Asahi

Now that D.C. is finished being sidelined by the sad parade, and the Tontons Macoutes appear to have no intention of backing off, I hope we will begin standing up with Los Angeles -- and now New York.

notesontheputsch.substack.com/p/swan-lake-...

Swan Lake on every channel Through an occupied city

In D.C., we were excluded from the #NoKings protests on Saturday. But the pageant of violence didn't materialize either. So we quietly went about our business.

"We cannot build bananas in America" is an all timer

are they really getting dunked on more here than on X, or is it just that all the threats of gruesome sexual violence and valedictory racial taunts there keep the normal dunks from registering?

not to mention the outcomes are pretty fucking bad already

The Leftovers Dispatches from the Guilty Remnant

From guest writer Annie Blackburn, who remains a federal employee:

"Those of us who remain in the federal workforce have to wade through the carnage of a poorly planned smash and grab, all the while carrying on with daily tasks."

On behalf of all federal employees who merit nary a word in this garbage, a hearty fuck you.

I'd rather be a worker than a visionary, and I'd rather keep writing for my friends than for the New York Times.

You were never really here A protest and a departure

"Now the same security personnel with whom I exchanged a few pleasant words every morning were posted above us at the top of those steps, not menacingly, but their positions a declarative fact: you don’t belong here anymore."

Lots of good Elon post-mortems out there today, like this one. Lots of terrible ones.

Here's just one more, from one former federal worker whose career he wrecked. Plus, a protest.

Good points. Also running into the problem of anonymity being required for certain subjects (ahem, the federal government), and why that is obviously a huge obstacle to credibility.

"Now the cat said, 'Life is glad to have to known all of the creatures who came here. Everything that has ever lived leaves their traces on the earth. And the heart keeps forever what it once loved.'" -- Sheila Heti, "Garden of Creatures"

All of us know to some extent what every one of these federal workers is going through. It's so important to try to understand those feelings before we become isolated and overwhelmed.

Writing helps a lot.

What it all kind of boils down to for me is I don't know how to walk out my front door and behave normally in a world where millions of people thought to themselves, "you know what, I think I will be an enemy of Miss Rachel and Bruce Springsteen."

Aftermath In private life

How do you begin to accept the end of your career in federal service?

"I feel great about leaving the haunted carnival, but also bad about feeling great."

Ok, state it openly then. Or state that you think he shouldn't have dropped out. It would be nice if it's what you really think. But beyond that, nobody cares.

It matters approximately 1 billion times less than whether you think Musk, Rubio, Noem, Vought and every ICE agent belong in prison.

A life rebuilt, a future now in doubt This post is from a fellow former federal employee who goes by the name Jim Casy Lives.

"Given the choice, I’d rather have cancer.”

Also the country club manners tradition of Congress laundering one another's heinous behavior with constant vague deferrals to a private mystical sphere just should not be fucking operative during a putsch.

Hats on hats on hats on hats A hatchet to the Hatch Act

It is actually insane how appropriate this illustration from an 87-year-old Dr. Seuss book is for the latest moves by this administration to capture and control the federal workforce:

How long post-resignation do we think it will be before this kind of thing stops putting me in a day-ruining funk?

The Trump pope shit is another great example of how ai images are the aesthetic of fascism.

Hats on hats on hats on hats A hatchet to the Hatch Act

"If federal employees can wear the double MAGA hat and pin and build a gaudy gold ofrenda to the Leader on their desks, then it instantaneously follows that they must."

Jesus christ

It very much feels like what happened here is we created this huge smokescreen of culture issues to placate and distract the masses so they wouldn't notice the oligarchs invading every aspect of our lives and pillaging every single thing we owned.

Then the oligarchs were the ones who fell for it. 🥴

Goodbye to all that I was never twenty or twenty-one or even twenty-three here, and the conviction that nothing like this, all evidence to the contrary, has ever happened to anyone before had long since dissipated when I...

Monday morning. April 28. A new phase as the Carrie Bradshaw of the purges begins... Day 1 on the other side.

notesontheputsch.substack.com/p/goodbye-to...

From a guest: Carriers of Secrets This is the second post at “Notes on the Putsch” from a contributing writer, who remains a federal employee.

Another guest author, on the crisis among career department leadership.

Goodbye to all that I was never twenty or twenty-one or even twenty-three here, and the conviction that nothing like this, all evidence to the contrary, has ever happened to anyone before had long since dissipated when I...

In which your author transcends the membrane between current federal employee and former federal employee:

notesontheputsch.substack.com/p/goodbye-to...

Goodbye to all that I was never twenty or twenty-one or even twenty-three here, and the conviction that nothing like this, all evidence to the contrary, has ever happened to anyone before had long since dissipated when I...

In which your author transcends the membrane between current federal employee and former federal employee:

notesontheputsch.substack.com/p/goodbye-to...

Exodus We're leaving Babylon

We thought an agency-destroying cut might come today. It didn't happen, but still, it feels like this week is going to involve a lot of murmuring Joan Didion quotes to myself like a lunatic.

"It is distinctly possible to stay too long at the Fair."

notesontheputsch.substack.com/p/exodus

Exodus We're leaving Babylon

It's a big decision day for a lot of us federal employees. I wish for you to take the path that will bring you peace.

The state is a dark factory.