All National Park Service Employees Told to Justify Their Continued Employment

What kind of country does this?

What’s taken place over the past week at the National Park Service should shake this country to its core.

Every single employee, from the most senior ranger to the newest hire, was told last week to submit their resumes and effectively reapply for their job. Not because they did anything wrong. Not because they were underperforming. Not because of some organizational restructure.

They were told to reapply for their jobs, to perform this exercise in cruelty, because someone in power decided that humiliation is useful.

People who’ve spent 10, 20, even 30 years protecting this nation’s most beloved places, hiking through blizzards, hauling gear through wildfire zones, mentoring thousands of seasonal staff, enduring shutdown after shutdown with dignity and resolve, are now being ordered to start over.

To build a resume and beg for the right to keep doing the job they earned. This isn’t workforce restructuring. It’s a psychological assault on the custodians of our national treasures.

It’s not about accountability. Every single one of these employees is already subject to quarterly performance reviews. Supervisors track and document their work. If someone’s not doing their job, there are systems in place to handle that. DOGE could easily search through performance reviews to find poor performers and let them go.

But that’s not what this is.

This is about forcing good people to beg for their livelihoods in front of people who don’t believe they should have jobs at all. People who think government should be dismantled. Who think public servants are scum. Who see the Park Service as a waste of space and the people who staff it as expendable.

Of course it has the fingerprints of DOGE, the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency,” now embedded inside the Department of the Interior, all over it. Elon Musk’s tech-bro libertarian demolition crew. People who believe our government should be as cruel and indifferent as the billionaire plutocrat they worship.

Who Could Possibly Think This is Okay?

That’s the question I can’t stop asking myself.

What kind of person does this? What kind of person wakes up and thinks: “Let’s force loyal civil servants to reapply for the jobs they’ve done with distinction, with sacrifice, with honor for years.” How could someone have so little humanity?

And then I think, what kind of country accepts this? What kind of citizen sees this sadistic cruelty and shrugs?

And where are the Republican lawmakers who wrap themselves in the flag and swear they love this country?

How can you say you support America and sit silently while the good people charged with safeguarding our national treasures are dehumanized and discarded like trash? Is there anything you deem worth taking a stand for anymore? Seriously.

Congress Could Stop This, If They Wanted To…

Make no mistake, Republicans in Congress have the ability to stop this. And I’m not talking about stopping the whole MAGA agenda that they support. I’m talking about stopping the sadistic treatment of our federal employees. I’m talking about stopping this calculated cruelty aimed at the grossly underpaid, chronically understaffed people who make the Park Service work.

So let me be clear, if you’re a member of Congress and you have the power to stop this, and you say nothing, then you’re complicit in this cruelty. If you cheer this on, you’re not a patriot. You’re a sadist. You’re an enabler. And the shame is yours to carry.

This isn’t governance. It’s punishment. And it should horrify anyone with a shred of empathy or humanity left.

I’m disgusted. I’m furious. And I’m heartbroken for the public servants who are being forced to endure this in order to keep a roof over their heads. This administration has handed the keys to people who get off on breaking others, and now they’re doing it in broad daylight.

We’re watching the federal workforce be purged. Not through legislation. Not through law. But through slow, quiet, and often illegal, acts of cruelty. Through mass firings and reapplications. Through loyalty tests. Through paper trails designed to erase lifetimes of service.

And this is only the beginning.

This isn’t just about the Park Service. It’s about every civil servant. It’s about the soul of this country and what its people stand for

Those who are persecuting our public servants, and the people who let it happen, will be remembered for exactly what they are. It may be fun to watch percieved enemies squirm under the weight of your cruelty now. But history has a long memory. And it doesn’t look kindly on those who took pleasure in the suffering of others, or on those who lacked the courage to stand for what was right.

– Jim

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