There are always those who don't flinch and raise their voice in the face of injustice or abuse, without prior cost-benefit calculations. The person of a piece of clothing who simply does the right thing. However, in most humans, the faint-hearted coexists with the potential hero. Who hasn't alternated episodes of cowardice or passivity with bursts of intrepidity or daring? We can blame it on character, upbringing, or the moment in life. Or, in part, we can turn to context. Social psychology speaks of a bystander effect Because when many people witness an attack, the victim is less likely to receive help. Contrary to expectations, the group doesn't have a multiplying effect but rather a diffusing effect on individual responsibility. One for another, the house must be swept. The dramatic case of Kitty Genovese—a New York teenager who was murdered in the street, in front of thirty-seven witnesses, without anyone intervening—illustrates this phenomenon very well.
The short film winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 2024, The man who could not remain silent, recreates the arrest of Croatian soldier Tomo Buzov on a passenger train during the ethnic cleansing of Bosnia's Muslim population. He wasn't Muslim, but he refused to present his credentials or answer questions about his religion to a paramilitary squad, questioning the legitimacy of the order. They took him instead of the young undocumented immigrant he had covered. He never returned. For those who aren't irreducibly brave, like Captain Bull, fear is a paralyzing factor that inhibits dissent, along with reasons as banal as following orders or respecting their ranks. Neither the Bosnian genocide nor that perpetrated by Nazism would have been achieved without the complicity of the state machinery or the stagnation of the civilian population.
Without drama, the role of civil servants in the welfare state is often underestimated: to build it, maintain it, defend it. They are belittled with nicknames like bureaucrats or pixatinters while the staff who keep the wheels turning in the private sector receive suggestive names like manager (happy, project) either officer (operational, technical, compliance). The administration's red tape is criticized (rightly), ignoring the fact that utility companies, insurers, and mutual insurance companies torture customers, more or less, with the same old nonsense of forms, declarations, applications, etc., while some are left with the same old rant about lazy people, parasites, and the parasites of the system. The efficiency gurus fuel this narrative with self-serving motives.
The cuts—with scissors, chainsaws, or bulldozers—on both sides of the Atlantic jeopardize the quality of services, but also equal treatment and opportunities for those who can't afford them on the second-hand market. Public servants, it's worth remembering, are also the providers of universal services (doctors, teachers, librarians, etc.), those who distribute coverage for downtime (unemployment, illness, old age, etc.), those who respond to emergencies (firefighters, civil protection, etc.), and those who control spending.
Trump and Musk's offensive targets a multitude of public workers in very diverse agencies and departments (Agriculture, Energy, Treasury). There are the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Forestry Service. Up to more than two million professionals. Many have collectively taken to court the mass layoffs they have suffered without any objective reason. With the support of prosecutors, unions, and NGOs. The areas they have targeted include—in addition to cooperation—inclusion policies and the defense of civil rights.
The courts are constantly resolving the legality of executive decisions, with alternating doses of lime and sand. They are the last dam of containment for the rule of law. Not in vain, the United States is a pioneer in the protection of civil rights, which, along with the separation of powers, form the hard core of this institutional construct. However, less is said about how Trump is undermining the pre-existing system of checks and balances that keeps abuses of position and authoritarian temptations at bay—a risk inherent in the exercise of public power—and ensures that anti-discrimination laws do not remain a dead letter. Government agencies, endowed with enhanced independence—their leaders cannot be removed arbitrarily, but for specific reasons, in cases of negligence, mismanagement, or misconduct—are the first line of defense for officials who denounce excesses. The president, for now, hasn't dared (or rather, hasn't been able, because Congress has its say) to liquidate them directly; he's been content to let heads roll. Among the recent and most blatant cases of victims of this guillotine: David Huitema, director of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE), which strives to prevent conflicts of interest on presidential teams (Trump's were a work in progress); Cathy Harris, director of the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), which hears complaints from fired or disciplined federal workers; Hampton Dellinger, director of the Office of Special Counsel (OSC), the federal agency with disciplinary powers that provides a safe channel and offers protection to officials who report irregularities (waste, fraud, corruption); Charlotte Burrows and Jocelyn Samuels, commissioners of the Equal Employment Opportunity Agency.
Offering protection to those who stand up against discrimination or report a violation is an institutional responsibility, not a whim. As Umberto Eco, forgiving of the ordinary individual who is as quick to fall silent as to raise his voice, notes, "True heroes are so by accident; in reality, they would rather be honest cowards, like everything else."
