Hi friends,
is a writer and organizer behind the Substack "The Connector." He has decades of experience in covering how technology is changing politics, and how to participate productively in the political process.Today, I got a chance to speak with him about the urgent crisis facing American democracy—and why the unsung heroes in this battle may be the federal workers themselves.
Federal Workers on the Front Lines
This crisis isn't solely in the headlines about court orders and dramatic policy changes. It’s in the day-to-day, behind-the-scenes work of America’s public servants. Drawing inspiration from Sifry’s recent New York Times piece, this episode explores the often invisible—but now increasingly vulnerable—federal workforce, and how their courage matters in the fight against government overreach.
The Changing Face of Protest
Sifry takes us on a journey from the painstakingly organized civil rights marches of the 1960s to today’s rapid-response rallies, mobilized in hours via social media. He reflects on waves of protests across the Trump era, highlighting how movements have evolved, and why the stakes feel higher today than ever before.
Why Mass Participation Matters
If you think mass protest is just a relic of the past—think again. Sifry describes how technology has removed barriers to civic participation, fueling nationwide protests in record numbers. But, as he notes, real change comes not just from politicians, but also from the grassroots: everyday people, and especially government workers, saying that enough is enough.
A Spotlight on Public Service
One of the episode’s most heartfelt threads is Sifry’s defense of the people who keep government functioning. As layoffs and severe program cuts hit agencies from the National Institutes of Health to the IRS, he reminds us: you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. The episode encourages us to listen to the stories of public workers and recognize the essential—and often unglamorous—work that keeps our society safe and running.
Fighting Authoritarianism, One Story at a Time
Sifry’s key advice for those resisting swelling authoritarianism? Get good at telling your story. He believes the most powerful way to shift public opinion (and ultimately policy) is for government employees and ordinary citizens alike to share, loudly and proudly, how their work serves all Americans.
A Call to Listen and Act
We close by reminding everyone that democracy isn’t a spectator sport—it’s a participatory one. In this turbulent moment, listening to those who serve and joining in the call for accountability could make all the difference.
Tune In
If you haven’t already, stream the episode now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. And don’t forget to share your thoughts with us—whose story would you like to hear next?
Thanks for being part of this community, and for caring about the future of our democracy.
Until next time,
Andrew
P.S. Want more? Read the full transcript attached and let us know what stood out to you.
Show Notes
"A Different Kind of Anti-Trump Resistance Is Brewing" by Micah Sifry, The New York Times
Full Transcript
Andrew Xu [00:00:00]:
Hello, everyone. My name is Andrew, and welcome back to Frames of Space. Today, we are tackling a topic that could not be more urgent, which is the state of American democracy and, in particular, the role of federal workers and mass protests in resisting authoritarianism. My guest today is Micah Sifry, a seasoned political analyst and journalist. Recently, Micah wrote a piece in The New York Times about the role that federal workers have in standing up against Trump's authoritarianism. And today, I've used that article as a bit of a springboard to talk with him about the power that public servants often have and what they can do to stand up against the threats to that are facing the US right now. So let's set the stage. Right now, American democracy is in crisis.
Andrew Xu [00:01:09]:
We are witnessing a US president, Donald Trump, defy court orders, refuse to acknowledge election losses, and push a narrative that undermines the very foundations of our democratic system. He is deporting legal residents of the US, without any due process, sending them to faraway prisons that are basically concentration camps. It is a dangerous moment and one that demands action, not just from politicians, but from all of us. Micah's work specifically focuses on the role of federal workers in this fight. These are the people that keep our government running often behind the scenes. But in recent months, they found themselves on the front lines of a battle against sweeping cuts and authoritarian overreach. Micah's insights into their struggles and their courage are both inspiring and essential. In this episode, we also explore a little bit about the history of mass protests in the US and how they have evolved over time.
Andrew Xu [00:02:15]:
Think back to the civil rights movement where organizing massive marches often took months and months of meticulous planning. Then fast forward to today where social media can spark a rally in a matter of just hours. The tools have changed, but the goal often remains the same, which is to demand accountability and justice. Micah shares his firsthand observations from covering politics for many decades. He takes us through the waves of protests that define Trump's first term, like the Women's March or Black Lives Matter, as well as the new wave of activism that has been led by federal workers who are suddenly on the chopping block thanks to Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency. But this conversation isn't just about the past or the present. It's also about the future. Why are so many American people skeptical of the government, and how has right-wing media shaped that skepticism? If there's one thing that you take away from this episode, I hope that it is this.
Andrew Xu [00:03:21]:
It is more crucial than ever for public servants to speak up, and it is more crucial than ever for the rest of us to be willing to listen to them. So this episode is an important reminder that democracy isn't just a spectator sport. It requires participation, vigilance, and, yes, protest. So let's get into it. Here is my conversation with Micah Sifry on the power of protest and the role that federal workers have in resisting authoritarianism. Hope you enjoy. Micah Sifry, thank you so much for taking the time to come on to this podcast. My pleasure.
Andrew Xu [00:04:20]:
Alright. How about we start with, let's start with an introduction with you. How about how about you spend some time talking about yourself? Like, do you have experience working in the government? And if so, what was that like?
Micah Sifry [00:04:31]:
Oh, no. I'm not, actually I never worked for the government. My background is in journalism. I started out many years ago, literally as an intern at The Nation magazine, one of the country's oldest liberal journals of opinion. And I worked my way up the ladder there to associate editor. That's where I learned learned the craft. And I've been writing and reporting about a variety of subjects, ranging from American foreign policy to, heck and politics. Ever since, I've written or edited nine books, including a couple of anthologies on topics like the Gulf War and the Iraq War.
Micah Sifry [00:05:29]:
And and, the last ten, fifteen years, I've really specialized more in, the intersection of technology, politics, movements, and organizing. But, what I've always been most interested in is, how people, organize themselves to get the political system to respond to them effectively. You know? How do we make democracy work for everybody, basically? So while I know lots of people who, do work in government, certainly, the piece we're gonna talk about, came about in part because of that, no. I've personally never actually worked in government. Yeah.
Andrew Xu [00:06:21]:
So I guess yeah. Let's let's talk about your experience when it comes to organizing and, like, you witnessing how, like, loads of different people would organize around the country. In your experience and you've been you've been doing this for, like, several decades. Right? Yeah. Yeah. In the in the several decades that you've you've worked in that field, what's your experience for, like, what time period had the largest, like, mass protests and mass organizing? And on what scale would you say that was?
Micah Sifry [00:06:49]:
Well, you know, it that's a great question because, there are many different ways to, measure, you know, participation. And, you know, before the Internet came along, I think it would be fair to say, that it it was, in general, harder, to participate in the public arena. You know, if you wanted your message to be heard by other people, either you had to be, you know, famous or lucky enough to be invited onto television. You know, there were only a handful of TV news channels. Everybody watched the the the basically got the same, somewhat narrow, and highly curated version of what's going on, in public events. And, yes, there were lots of smaller outlets. People maybe, you know, handfuls of people would read little magazines like the one I worked at, The Nation. But for the most part, participating, was something that people did sporadically.
Micah Sifry [00:08:16]:
You know, sure, millions of people voted, but the the daily ability to participate in the public conversation was dramatically smaller. So if you if you did manage to organize a bunch of people to go to a demonstration you know, Martin Luther King, the civil rights movement famously got 250,000 people to march on Washington in 1963, and that was a huge undertaking. You know, it took months of preparation of, you know, they sold tickets. They they, you know, they organized buses. They had to figure out where all those people were gonna stay while they were in Washington for for in the middle of the week. The where whereas today, you know, we all take for granted that it's incredibly easy, to participate in the public conversation. All it takes is, you know, a rudimentary knowledge of social media. You know, you don't even have to write something if you just like it, and you've, in effect, added your voice.
Micah Sifry [00:09:36]:
If you wanna get 250,000 people to come to a a rally today, what you still need is a, compelling message. But anybody with just some very basic skills can create a website. It's not that hard to, you know, invite people to an event, and, you know, people will spread the the information for you. And so we're in a in this sort of paradoxical situation where it's become a lot easier, and so we have mass participation in politics in a way that we never had before. For twenty years, I helped start and ran a conference called Personal Democracy Forum. And the reason we called it Personal Democracy, other than the fact that we liked that the acronym was PDF, which was a joke, was the idea that now in the same way that you had a personal computer on your desk and soon in your pocket, you could be personally involved. And and the obstacle to not only just being involved, but being a leader, being someone who is initiating things, whether you were raising money yourself or or, organizing your own thing, the barrier to entry had dropped dramatically. The costs had dropped dramatically.
Micah Sifry [00:11:11]:
And so, you know, when you make something cheaper and easier to do, you get more of it. So we now live in an age of mass participation. Big rallies are still rare. You know, the the the April 5, we had something like 1,400 protests across The United States all under the same banner of hands off, which were protests of of, what Trump is doing. And roughly around 3,000,000 people participated, and that's a pretty big number. There are only a few examples going back decades where you can point to days of protests where millions of Americans in the multiples participated. So we're we're in a moment where there's a lot of it. It's not the first time we've ever had a moment like this.
Micah Sifry [00:12:15]:
What may be different because we just two weeks later, we had another day of mass protests. And this time, it's possible across 700 locations that maybe around the same number of people participated. So we're we're we're moving into a a a period in America where, I think we're gonna see ongoing, ferment. And and this is because what Trump is doing is they are flooding the zone with some very drastic, I'm trying to use neutral words here, very big changes. They are breaking many of the norms of how America has worked. Can you explain why you're using neutral words and, like, why you see that as important? Well, I look. I think the American left is full of people who, use fancy jargon to describe things that they've studied for a long time, the effect of doing that can make the conversation less accessible to people who do not obsess every day about politics.
Andrew Xu [00:13:35]:
So Maybe there's a perception that it's incredibly biased. And, like, it might be biased. It might not be biased, but there is a perception that it is biased.
Micah Sifry [00:13:43]:
Well, yeah, I know the other side is also constantly gaming this. But I I think that people can reason for themselves about what's going on and and make you know, draw their own conclusions. And so I I am a big believer in show before tell. And, yes, I do think what's happening is not normal, not like other Republican administrations that have come to power in America before. And the what's different is, basically ignoring the law. You know, you can come in with ideological goals. You wanna change the direction of the country. Sure.
Micah Sifry [00:14:39]:
We have ways of doing that, though they're called pass a law. Right? Get it through Congress, then let the, you know, duly appointed authorities decide what to do. What Trump and Musk we have to bring Elon Musk into the conversation. What they've been doing is radically different. They are breaking the government. They're not using normal processes for determining, for example, if someone they're firing, is actually an unproductive employee. They're just going through well, he literally picked up a chainsaw. Right? They're they're cutting without looking.
Micah Sifry [00:15:30]:
Oops. We happen to fire the people in charge of protecting us from Ebola. Oops. We happen to fire the people who, you know, keep the nuclear weapons safe. Oops. Well, it's not oops. In many cases, they want to fire the people who whose jobs have been to ensure that the weakest and most marginalized people in our country, are taken care of. And they're not doing they claim they're doing it in the name of efficiency, but it that's a joke.
Micah Sifry [00:16:12]:
So it is different. I do think there are people at the top of this administration who really, really want to use, the all the potential power of a untrammeled untrammeled executive, to force Americans to live the way they think we should live. They wanna take away people's freedom. They wanna, in some cases, erase people's identities, and they don't want, anything to stand in their way. There is a word for all of that. You know, the word is fascism, and they're showing all the hallmarks of that. But if I started with that word, some people would just be like, I don't wanna listen anymore. But how do
Andrew Xu [00:17:12]:
you know that they're they they how do you know that part of their brain hasn't automatically switched on the moment that you said it now?
Micah Sifry [00:17:19]:
It may have, but they've been listening for the first few minutes already. And I just don't I I also think words can convey, more power than you mean. You know, the there's a movie version of fascism that I think a lot of people have grown up with, whether they watched movies about World War two or they watched Star Wars. And, you know, you have this sense of, like, you know, total power, total obedience. Yeah. Sure. There's a scrappy resistance, but, you know, they're constantly on the run. They have to get incredibly lucky, you know, to blow up the Death Star.
Andrew Xu [00:18:07]:
Or yeah. They have to get incredibly lucky just to steal the plans to get, like, for the death star. Yeah.
Micah Sifry [00:18:12]:
Yes. Right. Many boffins died for for, you know, the sake of of this information. And those are wonderful stories, but I think they overstate, what these places are actually like, when they have existed in the world, which is to say they're still people still go about their lives. There is still a small act of freedom and resistance. But in many cases, what people have done is they have internalized a sense of enough fear that they will censor themselves. So until there are tanks on the streets, and, people checking my papers when I drive into town, you know, to do my shopping, I am not going to give them the satisfaction of already behaving as if they've taken that much power. We're in the middle of we're in the middle of a gigantic question, which is, will freedom in America continue or not? But it's very unclear which way that's going to go.
Micah Sifry [00:19:38]:
And the evidence for that is also in the ways that Trump regularly backs Dell. If he were a all powerful dictator, then he could command the stock market, and the bond market to do whatever he wants. Now dictators in history have done that. They have shut down stock markets. They have imposed price controls. They have, nationalized bank accounts. Those are ways to take even more power, But he hasn't done those things. And instead, when the stock market, you know, started to really crash, suddenly, he flip flopped and decided to suspend most of his tariffs.
Micah Sifry [00:20:31]:
Why? Because he was hearing from his own base, that this was too chaotic, too too dangerous, and there was already too much pain being inflicted. Now if you're all powerful, you don't listen. But, clearly, he's also a weathervane. And that's why the figuring out how to build a successful resistance is such an important question. That's why I wrote the piece I wrote in the times, because I do think Wait. Sorry. Could you describe the piece that you wrote in the Times? Yeah. Yeah.
Micah Sifry [00:21:16]:
Yeah. I'm happy to do that. So the the idea was you know, the the way this piece came about is is an editor at the New York Times actually reached out to me on the advice of one of her colleagues because I had written something for one of her colleagues a few years earlier. And they were looking for ideas for an article about what could Democrats be doing, better to build a successful opposition to Trump. If if you recall a few weeks back, you know, he did his big speech before congress, and and you had a few members, you know, sitting there with little paddles with words on them that were supposed to express Are you talking about Cory Booker? Cory Booker was the last in this whole series. Cory Booker was maybe the first example of a Democrat doing something that broke through. But for the most part, Democrats were, either capitulating, sitting on their hands, complaining that they didn't have any real power to do anything, and the base was really getting mad at them. So The Times was looking for a piece about what could Democrats do differently.
Micah Sifry [00:22:36]:
And I basically wrote back, and I said, you know what? I think you're asking the wrong question, because, you know, the Democratic politicians, this is not their job. They're not these people, especially the ones who are in the leadership, the reason they're in leadership is because they're good at two pretty important things in normal times. The first one is they know how to hold their entire coalition together, which you need to do if you're gonna pass anything. And the second thing that they're good at is raising a lot of money, which is what they need to help their coalition get reelected, and if they're successful, go back to being a majority. So their main job, that's why Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries are the leaders in the Senate and in the House for the Democrats. And expecting Chuck Schumer to also be good at standing at a big demonstration and leading people in a protest chant? Well, he didn't get the job because he was good at that. And obviously, when he tries to be good at that, it's really pathetic. What I said to the Times was, I think you're instead, we should be looking at who are the potential leaders at the base, at the in the grassroots that can build a movement that can then change the weather.
Micah Sifry [00:24:14]:
Right? Politicians are weathervanes. They are really good at figuring out which way the wind is blowing and making sure to move with it. And it's the rare ones who say, no. I'm actually going to take risks and try and lead people towards a in a direction that they wanna get people to. But I what I said was, I think something interesting is brewing here because there was no public expression of protest when Trump got reelected, compared to the first time when, you know, we got the women's march. We we had gigantic protests. Okay. Well, let let's talk about this.
Andrew Xu [00:25:01]:
What do you think are some of the main differences between anti pro Trump protests after he got reelected compared to anti Trump protests after he got elected for the first time?
Micah Sifry [00:25:11]:
Yeah. That good question. So when he got elected the first time, it was a giant shock in particular to the people who had really vested a lot of hopes and dreams on Hillary Clinton getting elected. And the first response after he won was shock. A lot of the Democratic politicians and leaders of Democratic advocacy organizations, most of them were just, like, flat on their backs. There was a vacuum, and the vacuum was filled by women who were at the front edge of the people who were most shocked. Right? They really thought Hillary was gonna win. And when she didn't win, it was a it was a gigantic stab in the heart.
Micah Sifry [00:26:13]:
And so it made sense that the people who then formed the base of this new protest wave were primarily women and, in particular, middle aged white women, many of whom were radicalized, were were were, like, shocked into action for the first time in a long time. Many of them will tell you that they had not been politically active before this. And the people in the Democratic establishment kept thinking, well, we'll find a way to work with Trump. And it was the people on the progressive on the margins who actually stepped into leadership. So the whole first wave in in 2017 had much more of a feminist color coloration, much more progressive coloration.
Andrew Xu [00:27:09]:
Yeah. Like, this is this coincided with this also coincided with the the the Democratic Party shifting left on both gender issues and also racial issues. This is like the this is the whole phenomenon that Matthew Iglesias might refer to as, like, the great awakening where
Micah Sifry [00:27:25]:
Oh, the great awakening, I would say, took place as part of this in the in the sort of 2018, '20 '19, '20 '20. You know, me too, it existed before 2016, but it really flowered afterwards. And, same thing with Black Lives Matter. Existed before 2016, but really took on a much bigger, you know, more salience for for many people. This time around and then we had COVID. Let's remember what then happened. Right? Like, then we had, there was a a a rising rebellion within the Democratic Party led by Bernie Sanders and kids in the environmental movement, who were building towards mass protests. This is, like, the Sunrise Movement and 350.org.
Micah Sifry [00:28:23]:
And then COVID shuts that all down. Okay? I mean, Bernie was absolutely challenging, Biden for the Democratic nomination Yeah. And to South Carolina when, the deal was cut to, you know, basically, smooth the way for Biden so that to stop Bernie. And then a few weeks later, COVID basically shut the rest of the primary process down. It also shut the environmental movement down. It shut every kind of organized operation. The the George Floyd protests were more spontaneous than anything. I don't think the there was anybody saying, let's do this.
Micah Sifry [00:29:10]:
This is gonna lead to great things. And we have to recognize that then there was a lot of backlash. Biden beat Trump, but the backlash was also forming at the same time. So And part of
Andrew Xu [00:29:26]:
the reason why Biden beat Trump is because Biden was seen as, like, the most moderate candidate out of all
Micah Sifry [00:29:31]:
the other Democratic candidates at the time. Yeah. Well, that's the we there was also a core desire on the part of Democrats. More than anything, they just wanted to beat Trump. And there is a good argument that where Bernie Sanders failed to close the deal was in explaining to people why he was the better candidate to beat Trump. And and that's the the what with the hinge of the Democratic primary. Who's who's the strongest candidate to beat Trump? In any event, COVID shut down most of the first wave of Trump resistance. All the groups shrank.
Micah Sifry [00:30:20]:
The money shrank. So when January 6 happened, it was a shock, but we didn't see you know, there there's one other thing that is always true about American politics is when your guy wins, you relax. So there were a lot of people who really worked hard to get to ensure that Biden would win and worked hard to protect the results of that election, and even worked hard to take the Senate in those special races in Georgia. But then once he got in, a lot of people checked out and said, I could go back to normal life.
Andrew Xu [00:31:07]:
And it's it's such a shame because I do think that on the marriage, like, I honestly think January 6 warranted larger protests than the George Floyd protest.
Micah Sifry [00:31:16]:
I think that yes. Though, I think no one was prepared for it. It was a fast moving event. It definitely traumatized a lot of people. One of the things I noticed, Andrew, and I I definitely wrote about this in my Substack, is that January 6 was horrible, but for a lot of people, it was too much. And you I saw this happen again and again whenever the media did, like, a really good reconstruction. The New York Times did one that's, like, a moment by moment reconstruction using all kinds of found video. And, and I definitely heard from lots of people who basically said, I can't look at it, that it was too upsetting.
Micah Sifry [00:32:15]:
And so instead of it becoming something we organized around, it became something we tried to just put behind us. January 6 select committee did a great job of tying all those pieces together into a story that mattered for people. And I think, again, more could have been done. But we you know, the the one of our problems in terms of trying to defend democracy in America today is that, we don't have particularly strong civic institutions devoted to that problem. It's we're a very fragmented society. We do not have, the way the right wing has, a gigantic base in the evangelical church plus, dozens of motivated billionaires who have funded the creation of institutions that cultivate people from a young age to become leaders in their movement and a media system that also constantly reinforces their messages. And there's nothing similar on the left. It's much more fragmented.
Micah Sifry [00:33:44]:
It's much more short term in its orientation and therefore weaker. So this anyway, to fast forward to 2024 and the moment we're in now, when Trump got reelected, I would argue that for a lot of people, it was upsetting, but it was accepted because it's very hard to argue, not just with a electoral college victory, but a popular vote victory. He didn't win a landslide, but he won more votes than Kamala Harris.
Andrew Xu [00:34:23]:
Yeah. He won every single swing state.
Micah Sifry [00:34:25]:
He won he won the marginal states. And so I think a great many people on the rule of law side who have always said we have to respect the results of elections when they are conducted in a free and fair way, were like, okay. We have to accept this. And so there were not gigantic protests around Trump's inauguration. You know, the women's march in twenty sixteen took place the day after his inauguration, and something like 5,000,000 people marched across the country. This time around, this women's march and some other groups did call for protests the Saturday before his inauguration. I think about 50,000 people showed up in in DC. Diehards and young people for whom this was, like, the first time, they were, you know, out of dealing with something.
Micah Sifry [00:35:29]:
What changed why are we seeing such big protests now? I would say it's because what they're doing is so extreme. It's so, it's such a flood zone. They are hitting so many people that they're lighting up a lot of people. And the federal workers are, like, the people who are being most affected most quickly. So the piece I wrote argued that instead of waiting for some politician to catch fire by, you know, just saying the right words, we should look towards the people who are already on fire because they're being thrown out of their jobs willy nilly. They're being harassed with ridiculous emails telling them to list the five things they did this week, that to justify continuing to have their jobs. They're, seeing their life's work literally and gleefully thrown into the wood chipper, as as Musk put it. And all of this being done without any sort of respect for the the normal processes of government, which is, yeah, you can fire people, but you have to show cause.
Micah Sifry [00:36:58]:
You have to actually show that they were unproductive. I mean, there are many things you have to do. You can't just say, oh, well, Congress, we're gonna ignore the fact that you created this agency and and gave it money to do the following things. We're just gonna we're not gonna pass a law getting rid of the agency. We're just going to fire all the people inside the agency, and maybe we'll have three of them left just to answer the phones so we can claim that we didn't actually get rid of it. That's way beyond the pale, and that's caused a lot of people a lot of pain. But I would say the silver lining is it's also surfacing for Americans who, for the most part, don't realize how much government does for them, how big a factor our government is in our lives. Now all of a sudden, you know, if you're a veteran or you had friends or family who were veterans, it's like they wanna cut 20% of the VA workforce.
Micah Sifry [00:38:16]:
It's already challenging enough to get quality care. And by the way, I think it's improved a lot over the last few years. You're not going to improve the lives of veterans by doing this. You're gonna hurt them. And these people have authenticity. They have a story to tell that is really hard to argue with. So I feel like the the silver lining is, you know, as Joni Mitchell put it in in her song, you know, you don't know what you've got till it's gone. And that's causing a lot of people to suddenly talk about all the things we count on government to do.
Micah Sifry [00:38:59]:
If they get rid of NOAA, you know, the weather agency, that means we won't get as accurate forecasting of hurricanes and tornadoes and droughts and floods and farmers who rely on, you know, the forecast to plan their crops. All of these kinds of things that we just take for granted, that it just works. It doesn't just work. You know? There are people inside the government who make these things work. And so they're in the process of wrecking all of that. But I think we, especially if we listen to these sort of newly radicalized federal workers, may also learn what it is we're fighting for. Why are we trying to stop this? What are we attempting to defend?
Andrew Xu [00:39:57]:
Okay. So one thing that you said that I thought was really interesting is how a lot of Americans, they didn't really realize the impact that government work was having for them until now. I guess I have two questions to ask you about that. So I guess the first would be, do you think that the median American views government service as inherently corrupt?
Micah Sifry [00:40:18]:
You know, I I think, it is a story that has been spread particularly, by right wing media, which is has an ideological goal, which is to weaken support for government enough, that people will stop defending it, and you can therefore, you know, strip it down, to almost nothing, and in turn, just give people a big tax refund. And so corrupt isn't necessarily the only word. It's also wasteful and slow. Yeah. Maybe there is still a
Andrew Xu [00:41:05]:
lot of bit of wasteful and slow, but I would postulate that ever since Donald Trump took over the Republican Party, I think corrupt has become more and more frequent of a belief in government. Like, the government is secretly run by a deep state that is, like, all doing all of this to benefit themselves. Like, they're like, this is all inherently broken and, like, all of these people are lining up their pockets and, like, scamming us and so on and so
Micah Sifry [00:41:27]:
Yes. But you asked if the median American believes that, and I think the answer is no. I think there's a hardcore 30%, thirty five %, the majority of the Republican Party who does believe that. And so they think what Trump is doing is justified because he's he's basically, you know, trying to pull this whole corrupt evil thing out by its roots. But our the the you know, again, well, how do you define median voter? Right? Yeah. Like, the swing voter who votes based on
Andrew Xu [00:42:08]:
the price of eggs, maybe.
Micah Sifry [00:42:10]:
Well, the swing voter who votes on the on the basis of the price of eggs absolutely wanted change over continuity in this last election. And in the end, the Democrats were, I think, really in a very tough position to defend the status quo when the status quo was not working for most people. And Trump's ability to parry all efforts to warn people about how dangerous he would be. Most people the polls show this, did not believe that Trump would actually do all the things that we were warning he would do. You can say to people, look at project twenty twenty five. Right? It's all laid out there in detail. And Trump himself denied, that he had read it or had anything to do with it. That was a total lie.
Micah Sifry [00:43:10]:
But the desire for change is it's kind of a constant now that people want big changes in the status quo. What I would say is there's a lot of latent buyer's remorse taking place where you hear people say, I voted for Trump, but I didn't think that meant I would lose my job. Or I didn't think
Andrew Xu [00:43:39]:
I would lose a big chunk of my Social Security. Like, that Right.
Micah Sifry [00:43:42]:
I didn't think my four zero one k would go down so drastically. I didn't think there would be this much chaos. And, you know, he's there's this, you know, very cliched idea in in American politics that every president gets a honeymoon, the first hundred days, roughly. And in those first hundred days, they try and do a lot. You know, famously, this comes from Franklin delano Roosevelt who did a ton of stuff in his first hundred days in 1933. And Doug Sosnick actually had a very good, opinion piece in the Times, I think, yesterday or the day before, where he pointed out that every president comes in at a fairly robust level of support, something over 50%. And then in those first hundred days when they do lots of things, the number begins to drop, but it doesn't drop that much because they're in their honeymoon. And we're kinda going, let's give the guy a chance.
Micah Sifry [00:44:57]:
After all, he got elected. We we have to hope he succeeds. And then after those first hundred days, their popularity really starts to decline. And for American presidents, popularity is historically the bane source of their power. Trump may be different. We'll see. But Trump is already below 50%, and he's not even done with his first hundred days. He is starting off at a historically low level.
Micah Sifry [00:45:30]:
And if the turmoil, the the questions about tariffs and the market and and so on, if all that continues, it's not gonna get better for him. It's gonna get worse. And I think the the worsening is that median voter, those people who don't pay close attention to politics, kind of going, wait. This isn't what I was expecting. And that again, by the way, goes back to, you know, earlier in our conversation, why I, you you know, was trying not to use these heavy labels like fascist. I think people have to come to that conclusion themselves, that what he's doing is not within the normal, you know this isn't like a football game where one side, just happened to be really good at driving the ball to the other end. This is like a game where one side is saying, the ref called us offsides, but we're ignoring the ref because we still have the ball. And we're threatening to kill the families of the ref if they if if Yeah.
Micah Sifry [00:46:44]:
We're telling our fans to go kill the fam go go, you know, bomb the house that the ref lives in because we don't like that ref.
Andrew Xu [00:46:56]:
And like that, they're they're saying it to the entire stadium, and the stadium thinks that they're just joking. Yeah. Well, no.
Micah Sifry [00:47:02]:
I mean, we're this is, again, this is why it's outside the boundaries of of what normally happens. They are currently, and flagrantly disobeying a Supreme Court order. We're in the middle of a of a short, process by which the lower court judge is in the middle of trying to get that order enforced. And we may see fairly soon if they continue to disobey the Supreme Court or not. That will be a real inflection point. You know? And, you know, to go back to your football game analogy, the the normal way these things work is, you know, we call this the thermostatic, behavior of the American electorate. Right? A thermostat works, like, if the government gets too hot, then the the public rewards the party that's gonna cool things down. Right? And if if the government is too cool, then they, you know, they vote in the people who will warm things up some more.
Micah Sifry [00:48:20]:
So which is why almost every midterm after a president gets elected, his party loses seats in the House and Senate. Will we have a normal midterm a year and a half from now? That's really the big question.
Andrew Xu [00:48:39]:
I guess yeah. Let's let's play out some of the implications of what I think you're saying. So you you talk about how, normally, the approval rating sort of determines how powerful a president is. But, like, you also try to allude to Trumpism as fascism. Like, tradition like, traditionally, has approval ratings impacted, like, how powerful, like, fascists have been throughout history? Assuming like, let's assume that I were to accept that analogy at face value. Does approval rating matter for that specific type of authoritarianism?
Micah Sifry [00:49:12]:
Well, I would say this partly depends on whether you continue to have free elections or not. So, you know, if Trump manage was able to basically shut down the free press and, you know, intimidate other independent institutions, like universities, like labor unions, like, you know, the military, for sure, and either get them to be silent or to get them to be demonstrably just beholden to him, then we're not living in anything where the pendulum can just swing back anymore. Okay? I mean, Hitler you know, to go straight to that example, I mean, in sixty days, he he basically got a emergent emergency powers that effectively made the German Reichstag, the, you know, Congress, completely, you know, just a rubber stamp. They had no power whatsoever. But, you know, he killed opponents within his own party. You know, I mean, the the repression was swift, and we're nowhere close to that. We've had countries Poland is a good example. Okay? For the law and order party in Poland, in many ways, it was a Trumpist party.
Micah Sifry [00:51:06]:
They were absolutely trying to destroy the independence of the judiciary and of the media. And despite that, we just saw elections take place in Poland, where the leading opposition party, along with two smaller parties, formed an alliance, and they won enough seats in their country's parliament to throw the ruling party out. K? And what that says is that sometimes, you know, you're in this situation. The the political scientists call it competitive authoritarianism, which means that there are still elections, and in theory, there's still competition for who can win. But the election is so rigged, you know, the the whole system is so tilted that the opposition can never really win. And we're somewhere in that you know, we're drifting or we're being pushed in the direction of that kind of situation, but we're nowhere I don't think we're all the way there. I also think you've gotta remember that we're very much a federal system. And even though Trump is and and the MAGA congress is trying to pass laws that would change how states conduct their own elections, right, I don't think any of the blue states are going to let the that law, if it even gets through the senate, which it probably won't, they're not gonna let them change how they operate their own elections.
Micah Sifry [00:52:53]:
You know, the Trump Department of Education is ordering state departments of education to get rid of DEI programs. And in a number of blue states, New York, Washington State are the ones that come to mind, The State Department of Education has said, screw you. You know, we think these are important, and you don't have any power over telling us. You know, even if you try and turn the screw with the federal grant money that, you know, you might try and withhold, we'll sue you. You can't just do that. So it's we're we're seeing this this fight still underway, and the story isn't over yet. It could. It could.
Micah Sifry [00:53:47]:
I mean, I'm I'm not saying this has to end with a happy ending. But the fact that his popularity is declining is important because if you're a marginal member of the Republican Party in Congress and you're hearing from your constituents that particular policies are hurting them, you're also beginning to worry, am I going to lose my next election? Now some of these people are true believers, and they won't care. But a
Andrew Xu [00:54:22]:
lot of them are pragmatic politicians. Right? And even the ones like, if there's enough so, like, if there is enough if there is enough resistance against Trump, then maybe the true believers will lose in future elections.
Micah Sifry [00:54:36]:
That's completely possible. We we have had elections that are big swings, so that could happen. It's it's still anybody's guess. And, again, so this is goes back to why you know, one of the arguments I was trying to make in The New York Times piece is that the nature of the opposition to Trump matters, and that this time, to the extent that federal workers are part of that rising resistance in terms of who is out there speaking at rallies and what do they represent, it's coming from what you might call the the sort of, you know, it's almost a politically neutral center. You know, many, many people who go to work in government are there because they just wanna serve the American people. You will hear them use that phrase. A lot of them will tell you, by the way, you know, I swore an oath to the constitution when I started this job. 30% of them are veterans, and those are people who volunteer you know, voluntarily served in the military because they felt called to serve their country.
Micah Sifry [00:56:06]:
And then after leaving the military, they go work for the government, not just because it's a good job with good benefits, but because they still wanna serve their country. When you frame your opposition to what Trump is doing in that kind of language, I would argue, you may be able to reach a lot of people for whom the kind of style and rhetoric that the women's march and the left used in 2017 to oppose Trump the first time came off as more coming from the political margins. More, I mean, for some people, absolutely necessary. We have to protect the people at the margins. But I would say, if anything, I want to make sure that if I'm trying to protect unpopular people, people who some people are feel like, oh, that's weird or that's different, and I I don't understand it, I wanna be able to do it from the strongest possible place. And so that sense of service, of defending the rule of law, the constitution, and that government exists to serve all people is I think those are really powerful, powerful messages, and it would be foolish if what you're trying to do is weaken Trump to the point where he can't do the stuff he's trying to do because it's really unpopular, and he starts losing even Republican support. The way to do it is go for the high ground. You know? Do not leave the high ground to them.
Andrew Xu [00:58:05]:
You know? So, like, all like, the stuff that you said about how government workers, a lot of them did like, took a pledge to the constitution and joined because they wanted to serve their country. So, like, assuming I were to take all of that at face value, I guess my my instinctual reaction would just be to say that a lot of us Americans are really spoiled and don't deserve the service that they've been giving us. If like, so many of us just think that they're inherently, like, rigging the system or a lot of them are inherently corrupt, when in reality, a lot of them are, like, actively going out of their way to serve the American people.
Micah Sifry [00:58:37]:
You know, I think a lot of this goes back to, what stories we we learn and share and, amplify. You know, and there's definitely a challenge here in terms of building up people's awareness, the narrative that, in many cases, it's not a big faceless government and bureaucracy. It's just people doing their best. Michael Lewis, who's one of, you know, America's greatest writers, has been doing a lot of writing recently about the the stories that people don't know about, you know, faceless government workers who are actually saving lives. And when you hear those stories, you know, they're hard to forget. You know, he he tells a story about a a guy who figured out, over years of research, how to map the ocean currents and the winds so that if somebody falls off a boat, a cruise ship, the coast guard can figure out, based on the location of where the incident was reported and how much time has passed, where they should go to pluck them out of the water. And when this guy started his research, you know, some of the money went for him to you know, it was like funding so he could get, you know, Styrofoam dummies that weigh the same as people that that could be dropped in the water. It's the very sort of thing that if you were an asshole like Trump, you'd fish it out of the long list of things that you know, why are we making government grants for this? Right?
Andrew Xu [01:00:28]:
Yeah. And then, like, the the people that went out of their way to do those things, he would accuse them of just being inherently corrupt, or he would accuse them of being
Micah Sifry [01:00:35]:
like he's because his agenda is to destroy. He doesn't respect any of this. He doesn't understand it, and the people around him are ideologically committed to tearing it all down. But when you hear the story, and now you realize that the Coast Guard saves hundreds of lives a year performing a miracle of somehow finding people in the open ocean hours after they've fallen off a boat because this one guy actually was nerdy enough and hardworking enough and had the government support to figure it all out. And now that we have that, you're like, well, of course we want that to continue. And no. The private market isn't going to create this service for you. It's just there's no profit in it.
Andrew Xu [01:01:32]:
It's just the it's just the patriotism of ordinary Americans that wanna serve their country even when people accuse them of, like, rigging the system. Exactly. But that's
Micah Sifry [01:01:41]:
the that's so it's not that the American people are spoiled. I think there there's just, like, a problem of of lack of information. Our media tends to tell negative stories more than positive stories. You know, there's more you're gonna get more clicks when you inform people of a scandal than when you tell them about something that's working. Right? You know, Robert f Kennedy can try and blow up decades of public health knowledge because we are two generations away from people who used to go into iron lung machines because there was no cure for polio. We are two decades away from, you know, thousands of of little children dying every year from measles. When that all comes back, if, you know, these people really get to do what they're doing, maybe maybe the tide will turn again. You don't know what you've got till it's gone.
Micah Sifry [01:02:43]:
Yeah. So, like, maybe I so, like, there were some times when
Andrew Xu [01:02:47]:
I was reading headlines about the like, Elon Musk and Doge and all this like, all the stuff that they had been cutting in the federal government. And there was a part of me, like, the back of my head that I was just thinking, this sounds like one of the worst things of all time. This feels like irreparable damage. Like, do you think the stuff Doge has been doing, do you think it's irreparable?
Micah Sifry [01:03:07]:
Not irreparable in forever, but, definitely, this is damage that will take years, if not longer, to repair. And I'm not saying that the system worked perfectly beforehand. There's no question that we've allowed government to get too slow, and and, you know, the process of getting a project approved can take too long. But the way you fix that is with a scalpel, not with with a chain store.
Andrew Xu [01:03:44]:
Yeah. This is like they're taking they're taking stuff that, like, should require a scalpel, and they're, like so they're sometimes they're using a chainsaw, and sometimes it feels like they're taking like, they're using a nuclear bomb instead.
Micah Sifry [01:03:57]:
Yes. Nuclear bomb is a better word, for what they're doing. I mean, at the national you know, the National Institutes for Health is a crown jewel of the federal government. There is no there is nothing like it in any other country in the world. A multibillion dollar university level, scientific research establishment, that is producing constantly cutting edge, medicines and therapies. And they have gone through their workforce, not just the probationary employees. I mean, they fired people who were probationary, including people because they had just been promoted to, like, run a whole new Alzheimer's Research Institute and were a new position and didn't have three years of experience in that position. Technically, he's probationary, so we can we can fire him.
Micah Sifry [01:04:56]:
Well, how does that make any sense? The problem is is that, you know, you don't immediately feel the impact of destroying these investments for years, but we will feel the impact for sure. You know, fire 20% of the IRS is death. And the government's gonna collect half a trillion dollars less in taxes as a result, that's not a cost benefit that makes any sense. So you're saving $10,000,000,000 in salary against 500,000,000,000 in taxes you would have collected that people legitimately owe. So, yes, they're doing tremendous damage. People have to wake up and pay attention because the the blast radius is spreading. And just to go back to my piece one last time, if you don't think there are people around you who know what's going on, ask. Go go talk to someone in the postal service, or go you know, the next time you're in the airport and you're going through the security line, go talk to one of those TSA workers and ask them how they feel about their contract, their union contract being unilaterally canceled.
Micah Sifry [01:06:32]:
Are we safer flying, you know, when they are firing veteran v FAA air controllers and getting rid of people who are being trained to be air controllers? You think we're safer? It's it's about, you know, using a little bit of curiosity and realizing that all around us, people are being affected by this. And that's why I think, you know, in the long run, meaning in the next year or two, I think Trump is, he's he's headed for disaster, and that will, ultimately be his downfall is as more and more people are hurt. And we just have to hope that it's not a big disaster. He's making our country less safe. He's opening the door to enemies from overseas who might wanna come here and do us harm. You know, when George Bush was warned before nine eleven of the threat and he did nothing, Trump, he's actively making our defenses weaker. So the, you know, the thing to recognize is disasters are coming that these people are setting in motion.
Andrew Xu [01:08:01]:
Do you think is a yeah. Do you think that, like, all of the protests that have been done because like, from government workers, do you think that they have
Micah Sifry [01:08:10]:
a chance to shine a spotlight on this harm? Yeah. Yeah. I think the spotlight is getting brighter and brighter. I think it's also in in just the last few weeks, we're talking now in late April, we're seeing more institutions shifting their stance. Before April, there was a lot of obeying in advance. You had law firms that were cutting deals with Trump. You had media companies that were cutting deals with Trump, universities that were bending the knee like Columbia. Then we had these giant rallies on April 5.
Micah Sifry [01:08:49]:
And then Harvard, which is a pretty significant institution in and of itself, said, hell no. And now I I think that the behavior of a lot of our institutions is shifting, and more of them are saying, you know what? We're gonna band together. We're not gonna let them pick us off one by one, and we're gonna stand for the things that we think are right. And I think that so that's a a vibe shift that's underway. I think also seeing them abduct people who are here in our country legally and throw them onto planes and and toss them into concentration camps in El Salvador, and then claim there's nothing they can do, is also a level of shock that we had not seen before. And if they can do that and get away with it, well, who's to say they won't do it to American citizens they don't like? So I think we're we're absolutely seeing the the this moment sharpen. But I I my sense is they came in with shock and awe and did a lot of things because they could before they could be stopped. But in the process, they hit and hurt so many people that now the the backlash they're generating is gonna be even bigger.
Micah Sifry [01:10:28]:
Alright.
Andrew Xu [01:10:28]:
Final question. Do you have any specific advice for any, like, like, government workers or just institutions more broadly that want to do their best to fight against the excesses of the Trump administration, but do so in a way that is a lot more popular with, like, the median voter?
Micah Sifry [01:10:46]:
Yeah. Yeah. My advice is, get really good at telling your story. The it's the most powerful way to change another person's mind is to speak your own truth. Okay? And federal workers have a genuine story to tell about why they went into government, the commitments they made, who they were helping, and now what it means for their agency to be blown up, or for them to be fired, what the impacts are. I think those that kind of testimony is indisputably powerful. And, yes, someone who's committed to the idea that it's all just this big, bad, corrupt, deep state, they will push back. But there are a lot of people in the middle who don't buy that theory, just haven't been paying close attention, maybe didn't really think that much about the role of government in their lives.
Micah Sifry [01:11:59]:
But now whereas in the past, federal workers were quiet and they just did their jobs, now I think they're compelled to go out into the public square and and to tell their stories. And the more they do that, I think the more they will help shift public opinion in the direction that will ultimately make it much, much harder for Trump to continue doing this.
Andrew Xu [01:12:28]:
Micah Sifry, thank you so much for taking the time to come
Micah Sifry [01:12:31]:
on to this podcast. My pleasure, Andrew. Thank you for doing this.
Andrew Xu [01:12:37]:
Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode and would like to hear more, make sure to follow this podcast on Spotify, Apple podcasts, or anywhere else that you get your podcast from. Until next time. Goodbye.
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