The 1883 Pendleton Act was passed to promote a federal workforce based on merit, rather than the patronage system based on pollical affiliation.[1] Republicans will use a patronage system to “institutionalize Trumpism.”[2]
Just before his loss to President Biden, Trump issued an Executive Order[3] that abolished civil service protection of more than 50,000 people.[4] President Biden rescinded the Order before any employees were affected.[5]
As laid out in Project 2025 and Agenda 47, Trump wants to return to a patronage system replacing non-partisan career civil servants with MAGA loyalists.[6],[7] The Heritage Foundation already has a database of job candidates vetted for loyalty to Trump.[8]
Even more concerning is the blacklist of government workers that are not sufficiently loyal to Trump created by The American Accountability Foundation.[9] The inevitable death threats will follow release of the blacklist.
Firing civil servants simply because they’re not hyper-partisan or extreme enough would be a disservice to the millions of Americans who depend on federal workers and the services they deliver every day.
They deliver the mail. They keep planes flying safely. They keep our water and air clean. They protect family farms. They protect our nation’s capital.
Packing the civil service with 50,000 Trump loyalist has only one purpose – “institutionalize Trumpism.”[10]
[2] https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/will-the-heritage-foundations-project-2025-turn-trumpism-into-a-governing-agenda/
[3] Executive Order 13957 (21 October 2020) https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/10/26/2020-23780/creating-schedule-f-in-the-excepted-service
[6] Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise; Chapter 3, Central Personnel Agencies: Managing the Bureaucracy. https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf
[7] https://www.donaldjtrump.com/agenda47/agenda47-president-trumps-plan-to-dismantle-the-deep-state-and-return-power-to-the-american-people
[10] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/21/magazine/heritage-foundation-kevin-roberts.html?unlocked_article_code=1.P00.q22x.Rpy-Vcl4Gqc9&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
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