The sense that something is changing in a way that will change all our lives grows in me. I am apprehensive. Although any feeling I have is infused with sadness since the recent loss of my husband. My response to the coming changes is the same, only lonelier because I do not have his refuge to cling to while I travel through it.

The pit of my stomach and base of my throat are on alert. I am not alone in experiencing this unease. Many people are expressing concern if not dismay at the depth and rapidity of change.

Since I submit my column at least one week before it is published, we will know more about the actual changes before the column hits the printed page.

The coming changes will encompass all of us in some way. It could be a transformation big enough to change our lives.

I talk with others, and they tell me they are feeling the same. A counselor I know says we are feeling “collective grief.”

Perhaps that is it; grieving implies the loss is important and permanent.

We will know how our three branches of government work when one goes rogue by taking on more authority than is provided in the Constitution or elsewhere.

Or the changes will simply violate the norms that have been developed to maintain our democracy.

For example, does the Constitution allow for the president to fire all the independent inspectors general assigned to each department of the government and replace them with people of the president’s choosing?

As of this writing, I do not think anyone knows. We have not had to ask the question before.

My way or the highway

Retribution, whims as in ‘I do it because I can’ or simply efficiency without regard for policy, laws, appearances or cutting costs are all behind some of the issues around cleaning up or out the government.

One of Trump’s campaign promises was some version of cleaning up the government. Once elected, he invited Elon Musk, a well-known and successful entrepreneur, to help with this task or do it and report back. It is not clear to me how involved Trump or Musk will be, but it is reported some of Musk’s staff are on site at the Department of Justice.

The strategy or tactics used to clean out the government are unclear except that it may include wholesale firing of certain groups of employees; for example, firing all the people in the justice department (DOJ) who worked on the January 6 investigation.

Trump already fired all the January 6 prosecutors. Someone on his staff requested all DOJ employees write down and submit their role, however small, in that investigation.

What a strange position to be in – to document something that is not a crime or personnel issue and lose your job.

It is more sinister than strange, certainly devoid of any concern for these employees as individuals.

You will recall Trump’s role in the January 6 insurrection or demonstration (take your pick) was as an active observer who saw then and says now that they were doing it for him. The crowd was well into believing Trump’s assertion that the election had been “stolen” from him.

Trump has pardoned those that participated as January 6th rioters and disrupters of government business and has or will act against those that prosecuted them.

Yes, it is against the law to storm and take over the Capitol and threaten legislators. Trump has made an exception because they did it in his name.

Trump has initiated a purge of people who had anything to do with investigating him even if they were just doing their job. I suspect some will be collateral damage simply because they touched the paper with his name on it or were in the department that was eliminated.

Some could and have by now argued that no president should have someone working for him who does not support him and/or his policies.

Sincere policy differences matter. Unless the government worker can persuade power to change the policy, the worker must decide whether he can work effectively under the policy.

Most government workers are far down and away from the office of the president. Most are relieved not to be part of politics. Yet, they could lose a job due to an act of a vengeful president who punishes an entire sector because of the involvement of a few.

It certainly does make one think before they speak or act.

Message is received.

Dissent, including healthy dissent, is squashed.

Supervisors resisted turning over confidential personnel files on all employees to Elon Musk, but relented under threat of losing their job.

What will Donald Trump and Elon Musk do with that information?

Best keep a low profile.

Comply.

Obey.

Change is coming

Change is coming in the spirit and letter of the laws that make and keep a democracy a democracy.

Laws to protect prospective or current employees in hiring and promotions are being shoved in the shadows.

We are learning that acts that violate policies, protocols, procedures, laws, or all the above performed by the Trump administration are tolerated in an environment of possible dismissal from a job for confronting the issues.

Those are significant changes in, if not to, a democracy.

Changes will be fast, some insidious, some furious, some confusing, and suddenly, we have lost something important like freedom of the press or equal opportunity in employment, which is high on the president’s wish list of things to eliminate.

We must keep up with the changes and challenges they bring, all while grieving the losses we will sustain.

It is no time to give up.

It is time to speak up, write up, do whatever necessary to make our voices heard!

We are many.

Bertha Cooper, an award-winning featured columnist with the Sequim Gazette spent her career years in health care and is the author of the award-winning “Women, We’re Only Old Once.” Cooper and her husband lived in Sequim for 26 years. Now widowed, Cooper continues to live in the area she has grown to love. Reach her at columnists@sequimgazette.com.