US Civil servants are being asked who they voted for in 2024 election

As someone who lived most of my life under authoritarianism, this rings so many alarms. Pressing civil servants and government workers to vote the way you need is basically the first trick in the dictator's manual.

Voting should never jeopardize your career... the last thing you want with voting is to associate fear and possible job insecurity. You should be able to freely vote for anyone without any consequences.

America starting to look more and more scary with each passing day. Not sure where it eventually ends up, but the trajectory doesn't look too good.

This is not normal.

The next step on this path would be for Republicans to introduce some innocuous-sounding legislation... Perhaps something like "Act for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_for_the_Restoration_of_the...

Best guess: at this stage, this is (yet another) move to get civil servants to quit, rather than having to lay them off.

Nevertheless, chilling and, I imagine, very illegal.

Isn't it illegal to force people to tell who they voted for? That seems like one of the most basic democratic freedoms to protect.

This is extremely scary... and very much not a surprise.

this was outlined clearly in the project 2025 doc - which is / was online.

so why are people suddenly surprised ?

Does loyalty give you enough talent?

The article is from January 13 .. why post it now?

"Whom" they voted for.

it's just beyond belief that 100 million americans saw this career criminal who promised to absolutely fuck things up while lying about what he was going to let his mates do, and said "yeah, seems like a plan".

No, I'm sorry that's not true. That's absolutely illegal. Everyone who works in the federal government knows this. If just one person was confronted by their manager and asked who they voted for, that person would already be on the news screaming, and the union would be having a meltdown.

I call BS.

It's crazy to me how many things Trump and his friends get away with simply by doing another thing.

Launch a shitcoin and rugpull it for personal benefit just before the inauguration?

Who cares just do some other preposterous thing.

Oh now that's in the news? Well just do another one...

Its kinda funny looking at it from another country. Before Trump was president, anyone who associated with Trump was labelled every bad word in the dictionary - racist, sexist, etc. If you had said you voted for Trump and supported Trump, you would lose your job - example being the Trumps administration's Publicist(? I dont know the exact job description). She had to disassociate with Trump so that she could be hired elsewhere.

Now since he won the election and the tides have turned, these very people who labelled others and fired people who sided with Trump, when faced with the same issue are making this a big issue. US media and the people there are something else lol.

Also if you guys had the same scrutiny for all the other presidents, your country would have been better. A person who said "okay" to bomb 8 countries and receive a Nobel peace prize? Well played.

After the experience of being sold out by Vindman the first time around, wanting to know that the staff isn't going to sandbag him seems natural for Trump.

Also natural are these breathless takes from the media.

So it goes.

The only constant in this universe is "change" so what ideology can be more illogical than one that rejects change? We are about to learn this lesson again as a society.

Didn't Trump have some of his first term plans frustrated by "civil disobedience" of his civil service?

I'd love to see his decisions overturned, but I suppose it shows the dangers of trying to smother populists in non-democratic ways. He is reacting reasonably to his first term, and he is not shy of such actions.

A better way to fight populism long-term is to deliver a system of fair government, and education so people can recognize that and not vote for tyrants. I am amazed what state schooling actually does for 12 years, at a huge cost to worldwide budgets, with people coming out the other end barely able to do maths and reading comprehension.

Bloody hell, the US is really speedrunning to failed state, isn’t it?

Is this even _legal_?

Just say Trump and move on?

Fake news. They are asking people who work on the National Security Council.

This isn't happening government wide.

The alternative to a president picking the advisors they want is to continue to employ advisors that they don't want, but to ignore them. How is that an improvement for anyone, except possibly the advisor?

I suppose one way to limit presidential power is to somehow force them to take meetings with advisors that they can't fire. You could neuter them with endless required meetings. That sure seems to be effective at my workplace.