It appears to be real. The federal government is currently in the midst of the most comprehensive purge in the history of the nation, and many career civil servants are being asked to retire early with a severance “or else”. The worrying part should have come when Project 2025 laid out the groundwork for what is happening right at this very moment, back when it was first revealed. Trump intends to replace all of these government workers with yes-men and cronies who will be loyal to him and him alone, and not the constitution or the American people they are meant to serve. The damage being done right now will probably never be reversed in our lifetimes and will pave the way for absolute executive control - in other words, a dictatorship. This is not alarmist, this was the plan all along and nobody listened.

If you don’t have a plan to GTFO in case things get even worse, I would start making one right now. You have to set an uncrossable line yourself and be prepared to act on it, because other people are going to continue to go along with this until the very end, so you can’t count on other people to be giving you signals on when to bail out.