As a Foreign Service officer, your job is to support the administration. Without exception. Despite my personal views, I spent more than two years working to carry out the administration’s immigration and foreign policy priorities. I continued to do so until the very minute I handed in my badge and headed to the airport.
But on Friday, I cleared immigration and officially returned to life as a private citizen. And today I have a new challenge: putting my time and energy into helping elect new leadership that serves the true interests of all Americans, regardless of where they were born.
Bethany Milton, former Foreign Service officer
I wrote more than 2-years ago that genuine-article professionals would find themselves in an impossible situation in this grossly incompetent and unprofessional administration.
Today, tens of thousands of professionals employed by the federal government are asking themselves: Should I stay, or should I go?
A column by Ross Douthat in Friday’s New York Times says, basically, “Stay. A minority of Americans have somehow contrived to elect an expedient ignoramus who is deeply hostile to your country’s ideals, and now your country needs you more than ever.” A column by David Leonhardt in today’s New York Times echoes Douthat’s argument.
We need your professionalism, your expertise, your respect for democratic norms and American values. Stay on. Stay on, please, for your country.
Well.
Certainly, I agree that we have elected an incompetent and ignorant proto-fascist with the instincts of a cheap thug. I sharply disagree that an honorable professional can or should serve under his administration.
All professional people are expected to abide by some variation of that famous injunction of the Hippocratic Oath: First, do no harm
I can understand how people get sucked into staying at bad companies and working for incompetent administrations. “My customers/clients/wannabe-immigrants need me. I just have to hold on till the next administration,” or “I just have to hold on till the stockholders come to their senses.”
Nope. All you can accomplish by hanging-on is soiling yourself. Congratulations! to Ms. Milton, then, for recognizing that a decent adult cannot serve this government, and resolving to work toward replacing it with something better.