3/30/2018

GOVERNMENT/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “One Health and Human Services employee swore off online dating after potential suitors repeatedly got upset that he worked for the Trump administration. An Education Department fellow eagerly returned to teaching after listening to Betsy DeVos bash public schools. And one Environmental Protection Agency official said staffers are distraught at having to personally dismantle regulations they spent years crafting. This is Donald Trump’s government 14 months into his presidency. Interviews with nearly three dozen current and recently departed workers across the ideological spectrum and across the federal bureaucracy — from the State Department to the Interior Department — show that Trump’s presidency has fundamentally altered the lives of government workers in ways big and small. Trump’s frequent attacks on the “deep state” have engendered deep distrust between career and political employees, pushing many long-time civil servants toward the exits and raising the possibility of a government-wide brain drain.”

-Andrew Restuccia, “Federal workers spill on life in Trump’s Washington,” Politico, Mar. 30, 2018, 5:03am