When was the last time that you took an oath?
It may have been the vows to your partner when you were married. Within those wedding vows, you swore to put your partner before yourself, to care for them in sickness and health, to cherish and place your partner and family before all others. It may have been as a boy or girl scout, to embody the scout law of being trustworthy, loyal, kind, and courteous. Medical practitioners swear to follow the Hippocratic oath, to care for their patients in an ethical manner. For the most patriotic among us, it may have been at their naturalization ceremony, where they renounce any allegiance to another foreign nation and pledge themselves and their loyalty to the United States.
The last oath I took was as a federal employee for the United States Agency for International Development, right before Donald Trump was sworn in for the second time as president. All federal employees take the oath of office as part of the onboarding process, and it is the most emotional day you can imagine.
Americans of all races, faiths, and creeds, pledging to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and to faithfully execute the laws and duties of their office. The vast melting pot of America made manifest and reiterating their commitment to the community and country that enabled their well-being. That act centers and frames the work that federal employees do.
The oath is an immensely powerful act. It is a verbalization of your commitment to something larger than yourself. The oath of office has been a guiding principle for me, and for thousands of other government employees, in the past four months. While Trump has continued his relentless assault against the rule of law in his attempt to destroy U.S. institutions and bend the federal government to his will, terminated government employees have been acting as the last line of defense in one final act of public service to the country.
(I technically still work at USAID, but with the Trump administration’s elimination of the agency, we’re counting down the days we have left. A large portion of USAID will be RIF’d, or officially terminated, on July 1, myself included. I’m currently on paternity leave for the birth of our first son. The remainder of staff will continue to draw down actions, do their best to transfer data and functions over to the State Department, and bring the remaining USAID foreign service officers and their families home. For their efforts, they’ll be shown the door on September 1.)
Elon Musk has left Washington, and DOGE is to some extent out of the headlines. But rest assured, the damage is still being done. That’s why terminated employees have been taking and continue to take action, ranging from the April 5 Hands Off rally to the Tuesday Group—an array of terminated government employees who, as the name implies, meet every Tuesday in the Hart Senate Office Building to conduct peaceful sit-ins of Senate offices and communicate the damage that is being done to their respective states through the wholesale destruction of the departments and agencies that they have devoted their lives to.
The conversations with the Senate staffers are often shocking. One would anticipate that the Senate is up to speed on what is happening, able to track stats of terminations and dollars cut by DOGE. The reality, unfortunately, is much worse. Instead, our stories of trauma are often the first time that the Senate staffers are made aware of the cancellation of programs and the stoppage of work.
DOGE has moved so quickly, refused to report through traditional channels, and in some cases outright lied to the Senate and House during congressional meetings that it may take upward of a year to fully understand the level of damage it has done. The U.S. is shedding expertise and capacity at a rate unseen in our lifetimes. The only thing that DOGE can do is destroy. Any fool can kick a barn down, but it takes a carpenter to build it.
Since the Trump administration began, an estimated one in 10 federal employees have been terminated. The damage that will be done to the American people cannot be overstated. Government employees are the silent workhorses that keep America safe, providing services for the most vulnerable, such as Meals on Wheels and Head Start educational support, and performing more mundane tasks like weather monitoring and tracking E. coli outbreaks. Even as a government employee, I have been woefully unaware of the number of services my colleagues provide to the American people, and it is only by connecting with them at these protests that I’ve learned the utter havoc that these cuts will wreak.
Every former employee I talk to expresses a sense of bafflement and bewilderment at the callousness and carelessness with which these cuts are being performed. They recall their shock and horror as the DOGE bros come in with sledgehammers and cancel education grants, food aid contracts, and other key services; their overriding goal to slash and burn the carefully curated system that has been built over generations, instead of reforming or improving the government.
Unfortunately, the actions and protests of terminated government employees can be added to the long list of protests that have galvanized the people but have not had an appreciable impact on policy. In the past 20 years, the U.S. has seen some of the largest protests, the largest social movements in history, and they have had the smallest effects on policy. The generational struggle for equality has continued with immense numbers of Americans marching for racial justice in the Black Lives Matter protests, sharing stories of abuse through the #MeToo movement, and confronting inequality through Occupy Wall Street.
We are more acutely aware of the problems that we face, yet we find ourselves unable to rally the political will to implement any solutions. Instead our dysfunction has allowed reactionary forces to erode our rights and empower the worst facets of our id. Trump was elected in 2024 by promising to fix all of the problems that Americans have articulated, and since taking office he has instead poured gasoline on all of our challenges, actively inflaming our wounds and highlighting the broken facets of our government.
Most people would be disheartened by this. What can one person do against such reckless hate? This: We must all take and retake our oaths—to verbalize our social contract to each other, to recognize that the Constitution is a parchment barrier and that the power it has comes from the people. Our actions and beliefs give it purpose and tangibility.
It is time for solidarity. Not a fantasy solidarity where a magical combination of impeccable motive, purehearted action, and presupposed triumph usher in a progressive victory unmet by opposing forces; where without sweat and equity the vaunted march of history continues forward. We must retake our oath to America with a full understanding of the perils of our age, with a full comprehension of the dangers that our democracy faces, and how close we are to losing it.
Taking an oath binds you to an understanding that society demands more than your passive acknowledgment; it requires your active participation. True solidarity does not tolerate the papering over of our differences but grows and strengthens through listening to the experiences of our community, through understanding the internal discomfort of being wrong and having the fortitude to recognize each other’s differences. We must all recognize that being a citizen of a healthy democracy requires us to take the oath below; that our office of being an engaged citizen is the highest calling we can achieve. Let us all retake our oath to America, that:
I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.
The post I’ve Been RIF’d at USAID, but I Still Swear an Oath—to Democracy appeared first on New Republic.
