At this point, you sort of expect Donald Trump's big-picture assaults on free speech, foreigners, and the rule of law. (Sometimes, as in the case of the new outright attack on US higher ed, all three are packaged in one convenient wrapper.) Although troubling and dangerous, these kinds of attacks are all at least predictably unhinged; most are drawn from the standard authoritarian playbook or its more recent "illiberal democracies" update.
It's when you look into the details, though, that one is constantly reminded: Nothing is too petty to be corrupted in Trumpworld.
Not even "out of office" auto-replies.
“First, they came for my OoO message...”
With the US government shutting down this week due to its failure to pass a budget, most government employees are now furloughed. That means many of them set up polite "out of office" e-mail responses highlighting this fact so that those who contact them would know a reply might be some time in arriving.
But some departments have pressed their employees to change these "out of office" notices to explicitly blame Democrats for the shutdown. At the Department of Education, things have apparently gone even further, with numerous employees complaining on social media that their out-of-office messages were changed, without their consent, to this:
Thank you for contacting me. On September 19, 2025, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 5371, a clean continuing resolution. Unfortunately, Democrat Senators are blocking passage of H.R. 5371 in the Senate which has led to a lapse in appropriations. Due to the lapse in appropriations I am currently in furlough status. I will respond to emails once government functions resume.
CNN talked to one Department of Education employee who "said they went into their email system twice over the last 24 hours to change the automatic message to a generic one, but it was reverted back to the message blaming Democrats."
Well—not "Democrats," exactly, but "Democrat Senators." The use of the noun "Democrat" as an adjective (e.g., "the Democrat Party") is a long-standing and deliberate right-wing refusal to call the opposition by its name. (If you visit the Democrats' website, the very first words below the site header are "We are the Democratic Party"; the party is run by the "Democratic National Committee.") Petty? Sure! But that's a feature, not a bug.
Similar out-of-office suggestions have been made to employees at the Small Business Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services. Such messages appear to be violations of the Hatch Act, which prohibits partisan speech from most executive branch employees while they are on duty, since these people represent and work for all Americans.
The Office of Special Counsel, which is supposed to prosecute violations of the Hatch Act, notes in a training flyer that most executive branch workers "may not engage in political activity—i.e., activity directed at the success or failure of a political party."
Employees may also not "use any e-mail account or social media to distribute, send, or forward content that advocates for or against a partisan political party."
When asked about its suggested out-of-office message blaming Democrats, the Department of Health and Human Services told CNN that yes, it had suggested this—but added that this was okay because the partisan message was accurate.
"Employees were instructed to use out-of-office messages that reflect the truth: Democrats have shut the government down," the agency said.
Truly, as even a sitting Supreme Court justice has noted, the "rule of law" has now become "Calvinball."
Websites, too
Department websites have also gotten in on the partisan action. The Department of Housing and Urban Development's site now loads with a large floating box atop the page, which reads, "The Radical Left in Congress shut down the government." When you close the box, you see atop the main page itself an eye-searingly red banner that says... the same thing. Thanks, I think we got it!
Over at the Small Business Administration, a banner atop the main page really makes sure to drive the partisanship home by blaming Democrats twice and praising Trump once:
Senate Democrats voted to block a clean federal funding bill (H.R. 5371), leading to a government shutdown that is preventing the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) from serving America’s 36 million small businesses. Every day that Senate Democrats continue to oppose a clean funding bill, they are stopping an estimated 320 small businesses from accessing $170 million in SBA-guaranteed funding...
As soon as the shutdown is over, we are prepared to immediately return to the record-breaking services we were providing under the leadership of the Trump Administration.
Public Citizen has filed complaints over both websites, calling them "an obvious Hatch Act violation." Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), who sits on the House Government and Oversight Reform Committee, today released a letter making the same claims but expanding them to include the emails. According to Garcia:
These kinds of blatant political messages from Executive Branch agencies appear to be in direct violation of the Hatch Act. Reporting also indicates that the wording of some of these partisan messages may have been deliberately crafted to attempt to avoid violating the Hatch Act, with a housing official asserting that the phrasing was deliberate and that “radical left” is an ideology and not a political party. However, the coded language of some of these messages does not legitimize or allow blatant political activity. Other messages abandoned any pretense and simply engaged in blatant partisan politics.
The question, of course, is whether anyone in the Office of Special Counsel will do anything about the situation.
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