Blogging During DOGEtime
In the interests of full disclosure.
As regulars are no doubt aware, my wife and I are both employees of the Defense Department. The Trump administration’s various actions to force people out of federal service naturally impact us. Both directly and indirectly, they also affect my posting here.
Despite being hired mostly remote well before COVID, my wife now has to be physically in her office at the Pentagon eight hours every weekday. This, naturally, adds several hours to her workweek, since she’s now fighting DC area traffic twice a day. To mitigate this, she’s leaving very early but that means that my most productive writing time is now spent getting the kids off to school.
While it at first appeared that the national security workforce would be spared, it has now been announced that the Secretary expects to cut 8 percent from the Defense budget each year for the foreseeable future. So, despite her being tenured into the civil service and my having “tenure without tenure” in the excepted service, our jobs are far from safe.
And, of course, the administration is specifically targeting folks who are less than loyal to President Trump. This means that, effectively, I no longer have academic freedom.
According to the longstanding definition of the American Association of University Professors,
Academic freedom is the freedom of a teacher or researcher in higher education to investigate and discuss the issues in his or her academic field, and to teach and publish findings without interference from administrators, boards of trustees, political figures, donors, or other entities. Academic freedom also protects the right of a faculty member to speak freely when participating in institutional governance, as well as to speak freely as a citizen.
Since entering the profession as a doctoral student way back in 1992, I have always acted as though I were protected by that tradition. Even in my time outside academia, from leaving Troy in the summer of 2002 to starting my current position in the summer of 2013, I held myself to the profession’s standards when writing on matters tied to my expertise, including trying to signal clearly when I was speaking as a non-expert.
The AAUP’s longstanding principles also demand that professors in good standing be granted tenure to further protect themselves after a period of no more than seven years at an institution. While my employer does not comply with that, there is a longstanding norm of “tenure without tenure.” That is, renewal of our (usually 3- or 4-year) contracts is expected.
In the eleven-plus years, through three presidential administrations, multiple defense and service secretaries, and countless university presidents and school directors, I have never felt constrained in my writing. I’ve criticized U.S. presidents, secretaries of defense, and service chiefs here, on various social media platforms, and in more visible publications, often quite forcefully, and never once come under fire from leadership for it.
Under present circumstances, however, I have considerably less confidence in my job security. Not when people are being targeted for simply doing their jobs in ways the current administration disfavors. Civil servants whose jobs are protected by law are being fired by the tens of thousands and, by all indications, that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
This was already going on at the state and local level in some parts of the country. Governors, legislatures, and governing boards have been targeting tenure and trying to dictate classroom speech for quite a while now. I suppose it was inevitable that it would happen at the federal level.
As the late great Kris Kristofferson wrote, “Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.” Alas, as a 59-year-old with a mortgage and two kids still in school, I am less than fully free.
I haven’t fully figured out what this means in terms of my ability to write here and elsewhere. While I will never publish things that conflict with my beliefs, I will almost certainly be considerably more constrained until circumstances change.
This is bullshit. I am sorry this is happening to you and your wife.
Thank you for your honesty, integrity, and courage, James.
Resistance is not futile.
Sad, but that is the reality that you’re living with. We’ve entered a world that Solzhenitsyn would recognize.
I feared this would happen.
Very sorry to hear that, James.
@Kathy:
“Resistance is not futile.”
That depends upon the number of ohms.
This is really bad, sorry this is happening to you and so many others.
I mentioned this possibility after the election. I’m not here as much as I used to be, but I will keep up my Patreon support. And let me know if you need bail/lawyer money.
@Moosebreath:
Ha.
You have a great capacity for humor.
I’m sorry that you have to factor in this type of thinking. I don’t know what your colleagues are doing, but it seems to me that having some solidarity and/or strategy with people you trust is worth cultivating.
I am sorry you are going through this. The stress has to be great.
We are now getting a visceral reminder of what happened during the 1920s and 30s. Of the fears and decisions individuals and families had to make on a micro scale in order to live and survive.
As a 70 year old, my wife and I are fairly well protected. But I worry daily for my adult children and their families. I think a lot on what I can do to be prepared to shield them.
Free speech, indeed.
It’s gonna be a hard four, or more, years. Do what you gotta do. Your friends here understand.
@Daryl: I’m sure the VP will weigh int shortly.
Someone put Germany 1933! in the playback machine. We’ve seen the movie before, now we are IN the movie.
For what it’s worth, I’ve been worried about you for weeks now.
Seconded.
I have a few friends at the Air Force Academy and based on what I’ve heard from them and your previously voiced concerns last week, this post is not at all unexpected.
It all makes me very sad and angry. I think most everyone here will support and understand whatever it is you need to do.
Piling on with understanding and support. Do what you have to do.
This sort of thing is so blatantly un-American, so grotesque. So beneath us. But hey, I guess it’s better than a private email server or seeing pronouns in emails.
This post doesn’t make any claims about James’s job securty, only his confidence in his job security. I do wish him well and hope he keeps posting on Outside the Beltway. This isn’t Nazi Germany or the USSR though. The commenters need to calm down.
I’m sorry to hear this, James. We’re edging closer to an answer to the (mostly facetious) question, “What’s the worst that could happen?”
@Fortune: I try not to respond to you, but today, I am going to cordially invite you to fuck allllllllll the way off.
“There’s a lot to be said for deplatforming dissenting opinion! Y’all should just calm down!”
(said before James is fired)
“Well James started this fight. He totally could have kept his job, so it’s on him.”
(after James gets fired)
I know this routine. I’ve seen it many, many times.
@Fortune: shouldn’t you be playing your bullshit rhetorical games an the ASMR thread? Seems right up your quisling alley.
I am sorry, James.
I’m sorry you’re having to deal with this stress (and, I’m sorry to hear your wife has to deal with DC traffic, that right there is enough to make me weep).
And, I second @Jax‘s comment.
So sorry to hear this. I wish you and yours all the best in these times.
Anecdote: We have friends, their son-in-law was a DOJ staff attorney living in the DC area, and as soon as the election was in-and-over, he bailed out and he now works for a private law firm. He said almost everyone could see this coming.
@Fortune:
Man who knows nothing has strong opinions and despite “not supporting Trump”(TM) sure handwaves away the concerns of people with FAR, FAR, FAR more on the ground experience with his policies and how they are being implemented.
At some point, intent no longer matters and we can talk about how the impact of your posts on a whole are quintessential Anti-Anti-Trumping. Also, they almost all read better in the original good German.
Please ban Fortune for having his head so far up his ass he can see out of his nose.
I know that doesn’t make sense. Neither does he.
@Matt Bernius: Right now, I put significant weight on the possibility that we are getting paid operatives in here to try to demoralize and distract us.
@Fortune:
Thank you, Mr. Chamberlain.
It is if you’re transgender, a teenage rape victim, an immigrant seeking asylum, or a journalist recognizing the centuries-old name of a geographical location.
That circle of victims is expanding, not contracting, Neville.
@Fortune:
One more point, if you want I can point to all of the times in the run up to the election and then inauguration where you took the position that rather than predicting the Trump administration would follow through with it’s promises we should “wait and see.”
And the majority of those predictions have come true from Trump recklessly gutting the Federal Workforce with no solid return on investment to the abandonment of Ukraine.
Perhaps, looking at all of that, you might reexamine your priors.
But hey, at least you’ve proven yourself to have the foresight of the person who in Poland of 1939 would suggest that “That Hitler guy is all bluster… we should just adopt a wait and see attitude.” Then in September, after the invasion would be heard in the local bar saying “Well, he did invade, but I don’t understand why all these Jews are so worried about being under Nazi rule… I mean nothing has happened to them yet.”
Note: I don’t think you’re a Nazi sympathizer, I mean I totally believe you “don’t like Hitler.” However, you also don’t seem to have much of an issue with his actual policies.
Soooo heterdox of you!
@Just Another Ex-Republican:
Again, Fortune has done nothing worthy of banning. If expressing uninformed opinions was ban worthy, things would get really ugly really fast.
I’m so sorry you and your family is having to deal with this directly. I hope you find some solace in the commentariat here that so appreciates your writing from your perspective.
@Matt Bernius: That’s a matter of opinion, but clearly yours outweighs mine. As far as I’m concerned he has done nothing to warrant being allowed to pollute the comment section. I really wish we had the option to hide certain posters from our own feed.
I do not object overmuch to uninformed opinions (guilty of some myself, for sure). Heck, I haven’t even called for people like JKB to be banned. But dismissing James’ very real concerns so flippantly is simply cruel. Fortune brings nothing and is, at best, a troll. And he stepped over the line for being allowed in decent society as far as I’m concerned.
I’ll go back to being mostly quiet now.
PS: I also know James hardly needs me to defend him.
I very much appreciate this post James. It’s a damn shame, but you’ve got to take special care given the stakes.
Totally unrelated (seriously… not related at all), I wonder if it might be time to add to the list of front pagers. If I may, you should definitely consider Jayne Loner.
They have an interesting perspective and a talent for fostering discussion. They are also capable of taking incoming fire from regular readers, while maintaining their composure.
@Fortune:
No, this is America where a political science professor shouldn’t have to worry about his livelihood because he is honest in public about his political analysis.
I would note that I have know James for going on 27 years. He is not prone to emotional over-reaction (indeed, quite the opposite). That he feels the way he does should make you pause and think.
This isn’t all some game played on the internet.
I know I have given you what you want, i.e., attention, but it needed to be said.
@Jay L Gischer: Care to elaborate?
@Matt Bernius: I think we’re in “When people show you who they are, believe them” land now.
ETA: In any event, I don’t think we’re in Kansas any more, Toto.
@Steven L. Taylor: I said “significant weight” deliberately. Most of the trolls we have in here can be coaxed, or prodded, into doing something recognizably human, if we include all of human behavior. But when we find someone who is super disciplined, stays on their message, makes short posts, and avoids certain topics, I get suspicious.
Look, we know these sorts of people exist. It may sound like a conspiracy theory, but the Russian Internet Research Agency is a very real thing. And if it exists in one place, it can exist in others. Dark money could fund it within the US.
There was clearly a concerted propaganda effort, focused on Facebook, focused on passing the Brexit referendum. This too has been documented.
Back when GooglePlus was a thing, during elections, I would see all these names popping up in discussions that I had never seen before, acting in such a way as to stir things up.
I am deeply suspicious of certain kinds of behavior. One of the reasons I try so hard to engage in a human discussion with dissenting voices here, is to get them to write in a way that’s actually human, which is typically different from a paid operative or bot.
I am not making an accusation. I don’t have nearly enough evidence for that. I am not interested in defaming people at the drop of a hat. But I am suspicious, and acting in accordance with that suspicion.
@Matt Bernius:
The issue isn’t uninformed opinions, it’s deliberate disruption. He’s sniggering after every comment. You’re facing Popper’s paradox of toleration.
@Jay L Gischer: “Things are not as bad as you think they are” isn’t a demoralizing message. If I wanted you to be demoralized I wouldn’t be here, I’d want you to keep reinforcing each other’s terror.
@Steven L. Taylor: And this sort of excusing of every little step along the way to fascism is how you eventually end up in a very bad place. For many, it’s an intentional propaganda technique.
@Fortune: Did you think I was talking about you?
Interesting.
@Jay L Gischer: It was in the middle of a dozen comments attempting to analyze me but if it was really about DK or Matt Bernius, my mistake.
I forgot to mention – James, I would seriously consider contacting FIRE (www.fire.org) – free speech threats to academics is one thing they specialize in. I’ve been involved with them (mostly through donations) for some time now, and they do great work.
Even if nothing actionable from a legal standpoint right now exists, they recommend contacting them early, and they will probably at least give you some advice. You’re also in an unusual situation, and it would be good to highlight the concerns of academics in military institutions because you aren’t alone in your concerns.
https://www.thefire.org/submit-a-case
@Jay L Gischer: yep. What self respecting Evil Overlord doesn’t send out his wee minions to vandalize civil spaces and spy on the good guys?
@Jay L Gischer: Thanks, but you are elaborating on a different comment. I was talking about the deplatforming one.
@Jay L Gischer: Interesting, indeed.
Best wishes, Dr Joyner.
Stay safe.
I might note that Dr. Joyner’s past writings have already made clear his non-existent loyalty to Trump. If he’s going to be fired at some point for disloyalty, I’m not sure any new writing will make any difference one way or the other.
That said, I just want to be clear to James that I feel for your uncomfortable position. I wish you didn’t have to choose between taking care of your family and exercising your right to free speech, but here we are.
The fact that it won’t, Dr. Taylor, is really the point about Fortune.
James, I have greatly appreciated your sharing of thoughts for years, and fully agree with a decision to turtle up for the time being. I actually encourage you to do so. I want you to survive this.
A note to commentators or viewers: James has and I suspect still will provide inciteful and very well written commentary. However I recommend, for the moment, that we refrain from quoting him on any other platform, as just one of his comments going viral could get the man fired, quite likely his wife as well.
@Fortune:
Couldn’t have been about me. I haven’t commented on OTB at all today until now. But your obsession with me is telling. The truth of what I write here triggers what’s left of your MAGA-loving conscience, and has me living rent-free inside your head.
@Fortune:
A characteristically shallow retort, showing the lack of critical thinking skills common among Trump supporters. Nazi Germany wasn’t Nazi Germany until it became Nazi Germany. So this is as callous and asinine as telling a woman concerned about her husband’s escalating verbal abuse, “You aren’t Nicole Brown-Simpson. You need to calm down.”
Commenters who constantly downplay Trump’s transgressions need to stop denying their adoration of Trump. You aren’t fooling anybody but yourself.
Everybody else should keep pointing out the parallels between MAGA and the Nazis movement. And keep calling out the reckless incompetence of the dishonest, anti-American Trump-Musk regime.
I will be praying for Dr. Joyner, his family, and all the wonderful people harmed by this odious Republican oligarchy’s unnecessary and damaging mass layoffs.
@DK: No, your name was just quick to type.
@Matt Bernius:
As someone who really loves rules lawyering, I have to say that rules lawyering is annoying from both directions. This isn’t a court of law. This isn’t a public square.
Our hosts* have the ability to ban anyone at all for any reason.
Like bad vibes. Or coming here to disrupt without contributing in a meaningful way. Or just plain spite.
Anti-anti-Trumpism is reason enough.
*: I guess that includes you, but I think of Docs Joyner and Taylor as really setting the tone.
@Fortune:
Not yet.
The critical point will come if/when the Trump administration defies the courts, and how Congress then behaves.
And if it opposes, what happens if Trump also defies Congress AND the Courts.
“Weimar, he’s making eyes at me.”
@James Joyner
Understood. Do what’s best for your family.
There is no bottom to this evil.
My nephew’s significant other does logistics for the Navy. His two best staff took the early retirement option and today he had to fire some others, leaving them very short staffed. The admiral running the unit talked with him and strongly suggested that if he had an online presence in which he was critical of Trump/Elon that he stop. It’s likely with his loss of staff they wont perform well and then the DOGE people or their successors will be looking for someone to blame. There is a large group of Trump supporters willing and able to spend their time looking for “government workers” who need to be eliminated for lack of loyalty and failure to work 80 hours a week to make up for the shortage plus failing the loyalty test makes on a prime candidate for dismissal.
Steve
@Fortune: how bad does it have to get before you will admit that there is a problem? What would convince you?
As it is, you will find yourself walking into a location with”Arbeit macht frei” over the gates sincerely believing it’s a work camp and happily picking up your soap and towel to walk into those nice showers before a hint of suspicion will enter your brain. I bet you answer those lovely requests from Nigerian princes looking to stash money in your bank as well.
@Grumpy realist: Every day we’re getting further away from a government which can exercise the kind of power you’re afraid of. Trump is immature and I don’t trust him, but reducing the coersive power of the state leads away from totalitarianism, not toward it.
It gives me no pleasure to observe that it is far too late in the day for any Trump critics to atone for past sins by any change in future behavior short of conversion to craven MAGA sycophancy. Rich Lowry managed it; I expect Joyner is made of sterner stuff.
@Jay L Gischer:
Nah. They’re the same @$$hol3s who’ve always been around, from time to time.
I fully understand Doc J.; you stay circumspect. My wife is a current employee and I’m a six-year FERS pensioner and SS drawer. While I’m only slightly concerned, my wife has been in full-on anxiety mode for a few weeks. It’s pissing me off what they’re doing affects her so.
@steve:
I have to admit that I can’t figure out how to react to this statement. It’s because my reaction to that perceived need and condition set has always been “[expletive, deleted] THAT!!!”
Of course, that attitude probably explains why I never made over $30,000 in any year after I quit at the warehouse. Values differences.
@Fortune:
There you have it, folks — the myth of libertarianism in its purest form. “If the government goes away, I will be totally free!”
That depends entirely on what coercive state or non-state force replaces the gutted former government. Hint — something always does, and it’s always awful. You really, really should prefer the coercive power of the traditional America of checks and balances and laws and even principles to the coercive power of the Trust junta and where they are headed, or the feudal anarchy that will ensue if they succeed in tearing it all down.
@DrDaveT: as I’ve always said: it’s either governments or warlords. Pick one.
@Fortune:
Call. Can you share tangible example of this?
@Matt Bernius: There aren’t a lot of historical examples of government reducing itself. Post-Franco Spain comes to mind. In the former Soviet republics, there was no consistent pattern I know of. It’s different from an austerity policy, which I expect we’ll also be seeing soon.
@DrDaveT: I said reducing, not eliminating. We’re not going beyond Thunderdome, we’re just laying off government workers.
@Fortune:
Ok, so… you see any reduction in government as:
So at the end of the day, you’re a Grover Norquist Republican. That type of deep thinking checks out.
Also, I love how you overlook the ways the Trump administration is already weaponizing the DOJ to extort Cities and States to do its bidding. There is no coercion going on in NYC, for example.
@Fortune:
Ok, there we go with the minimizing. But hey, it’s becoming clear that you really don’t care to understand the actual process of the delivery of government services. So any reductions in Federal Workforce are good because they are all takers and grifters.
Or, if you have a more nuanced take, please share it–because as far as I can tell that’s about it.
Which again gets us to: you don’t like Trump, but you ultimately like his policies.
@Fortune:
So essentially, your assertion IS a hypothetical rather than an actual? An abstract rather than a concrete? Thank you for the admission, as left-handed and mumbly as it was.
@just nutha: By definition a thing that’s reducing its overall power is becoming less powerful. Trump could try to increase its power in specific ways, or he could reverse course and have government grow.
“reducing the coersive power of the state leads away from totalitarianism”
Speaking of immaturity.
Government authority is not the only source of coercion. Government size =/= coercive capacity. It’s not linear.
This reminds me of The End of History.
Those who seek to allocate disproportionate power for themselves do not just go home and take up knitting if a chosen avenue to their goal is blocked.
@Matt Bernius:
At least you recognized you were making unwarranted assumptions.
@Fortune:
You left out the word “indiscriminately”. And we are not merely laying off workers, we are also canceling projects, reneging on contracts, interrupting experiments, losing capabilities, eliminating oversight, … Have you really been paying so little attention? Or do you just not have any reliable news sources?
@Fortune:
Are you genuinely incapable of understanding the difference between reducing the power of the bureacracy and its institutions, versus reducing the power of the government?
Did Mao reduce the power of the government, or increase it?
@Fortune:
Translation: no, you do not have a more nuanced take, so deflect. Squirrel!
@DrDaveT:
Your goalposts. I replied “We’re not going beyond Thunderdome, we’re just laying off government workers.” for two reasons, one because government layoffs are the topic of the article, and two because no one’s suggesting government going away. It’s not an adult conversation. Both you and Matt Bernius pretended I said something else, and when I didn’t take the bait you said I’m deflecting. At least Matt recognized he was putting words into my mouth.
@Fortune:
Actually, inhibition of free speech by threat was the topic of the article, but nice try.
Actually, he invited you to correct his (plausible) interpretation of what you had said. You declined, for reasons that you prefer not to share.
You said:
If you actually believe that, which I doubt, you have to believe that the Trusk administration will not seize to itself the powers it is stripping from the Agencies and the Congress, will not increase coercion of state governments to conform to Truskian policies, etc. All of which is already happening. There is no sense in which we are “getting further away from a government which can excercise” that kind of power. You’re just wrong about that. Feel free to come say “I told you so” when Trusk starts ceding some of those powers, to the Congress or to the Judiciary or to the States or to the ether.
@Kurtz:
This.
Most governments through history have had a relatively small economic footprint, but have been eminently capable of rather extreme coercion.
Their modes of doing so have varied considerably, but it was generally considered best not to attract the attentions of, for instance, the Spanish Inquisition (which was a state, not a Church, institution). Or the displeasure of a Roman imperator , or etc etc etc.
A large part of modern politics is reduction in the arbitrary coercive power of the aristocracy or “chiefs”, and then of the state that curbed those.
There’s a reasonable case for viewing all Western history, and much of non-Western, with this, and its failure modes, as its main theme.
@JohnSF:
FYI: the comment I responded to is an example of what I meant the other day when I observed that Americans don’t have a sophisticated theory of power.
I probably did not express it the way I wanted to. So much of the “discourse” is “Guvmint Baaaaaad” it only exists to control us.
@Kurtz:
Exactly.
People fail to recognise both what governments are required to control.
Perhaps because they have not studied medieval history, and the problems of predatory barons.
Or modern history, and the problem of putting a monarchy that suppressed the barons back in its box.
And then, the issue of stopping the burger/gentry ascendancy that blocked the monarchic domination from not being arseholes on their own account.
Various countries ended up on a reasonable solution to this: modern representative democracy plus entrenched legal rights.
Some people now seem inclined to desire a reset to (arbitrary date as suits preconceptions)
Rather foolish, all things considered.
History did not end up here without cause.