She hoped Trump’s victory would change her life, but not like this
BALDWIN, Mich. — Ryleigh Cooper exhaled as she slid onto the couch after nine hours of work for the U.S. Forest Service, still covered in the blue paint she used to mark trees for local loggers. Then she got the text.“I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” her union leader wrote.
It was the second Thursday in February, and a historic White House purge aimed at federal workers like Cooper was sweeping the country.
Betrayed by her family, who supported firing federal workers like her, she thought about the Facebook posts she had seen a few days earlier.
“It’s February 3,” her grandmother posted, “and we’re going in the right direction.”
“Any government employee who is afraid of transparency,” wrote the man who taught her AP government class in high school, “is a criminal!”
Getting fired meant she would no longer have health insurance, including the 12 weeks of paid maternity leave that was a guaranteed benefit of her federal service. Also gone would be the promotion that would allow her to plan for the kids she so badly wanted to have.