Grassroots Movement In Morgantown Coalesces In Opposition To Federal Cuts

Since his inauguration, Pres. Donald Trump has empowered Elon Musk and others to make swift and often drastic slashes to federal staffing and funding. These actions have left federal workers and entire communities reeling and uncertain of their futures.

Back in January, about 30 friends and neighbors got together to talk about their options in the face of the then-recently announced federal funding freeze and impending job cuts.

As the group continued to meet, the size of the meetings each Saturday kept growing. Just a month later, the group’s numbers have swelled to more than 300 attendants at their March 1 meeting.

“There has been just an incredible outpouring of energy and, frankly, anger among West Virginians about the actions of this administration, and a real desire to take action,” Clare said.

Clare is one of the group’s organizers and has worked for the federal government for close to 15 years within the US Department of Health and Human Services. Like several of the people West Virginia Public Broadcasting spoke to for this story, Clare asked to only be identified by her first name, for fear of reprisal or targeting in future rounds of firing. 

She said things have been stressful since cuts started happening and with now-weekly requests to justify her position to Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, also known as DOGE. With reductions in force looming over their heads as soon as this week, Clare said colleagues have openly cried in meetings. But she has been enlivened by the groundswell that has become Mountaineers Indivisible.

“Instead of just feeling scared and angry, I can come together with my fellow citizens to take action to do the right thing and to try to stand up for and protect our fundamental democratic institutions,” Clare said.

Mountaineers Indivisible are calling on West Virginia’s Congressional delegation to oppose the Trump administration’s broad-reaching cuts to federal programs. On Feb. 20 they led a demonstration in front of Sen. Shelley Moore Capito’s Morgantown office. In early February Capito told reporters that she was “pretty comfortable with the direction” Musk’s cuts were taking at the time and that she would need to wait and see.

Clare said members of the Senator’s staff were not willing to meet, but the group is determined to keep up public pressure.

“We think that democracy requires vigilant protection and active participation from all citizens, and right now, what that looks like is standing up and pressuring our democratically representative leaders here in West Virginia to stop this,” she said. “Call on the Trump administration to give a pink slip to Elon Musk and stop decimating the federal workforce, and then, more broadly, stop threatening our fundamental democratic institutions.”

Things have moved fast for the group, so fast they have yet to affiliate with the national progressive grassroots movement Indivisible that inspired their name. 

Mountaineers Indivisible only just elected leadership at their Saturday March 1 meeting, where they also tentatively broke their hundreds of new members into more manageable working groups.

One of those new members is Teri, who also asked to only be identified by her first name. She is not a federal worker, but her husband is, and she said they are terrified that he is going to lose his job.

“All of our plans for our future are being put on hold right now because we don’t know how long he’s going to have a job,” Teri sai. “We don’t know how long he’s going to have benefits. I’m just so angry.”

Teri said she feels disappointed that elected officials have in her words rolled over for the president, but is hopeful that her anger can be used for good and not for bad.

“I want the country to be able to see that West Virginia isn’t just conservative Republicans who are wanting to rubber stamp things that Trump is doing, that we have voices. We need our voices heard.”

Del. Evan Hansen, D-Monongalia, was present at Saturday’s meeting. He said he was proud that so much of his constituency had turned out to stand up for West Virginians, the Constitution and the rule of law.

“It’s important for me to be here just as a citizen, but I think people also need to know that their elected officials hear them and agree with them and are going to fight for them,” he said.

Hansen said he is hearing from people in his district about the effects they are already seeing from the cuts, and said they will soon be felt in the state Capitol as well.

“A lot of West Virginians are losing their jobs: federal workers, federal contractors and others that have been doing work based on federal grants,” he said. “It’s going to make our job as state legislature even more difficult. There will be even greater demands on the state budget, and that’s at a time when, after 10 years of Republican rule, we have $400 million deficit and talks of additional cuts. I’m not sure how the majority party is going to address this, but it’s it’s going to compound our challenges.”

As the group grows, they are trying to capitalize on their momentum. On Tuesday, they held a rally in front of the Monongalia County Courthouse to “Give Musk a Pink Slip” and let federal workers affected by cuts speak.

Tim Buckman works at the Louis A. Johnson Veterans’ Administration Medical Center in Clarksburg. He told the crowd that he has seen firsthand the impact of DOGE cuts to workers and funding.

“They lowered all our government credit card limits to $1,” Buckman said. “They’re still open, but you can’t buy anything. That means for the buses for the disabled veterans to get back and forth to the hospital, can’t buy gas. If it snows, can’t blow the parking lot. We need critical things to keep the place running.”

Buckman said he works in the medical center’s boiler plant, which provides heating and cooling for the West Virginia Veterans Nursing Facility, as well as sterilization and humidity control capacity for the hospital. He warned that if a critical component fails, the center cannot purchase a replacement.

“That’s someone’s critical surgery. That could be life or death,” Buckman said. “Guess what? They die.”

Former state delegate Barbara Fleischauer came with a lengthy list a friend had compiled of local effects of the federal cuts.

“These are the numbers: 80 plus fired at the Parkersburg Bureau of Public Debt, 20 plus at NETL, the National Energy Technology Lab, Department of Energy,” she said. “Morgantown Veterans Administration included 10 probationary employees, four of them 100% service disabled veterans. NIOSH, there are three critical programs that are going to be affected.”

Fleischauer’s list also includes 10 inspectors at the Mine Health and Safety Administration that took deferred resignation, as well as 27 probationary employees subject to termination.

“Most of those jobs that were lost were mine inspectors or expert mine safety trainers,” she said.

Two miners  have died in West Virginia already this year.

“We want our federal representatives to stand up for us,” Fleischauer said. “The people need to be a check if Congress won’t be.”

Protestors like retired teacher Ray Wilson say they are appalled by Musk’s access to their personal information and the real-world effects of cuts to departments like Veterans’ Affairs. 

“When you cut all the projects that help the poorest to get tax breaks to the biggest billionaires in the country, that’s wrong,” he said.

Wilson said the country was built on protest, and he wants to tell the President and Congress enough is enough. He fears a greater, more existential threat to American democracy if the Trump administration is left unchecked.

“We have a president, he doesn’t want to be president now,” Wilson said. “He wants to be a dictator. And if we can’t get some of this stopped, the 2026 election will not occur.” 

Mountaineers Indivisible plans to continue meeting Saturdays and conducting more actions to pressure elected leaders to oppose the Trump administration’s cuts.