Trump proposes civil service reform for Deep State

 PJ Media:

Virtually all Americans believed, until the inauguration of Donald Trump as president on January 20, 2017, that when someone became president, he could begin to implement his agenda. Certainly Old Joe Biden’s handlers have done so with a vengeance since they took over; but when Trump became president, he immediately began to encounter resistance from entrenched members of the government bureaucracy who refused to do as he ordered. Some worked actively against Trump, while the establishment media assured us that these self-appointed “deep state” saboteurs were the courageous guardians of “our democracy.” At his South Carolina rally Saturday night, Trump continued to tease a 2024 run and made a new promise about how he would break the power of the unelected “deep state.”

“We will pass critical reforms,” Trump said, “making every executive branch employee fireable by the president of the United States. The deep state must and will be brought to heel.”
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The term “spoils system” is today practically synonymous with government corruption, but Jackson began it as a blow against corruption, preventing the establishment of an entrenched bureaucracy that would oppose the president. The Trump administration made it clear that such a bureaucracy, determined to thwart the president at every turn, is a genuine concern; it is time for a reconsideration of the spoils system.

The spoils system essentially died with the assassination of President James A. Garfield in 1881. Garfield believed that the spoils system was an unending source of government corruption and pushed for measures that would end it, only to be shot by a man who publicly proclaimed that he was doing so because he belonged to the faction of the Republican party, the Stalwarts, that supported the spoils system. Garfield’s successor, Chester Arthur, was a Stalwart, but he demonstrated immense personal courage and honor in choosing to carry out the wishes of his slain predecessor rather than implement his own contrary agenda. His decision to do this effectively ended his political career, as he almost certainly knew it would, and yet he stood firm.

Whether his stance was entirely wise in the long run, however, is a separate question. Historians take for granted that civil service reform was good for the country, and there has been no significant indication that it wasn’t until quite recently, when a president was thwarted in numerous endeavors by an army of unelected bureaucrats within the various departments and agencies of the government, who were determined to impede his agenda in every way possible.
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They could reform it to be like the military where people are required to follow lawful orders.  That has worked pretty well until we got people like Milley involved.