They Want Experts to Go Quietly. Don’t.
They’re purging experts from government, slashing research, and gutting public health and disability policy. They want you to go quietly. Don’t. Here’s how displaced experts can fight back.
They want you to go quietly.
To send a few farewell emails, update your LinkedIn, accept your severance package, and move on.
If you’re one of the tens of thousands of experts being purged—stripped from government agencies, erased from federal contracts, pushed out of universities—you might feel like that’s your only option.
You might feel hollow, enraged, ashamed, or numb. That’s not weakness. That’s the impact of moral injury—when you’re forced to betray, abandon, or stay silent about what matters most. If you’re still feeling the weight, it means you still care. That’s your strength, not your failure.
This isn’t just about losing jobs. It’s about the systematic dismantling of truth, governance, and accountability. When authoritarian regimes take power, they don’t just cut budgets—they erase the infrastructure of knowledge. They sever trust. They gut institutions. They disappear people’s life work.
This is what I call the Authoritarian Blitz—a swarm-like, often chaotic onslaught of regressive political force. The goal isn’t just disruption. It’s disorientation, fragmentation, fear. The downstream consequences are what I call the Authoritarian Harm Complex. It is the lived aftermath of the Blitz, manifesting for people and institutions on multiple fronts: economic, relational, ethical, existential.
But history tells us something else, too: when expertise is attacked, experts don’t just vanish. They fight back.
It happened in Brazil under Bolsonaro, where fired climate scientists built independent monitoring networks to track deforestation and expose government lies. It happened in the Soviet Union, where exiled scientists became leading voices in the resistance.
So yes, update your résumé. Find your next job. But understand this: they are counting on you to fade into silence.
The real question isn’t whether experts will be purged.
It’s whether they will get organized and fight back.
Career Survival Is Necessary—But Not Enough
Losing a job is destabilizing, and career survival matters. But finding your next position alone won’t preserve the infrastructure of truth or keep you safe in the long run.
Ensuring that knowledge and accountability remain powerful forces demands collective courage, not just professional polish.
The mass displacement of experts is devastating by design. Yet it has also created an unexpected opportunity: thousands of talented, dedicated individuals suddenly free to act boldly and collectively.
Imagine if these displaced experts channeled their energies into a coordinated defense of democracy, evidence, and accountability. The potential impact could be transformative. In fact, it has already begun.
Yes, resistance carries risks. But history shows us something else: the more people step forward, the more power we build. And the harder we become to erase.
The Greatest Risk: Silence and Fragmentation
Believing silence ensures safety is dangerously wrong.
In December, I was fired for organizing an informal discussion among colleagues about the implications of Trump’s reelection for the policy research sector and for expressing solidarity with federal employees in an online post. My experience is far from unique. Universities and nonprofits are censoring themselves, and research firms terminate employees perceived as risks.
Fragmentation compounds this threat. Experts across fields including climate science, public health, economics, education are fighting alone, making it easy to dismantle each group in isolation.
Authoritarian regimes don’t discriminate between vocal critics and quiet bystanders. They target all expertise because expertise itself is a threat.
So what’s the counter-strategy? Not just defending careers. Defending conscience. Defending humanity. Defending truth.
Five Tactics to Defend Expertise and Stay Human
We are in uncharted territory. I don’t have a complete blueprint. But here’s a place to start:
1. Build resilient networks outside compromised institutions
Strengthen or create small, high-trust affinity groups with clear goals—tracking policy rollbacks, safeguarding data, coordinating messaging. Use secure tools like Signal and ProtonMail. Mutual care is your first line of defense.
2. Create legal and financial safety nets
Set up legal defense funds for whistleblowers and politically targeted experts. Partner with advocacy groups for pro bono legal support. Build mutual aid systems to help people survive the fallout.
3. Expose the systematic purge
A single dismissal can be ignored. A pattern of thousands becomes a headline. Document the harm. Track expert firings across sectors. Don’t let this disappear in silence.
4. Safeguard and decentralize knowledge
If reports, datasets, or archives are being deleted, become a knowledge steward. Mirror and encrypt data. Translate findings into accessible formats. Refuse to let your work be erased.
This isn’t just political. It’s deeply personal. Befriending yourself—offering kindness, connection, and small acts of care—is not indulgent. It’s resistance.
Take a breath. Loosen your jaw. Speak one honest sentence. Text someone who gets it. That’s not weakness. That’s how we begin to reclaim clarity and courage.
Don’t Just Survive. Stay Human. Stay Strategic. Shape Tomorrow.
Expertise isn’t just about facts. It’s a form of public service. A way of caring for the world.
If you’ve been purged, demoralized, or told to stay quiet, you are not alone. You’re being targeted because you still matter. Because your voice, your values, and your presence still hold power.
So yes, take care of your livelihood. But also take care of your spirit. This is about more than surviving. It’s about refusing to vanish.
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Note: An earlier version of this post appeared a month ago on my LinkedIn newsletter.
You Are Not Alone, and This Fight Is Not Over
If this post resonated, I hope it offered more than recognition. I hope it offered orientation.
That’s the heart of this series, and of the work I’m building. To help people stay human, stay effective, and stay together under pressure that is meant to make us fall apart and obey.
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We are not helpless. We are not broken. We are living inside a system intended to disorient and divide, and we are learning how to move through it with humanity and conscience intact.
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From Progressive Strategy Now, a publication of Paul T Shattuck LLC.
***The views expressed here reflect my personal analysis as a researcher and consultant, and do not represent the positions of any employer, clients, or affiliated organizations.