[mdhb]

I mean I think it would be a fair assumption that there’s a very very real chance that havinng worked at DOGE will come with credible threats to your safety in the future. This is a team that is currently in the process of killing peoples grandparents by cutting them off from social security, building databases of immigrants and people with autism among a million other fuckups.

People aren’t going to just let that slide. I really don’t think they should expect to live in comfort and anonymity for the rest of their days if you look at how these kinds of things have played out historically with only a few counterexamples (I.e the East German Stasi come to mind as one)

[diggan]

> things have played out historically with only a few counterexamples

The first counter-example that comes to mind is the "Pact of Forgetting" that happened after Franco died, where basically people agreed to let spilled blood be spilled, without spilling more. Basically hard and difficult questions were avoided in order to facilitate "national reconciliation" when the transition to democracy began in 1970s.

Depending on the political aftermath when this (pointing everywhere) is done, it's not impossible something similar could happen, to try to let things cool down. Or, it goes the way of the Nuremberg Trials, also a possibility I suppose.

[jordanb]

That's basically what Obama did with Bush, Iraq and the GFC. I remember him claiming that a bunch of investigations would bog down his agenda.

There was also this take from the "institutionalists" that a compact to not investigate your predecessor was an important part of our tradition of peaceful transition of power. Finally there was a feeling among Democrats that the Republican use of investigations against Clinton had been dirty politics.

I do think that generation of Democrats are being pushed out and I think we'll see a new generation with different ideas. In particular I think the base is finally repulsed by people like Chuck Schumer.

[int_19h]

I can't speak for everyone, but as far as I'm concerned, I was willing to "forgive and forget" after the first Trump term.

But then January, 6 happened. And then Trump explicitly ran on the platform of rejecting the validity of the 2020 election and persecuting his political opposition, not to mention this whole DOGE thing and nuking the economy.

So, this time around, no. Anyone who stuck with him despite all that had their chance and they blew it. And this especially pertains to people who aren't just full-throated supporters, but actually facilitated this admin directly.

This is the kind of stuff we'll need https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lustration for.

[SR2Z]

For the half of the country that's always hated Trump to forget, Trumpism has to go EXTINCT. Like, discredited the way that fascism was after WWII or segregation after the Civil Rights movement.

God willing, when Trump finally officially plunges the US into recession, he and his supporters will become pariahs, but my faith in my fellow citizens is so low that I'm not even sure they'd notice.

I don't think that there is much room for forgiveness in a country where 48% of folks are STILL in support of Trump. The one thing I am certain of is that democracy will not die in the US without a fight.

[pjc50]

> discredited the way that fascism was after WWII or segregation after the Civil Rights movement

Got some bad news for you there: a large part of Trumpism is explicitly segregationist revival. Those people never went away, they were just under the surface, and they got mad again when action was taken to remove celebrations of segregationists (statues, building names etc) from public life.

[ModernMech]

> very very real chance that havinng worked at DOGE will come with credible threats to your safety in the future.

That but also depositions. Lots and lots and lots of depositions in the future for DOGE employees.

[morkalork]

Hiring a whole bunch of contractors is almost providing cover. "No, I didn't work on the gulag candidate selection tool, I was just a FAA navigation coder".

During the downfall of ISIS there was a funny quote from a commander in the Iraqi military along the lines of "if you listen to what the prisoners said, you'd think ISIS was entirely staffed by innocent drivers and cooks and never any jihadists"