At the risk of personal exposure, I am a federal employee. All comments are my own and do not reflect the views of my agency, and I am providing this response during my personal off work time. What is my background? Prior to working for the Department of Labor (Office of Job Corps), I spent a career as an officer in the US Army, to include 8 years working for Army Accessions Command, responsible for filling the ranks with the soldiers and skill sets needed to defend our country. I have now been a federal employee for more than 7 years. Throughout my time, I’ve (almost) never discussed my personal political views, and when I have, it was subtle with a “read between the lines” response. I cannot begin to tell you the complete ignorance JD Vance has displayed in his comments. People like me aren’t sitting in some cushy office shuffling paperwork, or looking to out Lib my co-workers while secretly supporting secret pedophile groups in some basement in DC. I happen to dedicate my entire working day/week/month and year working directly with poor, unemployed, undereducated young folks (75% of them are high school drop outs) learn and earn job skills/trades so that they can be placed in dignified career paths and become productive members of society, and avoid a future of crime, prison, or dependence. And let me be clear - MOST of the young people we serve are from TRUMP zip codes in rural locations, in addition to inner city youth. Firing people and agencies like mine would be like putting a hand grenade in the conservative idea of “Give a person a fish, feed them for a day. Teach a person to fish, feed them for a lifetime”.

The stress of working as a federal employee has almost reached my limits. I’m fucking TIRED of not knowing whether I will get paid or not being able to work because of some performative asshole (looking at you Ted Cruz) flirting with government shut downs. I can earn MUCH more in the private sector, but I work where I do because my HEART is in my work. I grew up in the type of poor, white working class family that JD Vance wrote about in Hillbilly Elegy. Only I'm not writing about the problem, I'd like to believe I am DOING something about the problem. For the life of me, I can’t understand these fucking assholes (looking at you Newt Gingrich) who supposedly hate government, but spend their ENTIRE career grifting as political operatives. Vance’s comments are not just words, by the way. In the last months of Trump’s presidency, Trump's policy minions tried to change the ability to fire senior government workers for simply having different personal policy views, even though positions like mine are non-political. Look around the world - the best functioning democracies also have the best bureaucracies. People hate us, but we help make the trains run on time, and in my case, help the helpless learn to help themselves. People like me are the opposite of JD fucking Vance. While he sucks up to Trump in the most demagoguery way imaginable for his own self interest, people like me are doing the blocking and tackling in the trenches to help the lives of other Americans. But yeah, go ahead and fire me.