

Much of the federal workforce is on edge and bracing itself for the likelihood its ranks will be purged when President-elect Donald Trump takes office. Trump, who has derided civil servants as agents of the “deep state,” promised on the campaign trail to reinstate a 2020 executive order known as Schedule F, giving him the power to commence mass firings of nonpartisan federal employees who might spoil Trump’s partisan plans. “The objective is to create space to put loyalists in what were, what are still, career civil service positions,” former Trump appointee Ronald Sanders – who resigned over Trump’s politicization of the federal workforce – told CNN. Sanders added it is “problematic” if schedule F is being used to reinforce and maintain political loyalty. Trump’s loyalist vision is already having a profound chilling effect on career employees, some of whom told CNN they plan to stay into the new year – but don’t know what’s next beyond that. “I would say there is a general feeling of dread among everyone,” one Energy Department employee told CNN. In his first term, Trump sidelined and ridiculed civil servants and service members, silenced government offices and stifled scientific research. Many workers quit; others stuck it out, hopeful that the 2020 election would bring a new boss in the White House.