Conservatives long held the belief that their ideological opponents on the left had taken control of academia, the media, cultural institutions and, of course, government. Not necessarily elected office. But the bureaucracy, where it's long been an article of faith that the federal workers reporting to the office each day were really agents of a long-standing plot to entrench liberalism.
Or something. It never made much sense, really, as conservatives, as they once existed, managed to create their own media/academic/cultural biosphere. And it did very well for itself, collecting millions in grant money and billions more from marketers.
But it was never enough. Somehow and despite everything, conservatism never advanced in the bureaucracy because of civil service protections – protections that, once upon a time, had Republican champions who understood the spoils system that gripped government from its founding until the late 19th century was a source of inefficiency, waste, and corruption.
And now a gaggle of self-described conservatives want to bring back a version of the spoils system, reasoning (and that's a generous use of the word) that putting reclassifying more federal bureaucrats as “at will” employees will necessarily mean a slimmer, cheaper, and most importantly, more political loyal remnant.
It would be mildly amusing were the people and institutions working on the idea not so deadly serious about it. As noted in this Politico story:
…the program laid out by [Paul] Dans and his fellow Trumpers, called Project 2025, is far more ambitious than anything Ronald Reagan dreamed up. Dans, from his seat inside The Heritage Foundation, and scores of conservative groups aligned with his program are seeking to roll back nothing less than 100 years of what they see as liberal encroachment on Washington. They want to overturn what began as Woodrow Wilson's creation of a federal administrative elite and later grew into a vast, unaccountable and mostly liberal bureaucracy (as conservatives view it) under Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal and Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, numbering about two and a quarter million federal workers today. They aim to defund the Department of Justice, dismantle the FBI, break up the Department of Homeland Security and eliminate the Departments of Education and Commerce, to name just a few of their larger targets. They want to give the president complete power over quasi-independent agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission, which makes and enforces rules for television and internet companies that have been the bane of Trump's political existence in the last few years.
A bizarre set of goals for people who used to espouse the virtues of ability and merit, as opposed to rank partisanship.
But they are hardly done there:
“This is a coming-together of the movement that has never been seen before,” says Dans, who keeps on his desk a replica of Reagan's burgundy leather plaque inscribed in gold lettering, “It CAN Be Done.” Dans gained prominence in the latter stages of the Trump term when he joined John McEntee, the former body man for Trump who rose to head of the Presidential Personnel Office at age 29. They ousted alleged disloyalists such Dale Cabaniss, who ran the Office of Personnel Management, which manages benefits and retirement issues for the federal government's civil service. Now McEntee is on board at Project 2025 and what he started in 2020 is the GOP template for the future. Together, with James Sherk (another former Trump official) they are seeking to resurrect “Schedule F,” an executive order Trump adopted in the last weeks of his administration–and Biden later rescinded–to expand the number of federal workers he could fire from the usual 4,000 or so political appointees to 20,000 or more who occupy key policy-making positions.
The exact number being targeted is still being decided, says Russell Vought, Trump's former director of the Office of Management and Budget, who has been tasked with implementing the Project 2025 policy program. But ultimately, the goal is to remove what Dans calls the “tenured class of political high priests.”
I'm very sure it is. And what will replace those high priests?
Clerics cut from the MAGA cloth. There's nothing new or different in the aims, here. Jobs for loyalists, qualified or not, and exit papers for the rest.
The results of such a change are entirely predictable: inefficiency, waste, and corruption will flourish just like it did in the pre-civil service reform days. And somehow, it will be even worse.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
Don’t forget to factor God into the equation?! We were founded with God! He’s still here! He Is stepping in!
Also, if everybody felt like nothing could possibly be done, there’s no question we would be doomed!
I believe I did hear some positive content though 😉 so it’s not 💯 negative?!
Oh no I am so scared they want to get rid of all the alphabet agencies. That’s bad who will spy on conservatives? Who will put pro-lifers in jail? The sooner they are gone the better.
Amen to that! and think of all the $ that can be saved to use toward helping our people, not some other countries people. I’m tired of that too!
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I think you’re completely incorrect on your “Rank Partisanship” assumption. How could you possibly say that the Department of Education or the FBI are in service to the people of this country?
You’re outta your mind if you think for one second that those in charge of any of the above mentioned bureaucracies are anything but rank communists! The children in this country are pushed through a system that brainwashes them into thinking that it’s normal to not be what God made you, weather the child has feelings like this or not! (I’m not Gay bashing here either, I fully believe that some do have these feelings and are legitimate) These “officials” have no business telling them or pushing them to medically destroy their own bodies before age 21! It is also SO WRONG for anyone to ruin a Child’s innocence,(which is so short to begin with), by teaching them that many repulsive sexual ideas are just fine, and frankly it is NONE of the school, teachers or principals business! It is also not alright for them to teach our children to HATE our country and enforce the “climate change” cult on them! It is a THEORY and nothing more! None of it has been proven, and it scares these kids into thinking they have no future. All of which is Child abuse, in my opinion! It is the job of parents and family that hold the rights to choose what is best for their child, period! And to make it even worse, they are pushing kids through the system that cannot read, write or do basic mathematics, how is that serving the communities?
And the FBI – How can you possibly say what they do is bipartisan? They are targeting parents, who (as mentioned above) are trying to enforce their rights over their own children, which is none of the FBI’s concern. They are also going after Catholics and other Christians, as well as anyone that supports Donald Trump. That is Rank Partisanship, and it’s worse, its communism! No one has the right to target regular, tax paying americans simply because they can! Or because they disagree with them on anything!
This country was founded on FREEDOM, freedom from the bureaucracy attacking people that don’t agree with the MOB! That choose a different way of doing things or running their own lives as they see fit, so long as it isn’t harming others. Leave us alone! Stop taxing us to death, and wasting our hard earning tax money. We are sick of it!