Trump’s Election Sends the Swamp a Message
Many news stories that once seemed important have been drowned out by the Trump election tsunami. Looming large among these is the story of the Federal Emergency Management Agency supervisor who directed her personnel to bypass the homes of hurricane victims that displayed “Trump for President” yard signs. The FEMA staffer in question has been fired — good riddance — and the FEMA director has been called on the carpet by congressional Republicans. But a story that might have had legs in a tight election no longer seems to matter.
It should. Before it’s relegated to the back pages, we should take a moment and reflect upon what it demonstrates about public service culture. As I observed in a previous article about the Biden–Harris administration’s utterly lame hurricane response, Americans across the political spectrum believe that taking care of the victims of natural disasters should be completely evenhanded and apolitical. Yet, even when Biden and Harris came under fire for their apparent indifference to the suffering of thousands, their response seemed more about regaining control of the political narrative than it did about actually using the resources of the government to make a difference for people whose lives had been ripped apart. (READ MORE: Hurricane Outrage: Where is Harris?)
It’s not just the public or the media who are influenced by the priorities championed by those who occupy our highest offices. Crucially, the attitudes of presidents, vice presidents, and Cabinet officials percolate downward throughout the whole of the executive branch. I worked in government for nearly 40 years and I repeatedly observed the workings of this dynamic.
In my own agency, for example, a newly installed deputy secretary — the actual chief operating officer for the agency — signaled his indifference to a terrorist threat with the pungent phrase: “The ninjas are never coming over the fence.” This attitude was picked up by subordinate managers at every level and our ability to provide effective protection to critical facilities declined precipitously — only to be restored in the post-9/11 panic. Throughout the 1990s, whenever we tried to energize security, we’d be dismissed not only by our superiors but by many of our peers; none were willing to take a stand against this dismissive attitude toward the threat.
Low-level supervisors, such as this FEMA official, align themselves accordingly. While the “ignore Trump supporters” directive probably comported with her own political beliefs, I suspect that the driving impulse was the typical bureaucratic “let’s please the boss” mentality, which is pervasive across the government. In this case, the overall impact was relatively small, although extremely painful to those victims who found themselves bypassed.
This, however, is not always the case. Consider, for example, the notorious takedown of the Branch Davidian compound outside Waco, Texas in 1993. I won’t pretend to review all the claims and counterclaims surrounding this ugly event, except to suggest that local law enforcement seemed convinced that the whole thing could have been managed to a successful conclusion without the massive employment of force by the FBI. For present purposes, the significant thing is that this occurred early in the Clinton administration when FBI officials seemed eager to demonstrate to the new president and Attorney General Janet Reno that they were prepared to go after “gun nuts” — particularly “gun nuts” who were also “religious cranks and cultists.”
My point is that it works both ways. The political leadership takes a position and the bureaucracy falls all over itself to show how it supports that position. I worked for many years with a (relatively) senior career official whose values shifted with every change of administration — his new political appointee bosses were always “brilliant,” even “inspirational,” until reality set in, disappointingly, leaving him to yearn for and then be seduced by the next new leadership, regardless of its politics.
Herein lies a lesson for the incoming Trump administration. It may well be the case that certain federal agencies are so riven with left-wing pieties that nothing short of wholesale firings, or even agency shutdown, can remedy the situation. I suspect that the Department of Education falls into this latter category and that there are others similarly corrupted. I retired in 2018 and the DEI rot had already started to take hold. I gather that it has since metastasized, not just in civilian agencies, but also in the armed services. But it’s not just DEI that needs to be rooted out. There are many other left-wing obsessions that have taken root over the years.
For those agencies that can be returned to serving the American people as they should, the task may be less daunting. Appoint good Cabinet heads that genuinely support the administration’s objectives — failure to do this was clearly a weakness of the first Trump administration. Next, make sure that the second and third layers of political appointees are also responsive to your objectives. Also, make sure that these individuals actually understand the workings of the agency they’ve been appointed to manage. In working with new political appointees, I was often astonished at their abject ignorance of the basic missions and operating principles of the agency.
Above all, make it clear to every subordinate that success lies in helping the new leadership to fulfill the wishes of the American people, as expressed in the votes they’ve cast. Send clear direction, set concrete expectations, and follow up to see that those expectations are met. Reward those who respond positively, find ways to marginalize those who don’t, and get rid of those who actively resist.
James H. McGee retired in 2018 after nearly four decades as a national security and counter-terrorism professional, working primarily in the nuclear security field. Since retiring, he’s begun a second career as a thriller writer. His recent novel, Letter of Reprisal is available on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback format.
READ MORE from James H. McGee:
Peanut the Squirrel and the Coercive State
Is Walz Vanishing in Virginia?
Hurricane Outrage: Where is Harris?
Female Superheroes Not Needed at the Secret Service
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