Twenty-One DOGE Members Quit

When I first saw this headline, I was extremely concerned. Were the workers that Elon Musk had hired abandoning ship? But then I read more closely and realized that these were not Musk’s hires, but people who were merged into DOGE from the US Digital Service, which was set up during the Obama administration.

And they are really pissed off.

They signed a joint resignation letter with only their titles, not their names, and made in part the following statement:

‘Each of us left senior private sector technology positions to pursue nonpartisan public service. We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the Constitution across presidential administrations,’ the 21 workers said in a joint resignation letter Tuesday. ‘However, it has become clear that we can no longer honor those commitments at the United States DOGE Service.’

How can anyone not be moved by these self-sacrificing federal workers?

They also distorted their reasons for leaving, to make them sound more honorable:

The Tuesday letter said Musk’s team began integrating legacy members of the US Digital Service after the Feb. 14 termination notices were sent out. DOGE’s actions include ‘firing technical experts, mishandling sensitive data and breaking critical systems,’ according to the letter. ‘We will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems.’

We can make reasonable assumptions that they were angry when Musk started firing people, especially “technical experts.” How did DOGE mishandle sensitive data or break critical systems? I guess we’ll never know.

The real issue seems to be that life, for these employees, is no longer predictable, and they are terrified. As often happens in private sector organizations, DOGE reorganized USDS, and the employees didn’t approve of their decisions. But Musk shined a light on X about what might also be a factor:

‘These were Dem political holdovers who refused to return to the office,’ Musk wrote. ‘They would have been fired had they not resigned.’

As additional evidence of their protest, they have created a website. They clearly wanted to make a statement:

For decades, we've done our jobs in the background. We made it easier to file taxes, get veterans' benefits, and apply for financial aid. During times of crisis, we helped refugees navigate immigration processes, helped everyone find vaccines, and helped parents find baby formula. Along the way, we made government websites easier to use while protecting the integrity of your personal information. If they really wanted to know how to use technology to build a more efficient country, they would ask us. But they haven't. They are destroyers. We are the builders.

Our legislators have to at least make an effort to appeal to Musk and Trump about minimizing the chaos in their upcoming actions and empathize with the reactions of federal employees.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, of South Dakota, told NBC News on Tuesday that any reductions in the federal workforce "need to be done in a respectful way."

‘We want to do everything we can — and I think this has been long overdue — to try and figure out how we can make government work more efficiently, cost the taxpayers less, and make sure that they get a good return on the tax dollars that they spend in this country,’ Thune said. ‘But I would also argue again that in anything that they do, they need to be respectful of people that are involved in these agencies and departments of government.’ Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., said Tuesday that Republicans need to adjust their messaging around DOGE. McCormick’s comments came after people in his district lashed out at him last week over the mass terminations of federal workers. ‘I’m all for trimming the government, but I am all for also doing it in a deliberate manner that allows people to adjust in their lifestyle,’ McCormick told reporters on Capitol Hill when asked about the confrontation at his town hall.

Two observations on this situation: (1) Musk is focused on using a wrecking ball, and an appeal to be more orderly will probably fall on deaf ears; and (2) the protestors at Rep. McCormick’s townhall may have been hired by Soros and his ilk to cause their own kind of chaos.

At this point, everyone should probably step back and take a deep breath.

It’s going to continue to be a bumpy ride.