Subreddit for Federal Workers Explodes In Popularity Amid Trump Crackdown

On Tuesday night, someone posted a message to an online forum ahead of what they called “Hold the Line Day.”

“And henceforth, February 6th shall be designed ‘Hold the Line’ Day,” the person wrote. “Where each year we will celebrate the federal employees who have dedicated themselves to holding the line by ignoring and rejecting the markedly illegal and harassing emails from ‘[the Office of Personnel Management]’.”

“In such a manner shall we celebrate our fortitude to reject the trauma that the idiots of Project 2025 have attempted to instill upon our dedicated civil servants,” they continued. “Happy Hold the Line eve my friends!”

The rallying cry was posted to r/fednews, a forum on Reddit reserved for federal workers that has exploded in popularity and readership in the weeks since President Donald Trump took office.

On January 24, four days after Trump was inaugurated, r/fednews had a little over 144,000 members, as defined by Reddit.

By January 28—the day OPM sent out a “Fork in the Road” email offering deferred resignations to more than two million federal employees if they accepted by February 6—the forum had ballooned by nearly 50,000.

As of Friday, r/fednews has 359,000 members and has pulled into the top 1 percent of Reddit’s communities.

“This platform provides a secure space for United States Federal Government employees to express their opinions, share experiences, and discuss news and information pertinent to their employment,” the subreddit’s description says. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the U.S. government.

In the 17 days since Trump took office on January 20, r/fednews has been flooded with news articles about the administration’s flurry of actions, upcoming cuts to the federal workforce, warnings from employees whose agencies have been targeted by the Trump administration, suggestions for how to stay out of the spotlight and messages urging government workers to “hold the line.”

“Seriously, can we take a minute to thank the unions?” one user wrote on Wednesday night. “In our darkest hour they’ve stepped up when no one else would. Now our cause is in the courts, the media – even senators are on the streets protesting alongside our union leaders. So proud to be a card-carrying member of [the American Federation of Government Employees]!”

The AFGE and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) have sued OPM over its “Fork in the Road” offer. A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s initiative, ordering that the February 6 deadline be extended to at least Monday, while the parties in the lawsuit litigate the case.

It was one of multiple lawsuits that federal labor unions have brought against the administration over its efforts to reduce the government workforce, designate thousands of civil servants as political appointees—thereby making it easier to fire them—and shut down or severely hobble agencies like the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

Newsweek reached out to the White House for comment via email.

Musk And DOGE In The Spotlight

Among the most frequently discussed topics on the forum is Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has gained access to a number of federal agencies, including the U.S. Treasury, OPM, the General Services Administration, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and more.

In addition to getting access to the personal information of tens of thousands of government employees, DOGE may also have access to the Social Security numbers of American taxpayers, some media reports said.

A federal judge on Thursday imposed some limits on DOGE, ruling that two “special government employees” in the task force would have “read-only” access to the systems “as need for the performance” of their jobs.

One of those employees, Marko Elez, resigned hours later, after the Wall Street Journal unearthed a number of Elez’s racist social media posts.

Nonetheless, the level of access DOGE has had to the core of the U.S.’s financial and personnel systems has rankled and alarmed government officials.

One Justice Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, described the mood within the government to Newsweek in one word: “Paranoia.”

“Everyone’s worried because Trump brought Elon Musk on board,” the official said.

Some users on r/fednews directly referenced Musk’s recent comments about federal agencies, including his claim that USAID is “evil” and a “ball of worms” that needs to be shuttered entirely.

Responding to Musk’s comments, one user who identified themselves as a Pentagon employee wrote on r/fednews: “Every person known who works in government fought to get where they are. Many are veterans, who put down their uniform, took a hard look in the mirror, and took another oath to support and defend the Constitution.”

“There are always bad apples in any group of people,” the user wrote. “But what ‘they’ are telling you just isn’t true. Public servants are not a ‘bowl [sic] of worms,’ as some have put it.”

Another user voiced frustration at “non Feds” publicly calling on government workers to “be the ones that stop what’s happening.”

The user noted that federal employees are working under a continuing resolution which only temporarily funds the government, dealing with “constantly shifting guidance,” and grappling with additional stressors like commuting and childcare now that many workers have been mandated to return to the office immediately.

“Yet a big chunk of the American people (and some overseas) keep telling us to be the ones that stop what’s happening,” they added. “That the feds need to take actions like barricading doors, occupying spaces 24/7, physically attacking people, and doing things to files and servers. That we need guidance and training on civil disobedience. Enough already. Please.”

‘Bets On What Kind of Crazy Emails We Will Receive This Weekend?’

The overarching theme on r/fednews over the last two weeks has been confusion over Trump and Musk’s wrecking-ball approach to dismantling the bureaucracy from the inside out, with little warning or contingency plan.

“So after the deadline passes on this batsh– crazy Deferred Resignation program and they don’t get the numbers they were hoping, what kind of response do you think we will get in the middle of the night this weekend?” one user posted on Thursday. “Place your bets now.”

Michele Rigby Assad, a former CIA operative who spent ten years stationed in the Middle East, told Newsweek that much of the federal bureaucracy is “bloated” and needs to be trimmed down. But she criticized the Trump administration’s strategy, saying it should have taken a phased approach.

“These decisions have very real impacts on peoples’ lives,” she said. “A lot of these people have been in these industries, working for USAID or the government, for their entire career.”

“I have friends overseas who are about to be recalled,” Assad added. “How do you do that? These people have households, they have children who are enrolled in schools overseas. So a lot of the decisions that are being made, which are motivated by good reasons, are having very deleterious effects on peoples’ lives.”

One of the agencies feeling the most pressure is the FBI, where Assad said people are “reeling” from the Trump administration’s efforts to root out agents who worked on investigations related to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and Trump’s removal of classified documents to Mar-a-Lago.

The Justice Department official told Newsweek: “It’s a lot of f—– drama. It’s an awful environment to work at the Department of Justice because there’s no respect for anyone above us.”

“And it hasn’t even been three weeks since Trump took office,” they said. “It’s exhausting.”