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Reuters (3/6/25)

This week on CounterSpin: A NASA official warned workers to maybe think about not wearing their badges in public, to protect themselves from harassment against people identifiable as federal workers by MAGA randos who feel deputized by Trump and Musk to do…well, whatever it is Trump and Musk suggest.

It’s early days of the Trump/Musk federal smash and grab, and the harms are already piling up. But so too is the resistance. And federal workers, presumed to be easy targets—based in part on years of corporate media coverage telling us government is fat and lazy and the private sector does everything better—are also on the front lines of the fightback.

We talk about the power of workers—with or without a union—with labor activist and organizer Eric Blanc. He’s assistant professor of labor studies at Rutgers University, and author of the new book We Are the Union: How Worker-to-Worker Organizing Is Revitalizing Labor and Winning Big.

Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at recent press coverage of Trump’s congressional speech, “DOGE” and town hall repression.