In Reagan’s first term, the acronym RIF became a terrifying label for the decimation of the federal bureaucracy. In a deliberate attempt to gut the capabilities of the agencies that Reagan had railed against during his campaign, an onslaught against middle and senior management of those agencies was launched, under the banal term “reduction in force”. This led to an unprecedented “brain drain” of the people whose work kept the agencies running. It took well into the Clinton administration to rebuild the loss of talent, skills, knowledge and dedication.
Now we are seeing something far worse, and it poses a critical challenge for whichever Democrat wins the Presidency in 2020 (the alternative being too horrible to even contemplate). Because of my job I am seeing it up close and it is really depressing, even horrifying.
Under Trump, we have seen two related trends that are a threat to the ability of the next president to govern. The first is the resignation of vast numbers of precisely those people who represent the best of our public servants: moral, dedicated, effective, and experienced personnel who cannot tolerate the deliberately demoralizing policies and climate put in place by Trump’s minions. This is as bad or worse as the RIFs in the early 1980s. While we can see the unprecedented number of vacancies in leadership positions, the full impact is much wider.
The second trend is the insinuation of Trump supporters into positions that are top-level GS positions or Senior Executive Service (SES) positions that are not political appointments. These people can define and implement policies, and can just as effectively impede those activities, and they will be much more difficult to dislodge. Now most of these people are as self-centered and short-sighted as Trump, so it is hard to imagine them staying in what would become a hostile climate for them under a Democratic president. But some will view themselves as insurgent saboteurs and they will be able to cause a fair amount of damage.
So the task of the next president will be to inspire a new generation to enter public service, by once again educating the public that serving the people is a noble cause; inspire those who have left under Trump to return to help rebuild; and to identify, isolate, and neuter those Trumpanzees who remain in the agencies so they cannot sabotage the repair work that must be done.
This is a huge lift, when the demand from an impatient public will be for immediate results. It is time Democrats start talking about all the work that must be done in this regard, make it part of their campaigns to build a movement to restore the forward march of our society towards environmental and economic progress and justice.