American Carnage

A gripping narrative of federal workers caught in Trumps second-term purge, and the devastating consequences for American democracy. American Carnagefollows eleven federal workers, in eight government agencies, from the time they were told they were fired in the early weeks of Donald Trumps second presidential administration through to the summer of 2025. With Trump having empowered the worlds richest man, Elon Musk, and his Department of Government Efficiency, to make dramatic cuts to many of the countrys most important agencies, what unfolded in these months was a cascading tragedy of historic proportions. Their stories, which show a country in a profound moment of crisis and dislocation, are Americas stories. What happened to themthe bullying, the intimidation, the deliberate removal of financial stabilityalso happened to hundreds of thousands of other employees. A fierce reckoning with the intimate and far-reaching effects of these layoffs, both on the individuals who lost their jobs and on the millions of Americans who found their access to basic government services curtailed, American Carnageis the first book-length account of how these cuts dulled and denuded our city on the hill, leaving a morally impoverished landscape in their wake.