Legacy Media’s Latest Complaint Couldn’t Be More Out Of Touch

When you think of “do-gooders,” who comes to mind? If you said “federal employees,” you might be a legacy media columnist.

“Picture how infuriating the federal bureaucracy will feel when there is no one to help you navigate it,” writes Jillian Weinberger in a guest essay for the New York Times. Picture that. Call upon all of your powers of imagination to guess what it’d be like for the federal bureaucracy to be infuriating and difficult to navigate. Or just visit the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). 

Weinberger’s screed is one of many penned in recent months in response to the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) investigation into federal waste, fraud, and abuse. CNN profiled a handful of federal workers suffering from supposedly “indiscriminate cuts” which have “left a trail of anxiety, fear and suffering.” NPR released a typically sleepy podcast episode about the poor federal employees.

🚨NEW🚨 Approximately 20,000 federal workers have accepted the Trump admin’s buyout offer. pic.twitter.com/n7fybvfqjQ

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) February 4, 2025

“[Elon] Musk’s attacks on federal employees and their unions aren’t just a threat to the specific workers in his current line of fire,” writes Eric Blanc for The Nation. “They pose an unparalleled danger to every single American.” Blanc contends that “bosses everywhere are itching to wage a DOGE-style war against their workers.” Why wouldn’t private sector bosses simply fire unproductive workers? Fear-mongering is slightly more effective when it makes sense. (RELATED: Federal Staff Given ‘Another Chance’ To Justify Their Jobs)

The left has their new protected class, evidently. Feds aren’t an obvious victim group. There’s a rule of thumb: If you can’t describe your job in a sentence or less, it might be a fake job. Teachers and nurses and firefighters are all capable of this task. It’s proven too onerous for federal workers. For some reason, we’re supposed to exempt them from usual employee practices — like termination. What’s that leftie saying? “When you’re used to privilege, equality feels like oppression.”

🚨Caller on “The Breakfast Club” claiming to be federal worker roasts fellow federal workers, praises @elonmusk email as “great opportunity”🚨

CALLER: “This is what you signed up for. If you don’t like it, resign … They gave you the opportunity to. Find another job. I mean,… pic.twitter.com/snbvuUh56v

— Jason Cohen 🇺🇸 (@JasonJournoDC) February 25, 2025

“Why did I go into public service? Why did I do this to myself?” Weinberger writes, quoting an anonymous friend who “works as an attorney at the I.R.S.” Hah. Haha, even. She might have managed to pick the single least sympathetic job in existence. Hatred for tax collectors is as old as taxes themselves. 

Weinberger admits her concern “isn’t just about my friends’ losing their jobs. It’s about our entire country losing faith in the importance of expertise that’s wielded in service of the greater good.” There it is. The left’s panic over federal workers is really a panic over the dissolution of the expert class. Without a series of questionable credentials to rely upon, they’ll have to prove themselves by the quality of their work.

Follow Natalie Sandoval on X: @NatalieIrene03