Some of the democracy-building experts President Donald Trump fired this year from the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department are now reapplying the skills and knowledge they built up over decades to undermine Trump’s power.
For years, these officials were stationed across the globe actively supporting opposition movements in autocratic nations. Now they’ve got time, a network of former colleagues and a growing sense of moral indignation.
“Take it from those of us who worked in authoritarian countries: We’ve become one,” said a currently employed federal official, who spoke to NOTUS on condition of anonymity. “They were so quick to disband AID, the group that supposedly instigates color revolutions. But they’ve done a very foolish thing. You just released a bunch of well-trained individuals into your population. If you kept our offices going and had us play solitaire in the office, it might have been safer to keep your regime.”