Our Constitutional Crisis: A Tech Worker's POV

I was late getting What's Good up yesterday because I woke up being incandescently angry about...*gestures around*

Specifically, I work in tech for a day job, and friends of mine got treated to an email from their bosses nearly identical to the one that Elon Musk sent to federal employees via the OPM. In addition, basically all the moves that the Trump administration is pulling currently are either being done in parallel at tech companies, or were already in progress.

In short, the tech executive class, spearheaded by Musk, is partnering (or puppeteering) with the Trump administration to subject the American public to what their employees in the industry have been having to deal with for the past few years. After talking to a friend of mine about the email they received I got so mad about it, I just started writing. What follows is a letter I sent to my Senators (Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff) and my House Rep (Ro Khanna). I don't expect it to do much to them. For example, given that shortly after the election was called, Rep. Khanna was throwing the cape on to join DOGE. I can't wait to primary him, and send his ass to his true destiny on a board of directors position at a Mountain View startup. But I needed to do something with my anger, and make it clear to anyone in the Democratic Party apparatus (or anyone that plans on challenging/replacing them) that will listen: The placating of tech industry magnates and hucksters was a mistake and allowing any further quarter will ruin us all.

Feel free to use this as a basis for what to send your elected officials as well.

Dear Senator,

I am a tech worker, a technical writer, specifically. To many folks outside of the Silicon Valley bubble, that means I'm well paid to sit on a computer all day and write. To people inside of that bubble, I am a janitor. For further context, I am a contractor. While I technically work for a large tech corporation in the SF Bay Area, and have worked for them for over 11 years, it has been through a series of numerous contracting agencies that the tech corporation "employs" and allows to manage my services.

Despite my extensive experience in numerous roles within the corporation, my rapport with the full-time employee subject matter experts related to my roles, and my expertise, I have never been hired for a full-time position with the corporation–though not for lack of trying. At each of the roles I've held within this corporation, I've attempted to convert this contract position into a full-time one, and at each turn I was denied while simultaneously having my contract to do that very job–in a contracting capacity–extended. The reasons for not being hired are myriad, and usually have very little to do with my actual fit or ability. Most recently, I made it to the stage of interviews where salary and potential benefits were being discussed, but a series of layoffs and "restructuring" led to the people who were trying to hire me being laid off. The reasons for everything, from those layoffs, to my repeated denials of being granted full employment, is often obscured but eventually someone says the word that has become a hallmark for the current presidential administration, as an excuse for the many abhorrent Executive Orders, cabinet appointments, and firings we're seeing within the government: Efficiency

I led with my position at a tech company and paralleled it with our current constitutional crisis for a reason. Elon Musk's involvement in the government, with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, as well as his seeming interference with the Office of Personnel Management, and other offices that influence how the government works is a clear example of the supposed efficiency that the tech industry's executive class is famous for. I've seen it time and time again, in my many years in the tech industry, that this version of efficiency is not concerned with actually making things efficient. It is instead, a smokescreen to allow the enrichment of executives and shareholders, while placing the blame for systemic ills in the industry onto people (chiefly, marginalized people) and their standing as workers. Every decision that I've seen made that leads to layoffs, firings, and restructurings is not done for the health of the company. It is done to justify getting rid of people who either do not fit their idea of what the industry should look like, or any people decent enough to advocate for the former.

I've watched over the years as black people, queer people, women, the disabled, and other marginalized people have been expected to work in double, and sometimes triple capacity as part of a company's culture to "be agile" or "embrace ambiguity", only to then be among the first to be let go when layoffs happen. Those layoffs are often chalked up to a bloat in the workforce, but then the day-to-day work suffers because of the multiple roles individual employees took on going unfilled, and their collective institutional knowledge disappearing. In order to shore up these holes, they then rely on extending the pseudo-employment of contractors like myself (without the added cost of benefits and other employee protections), or more frequently off-shoring jobs to workers in other countries. Paying us both less than what we're worth, and in the case of the latter, are frequently stymied and hamstrung by their inherent lack of institutional knowledge. It makes things harder for people who do the actual work, while ensuring that money flows to the top.

The playbook for what is happening to the federal government is nakedly identical to what has been the modus operandi at tech companies for years, down to the methods. Many people have already pointed out that the "fork in the road" letter to Twitter employees is of a piece (if not the same) with what was sent to federal workers via the OPM. Workers at Google were sent a similar letter within a day, offering them a buyout to leave. Calls to adjust language to remove references to "DEI," climate change, or other initiatives that would get in the way of unfettered greed are happening internally at these companies almost in parallel with Trump and his administration's use of them as invective. Even petty things like referring to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America were embraced by these companies. This is not an industry that is adjusting to appease a hostile new regime. It is an industry that has been dying for cultural acceptance to treat the most vulnerable among us as disposable, and everyone else as alternately a money tap, or grist for the mill. We've seen where this leads with the tech industry–the days of Silicon Valley as a leader of innovation are long gone. We're currently in a multi-year slog where the supposed titans of the tech industry have all collectively thrown all their efforts into generative AI, a technology that no one wants, that cannot exist without stealing (i.e. being "trained" by) the labor and intellectual property of human beings. The notion that these supposed great minds constantly want to benefit from the fruit of someone else's labor while simultaneously denying them any payment is consistent, if nothing else.

The fact that Elon Musk's hand is so present within the Trump administration's movements, or that men like Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai were at the front row of the inauguration, not the workers that enrich them should make things crystal clear. They are fully aware that the world's love affair with the tech industry is truly over. The American public has grown tired of being sold a future authored by men who don't want to see the vast majority of them in it. So these men have decided to turn our government into their next target, assured that between Trump's cover, and previous congressional support as "job creators", they'll be given as much latitude as they want. And much like the tech industry's current obsession with "efficiency" has led to talent drain, lost jobs, and creative stagnation, being given the government as its new playground will lead to degradation there as well, as we've already seen with the response to the tragic air collision over the Potomac River this week.

These are not people who are interested in governing, they are not interested making America a fair and equitable place for all its citizens, and they are not concerned with anything other than self-enrichment. They have not been elected and feel no allegiance to anything other than their respective bottom lines. They will ride and puppeteer the Trump administration to achieve their ends without shame. They've already bled the tech industry dry of all its positives, and they will do the same to America in short order if they are allowed to continue on this trajectory. As someone who's been entrenched within the industry for so long, I implore you not to allow it. The rights, advances, and protections that marginalized people and Americans writ large have fought and died for are not worth throwing away to line the pockets and pad the egos of these opportunistic charlatans.

They are unserious men who have no respect for you, the rule of law, or a functioning democracy. In opposing their efforts, you should treat them as such. Deny them the ability to do further harm to the American public, and stonewall the efforts of this administration at every turn. We've already seen that every cabinet member and Executive Order that Trump has put forward are not only wholly unqualified (in the case of the proposed cabinet members) or unimaginably cruel (the Executive Orders), but also play directly into the hands of these 21st century robber barons. When the opportunity to vote against, deny, or shut down these efforts comes, it is no longer in the interest of the American public to try and act as though this is business as usual, and that the shock-and-awe of these early days of this presidency are merely distractions. We are in a crisis, and it is up to you to behave accordingly. We are past the point of bipartisanship. Your colleagues that have thrown their lot in with these people do not view you as partners in governance, and they do not see all Americans as their constituents. Much like their new bedfellows, they see us as either a money tap, or grist for the mill.

American citizens, myself included, have resolved that we have a long, hard four years ahead of us. We will have to struggle to hold onto rights that should be inalienable. The worst thing that you can do as an elected official that is supposed to represent us, is to allow those rights to be sold down the river without a fight. Please, Senator. Do not make our fight any harder than it already is. I've contacted my other Senators and Representatives with this message as well, and I'm asking you all to do the following when it comes to Trump's administration:

1. Oppose all nominees that the Trump administration puts forth.
2. Deny Unanimous Consent to slow Senate proceedings.
3. Vote no on all Cloture.
4. Force Quorum Calls at every opportunity.

We don't have the time or health to act as though things are normal. Constitutional government is under attack. Please do what you must in order to help defend it. Things will eventually turn and change. The American people, and particularly American voters will remember what their representatives did in times like these. Don't let them look back and find that you prioritized norms and reaching across the aisle above protecting the American people.