As Trump runs for a second term, he is promising to “dismantle the deep state” and reshape the government to align with his vision for the country. Unlike his 2016 campaign, Trump and his right-wing supporters, including former high-ranking officials from his administration, have developed detailed proposals to execute this plan. If he were to be inaugurated in January 2025, they would immediately convert thousands of career employees into appointees who can be fired by the president at will. They would also seek full White House control over agencies that have historically operated as independent government departments, such as the Department of Justice.
Trump’s Republican rivals have matched or even exceeded his eagerness to reduce the size of the federal government. Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy has vowed to fire up to 75 percent of the workforce, while Florida Governor Ron DeSantis promised to start making cuts on the first day of his administration.
These plans, along with the harsh rhetoric directed towards federal employees, have raised concerns among former government officials from both parties who are dedicated to promoting and protecting the nonpartisan civil service. They believe that the government should be primarily composed of experienced, nonpolitical employees. Max Stier, CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan organization that focuses on strengthening government and the federal workforce, emphasizes that they are defenders not of the deep state, but of the effective state. Stier and other advocates fear that Trump’s efforts to dismantle the bureaucracy would lead to a return to a patronage system, where loyalty to a party or president is valued more than merit.
Robert Shea, a former senior budget official in the George W. Bush administration, expresses deep concern about the potential damage to the federal government’s institution. He worries that previously illegal or unconstitutional behavior would emerge throughout the government, and the ability to address these issues would be hindered.
Last week, the Biden administration proposed new rules to prevent future attempts to purge the federal workforce. However, these regulations could be easily undone by the next president. Efforts to protect career employees have not gained much traction in Congress or among the general public. Jacqueline Simon, the director of public policy for the American Federation of Government Employees, expresses her frustration with the lack of attention from the public regarding this matter.
Max Stier, who has been leading the Partnership for Public Service for over 20 years, is deeply concerned about this lack of awareness. He compares the threat to the civil service to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s campaign to weaken the judiciary in Israel, which sparked massive protests. Stier believes that the order of threat to American democracy is similar, but the level of engagement and involvement from the public is not as high.
One notable aspect of the right-wing push to dismantle the civil service is how openly conservative leaders discuss their intentions. They are not hiding their aims behind rhetoric about improving government effectiveness and efficiency. Instead, they are unequivocal about the need for federal employees to prioritize loyalty to the president, and they argue for the president’s authority to remove anyone deemed insufficiently devoted. They argue that the current structure of the executive branch, as well as the independence of its agencies, misinterprets the Constitution and encroaches on the president’s power.
Paul Dans, the director of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, which aims to recruit conservative appointees and lay the groundwork for the next Republican administration, describes their plans in bold terms. He compares the effort to a runner in the 1984 Apple commercial who breaks down an oppressive bureaucracy with a sledgehammer. The project has released a comprehensive playbook outlining their conservative policy agenda, including their vision for an executive branch fully under the command of the president.
One of the top priorities listed in their playbook is reissuing an executive order, originally signed by Trump and then reversed by President Biden, that would remove civil-service protections from up to 50,000 federal jobs. This move would create a new category of employees called Schedule F, who could be fired at will by the president. It would significantly increase the number of political appointees in senior positions, which currently stands at around 4,000.
Critics of Trump argue that the Heritage project provides intellectual cover for his authoritarian tendencies, which some of his primary competitors, such as DeSantis and Ramaswamy, have imitated. However, Vought, the former director of the Office of Management and Budget under Trump who now leads the Center for Renewing America, defends these changes as necessary to ensure that the government reflects the results of presidential elections. He contends that the federal bureaucracy is unresponsive to the president and that the president better represents the will of the people.
Vought and Dans highlight the career of Anthony Fauci as a supposed example of the civil service gone wrong. Fauci, who served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases during the coronavirus pandemic, was highly regarded by presidents from both parties until he became a target of conservative criticism under Trump. Vought compares Fauci to Robert Moses, a powerful unelected official in New York City who exerted significant influence.
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