Mark Esper, the former Secretary of Defense, is publicly fretting that Donald Trump will retaliate against those in the deep state that sought to undermine his first term as President of the United States, telling the media that he thinks those worried about retaliation have a “legitimate fear”.
— National Pulse, 10/01/23

And with good reason.

Some of these unelected federal employees deemed it their duty to derail the Constitutional mandate of their boss, who just happened to be the President of the United States, which when left to their own devices (and a sympathetic media) led to rumors and innuendo that distracted the Trump Administration for its entire four year term. Most of the false allegations, that led to two failed impeachments, either came from Democrat party operatives or disgruntled federal appointees and employees. This didn’t have to happen.

While it was of great controversy then and to this day, the whole “elections have consequences” was played out for decades where the winner of a presidential election could literally clean house of as many federal employees as he wanted and replace them with people who were loyal to him and his agenda. This also opened things up for the expected “cronyism” and nepotism, but how different was that to what we currently have in a system where bad federal employees are almost impossible to fire?

After four years of direct insubordination by federal employees in almost every agency, Trump had enough and was going to make sure he could belatedly do a little disruption of his own at the start of his second term.

Less than two weeks before Election Day, Donald Trump signed an executive order that threatens to return the U.S. to a spoils system in which a large share of the federal government’s workforce could be fired for little or no reason – including a perceived lack of loyalty to the president.
— Professor Barry M. Mitnick, 1/21/21

“A perceived lack of loyalty to the president”… puh-leez.

I’m sure you can imagine the sheer horror and fear that flowed through the veins of entitled, overpaid, liberal Democrats in every federal agency, especially those who patted themselves on the back for the very public and semi-successful obstruction of the Trump agenda.

‘Stunning’ Executive Order Would Politicize Civil Service

President Trump signs directive that would potentially pull thousands of federal employees in “policy-making” positions out of the competitive service, making them at-will employees.
— GovExec, 10/22/20

Aww….

And yes, there’s a local DC area television program produced specifically for federal employees and contractors.

Such a public display of disrespect to a cabinet official hasn’t been seen in decades. Rules of decorum were rewritten during the Trump Administration.

Contempt led to fear.

Trump executive order strips protections for key federal workers, drawing backlash
Trump Just Signed and Executive Order Letting Him Purge Thousand of Federal Workers For Disloyalty
Trump’s Order Sets the Stage for Loyalty Tests for Thousands of Feds
Trump’s New Executive Order May Make It Easier To Fire Scientists Like Fauci
Coalition of 28 Labor Groups Urges Congress to Block Trump Order Creating Schedule F
New executive order could strip civil service protections from ‘wide swaths’ of federal workforce
House Democrats demand immediate stop to Schedule F executive order

The chutzpah of that ‘Stunning’ Executive Order Would Politicize Civil Service title IS “stunning” as if the actions of thousands of federal employees during Republican administrations (most notably Trump’s) were anything but weaponized. Many reveled in their success, bragged during friendly media interviews and even anointed themselves as whistleblowers who took one for the team, resulting in even more unnecessary and expensive distractions for the president and the American people.

While some on the left are slowly catching up, they’re expectedly and falsely portraying Schedule F as this new “radical” scheme.

A radical plan for Trump’s second term
Former President Trump’s top allies are preparing to radically reshape the federal government if he is re-elected, purging potentially thousands of civil servants and filling career posts with loyalists to him and his “America First” ideology, people involved in the discussions tell Axios.
— Axios, 7/22/22

Note how federal employees become “civil servants” once their livelihoods are threatened….

The “spoils” system, despite the impressions given, is NOT a novel peril devised by a tyrannical Donald Trump. It’s been around, in one form or another, as early as the 1820s and has been a political football ever since.

The peak of the spoils system came under James Buchanan, who served from 1857 to 1861. He replaced virtually every federal worker at the end of their “rotation.” William L. Marcy, who was secretary of state under Buchanan’s predecessor and was the first to refer to patronage as “spoils,” wrote in 1857 that civil servants from his administration were being “hunted down like wild beasts.”

Almost every Conservative working in the federal government knows what that feels like.

Even Abraham Lincoln, who followed Buchanan, made extensive use of the system, replacing at least 1,457 of the 1,639 officials then subject to presidential appointment. The number would have been higher but for the secession of Southern states, which put some federal officials out of his reach.

In 1870, President Ulysses S. Grant asked Congress to take action, complaining, “The present system does not secure the best men, and often not even fit men, for public place.” Congress responded with legislation that authorized the president to use executive orders to prescribe regulations for the civil service. That power exists today, most recently exercised in Trump’s own order.
— Professor Barry M. Mitnick, 1/21/21

The whining of obstructionist Democrats was soon etched in stone.

“To the victor belong the spoils of the enemy.”
— Senator William L. Marcy (D-NY)

The virtuous have always argued that the “spoils system” should always be based on merit and performance; NOT on politics. For the most part, Trump’s appointees were only as effective as those under allowed them to be. The fact that Republican federal employees still have to keep their values silent for fear of professional retribution shows just how badly the need for Schedule F to be deployed.

Employees at all the agencies analyzed, without exception, are sending their campaign contributions overwhelmingly to Clinton over her Republican counterpart. Several agencies, such as the State Department, which Clinton once led, saw more than 99 percent of contributions going to Clinton.
— The Hill, 10/26/16

The havoc created by unelected, federal employee Democrat ideologues during the Trump term was blatant and it didn’t take long for their loyalty to be rewarded.

President Joe Biden repealed Trump’s Schedule F executive order which permitted the Trump administration to hire and fire federal employees for political reasons; among a flurry of executive orders and memos to federal agencies were directives that directly affect work/life of federal workers. Since the presidential election, AFGE had called on the incoming Biden administration to undo Trump’s harmful executive orders. We thank the President for taking swift and decisive action to protect the federal workforce.
— American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), 1/25/21

Let’s hope in 2025 when Donald Trump is sworn in for his next term, one of his first acts is the issuance of thousands of pink slips to the fat-and-perpetually miserable federal employees who were active insubordinates then and who be even more determined if they were to get “four more years”.

In this particular case, simple numbers explain why things don’t get done in an efficient manner in our nation’s capital.

Americans’ incomes have risen in recent years, but the wealth hasn’t been evenly distributed, according to the latest estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. There were 21 counties with median household incomes above $100,000, the new estimates show, and half of the top 10 fell in northern Virginia, just outside the nation’s capital, which itself boasted a median income of $77,649.
— US News & World Report, 12/6/19

The Washington D.C. region including The District, Southern Maryland and Northern Virginia is unsympathetically referred to as “recession proof” because when cyclical economic downturns befall the rest of the nation, certain people are almost always spared the pain.

The Great Recession is one of the most severe economic downturns in American history. Washington D.C. appeared almost unscathed as the rest of the country suffered. The capital city was also one of the first places to start seeing growth when the recovery started. Washington’s success stirred resentment as the region thrived amidst the downturn. New buildings and a wealthy economy were fueled by the federal government and taxpayers.
— Inside Sources, 8/7/17

One would think those fortunate enough to be gainfully employed with generous compensation and benefits would be grateful to those who pay to maintain those comfortable lifestyles.

Alas, that is not always the case….

…
Unlike most industries that actually create and manufacture products that people are willing to purchase, D.C. creates virtually nothing aside from constant reasons why they should keep their jobs, if not create more for those with mediocre creativity and incentive to improve their skills.

One possible reason there is so much resistance to the Trump presidency is that the president’s business acumen has exposed a culture where the actual completion of a project puts fat-and-happy incomes in peril. After a building is erected, those who built it move on and look for another construction project. In D.C., simple tasks are oh-so slowly performed as to not put their jobs in peril and that philosophy trickles down to the lackluster approach of foreign policy, health care, or mostly anything that could improve the lives of citizens by making a solvable problem go away.

The cost of living is also much higher in this area because higher-paid federal employees have more disposable income and those who service them took note many, many years ago.

One thing that drives the capital and its environs is those very large federal paychecks, which now amount to about $90,000 a year in money wages and just under $125,000 a year in total compensation. Washington pay has long been above the national average, but it is pulling away. In 2000, the median compensation for an American worker at large was about 74 percent of the median compensation for a federal employee; today, the average working taxpayer makes only 55 percent of what the average federal tax-eater makes. Our would-be class warriors talk about “transfers of wealth” and “transfers of income” when they mean mere changes in those metrics, but in this case, there is a literal transfer, with the most fearsome agency of the federal government — our corrupt and politicized IRS — raiding our households and businesses to support $1,000-a-night La Tur habits in Washington.
— National Review, 11/6/16

This has also had the negative effect of gentrification which, despite the faux laments, makes these areas whiter, more “progressive” thus less tolerant of those not well paid, liberal and white.

The mediocrity, when it comes to the calibre of the typical federal employee, is also a self-maintaining mechanism because they are in the majority. Federal employee unions have made it almost impossible to shed dead weight and generous pensions are one of the sole motivators of those who’ll do just enough to do their “25” so taxpayers can enjoy the privilege of supporting them for the rest of their lives.

And that is why you see Hill staffers who put in ten years at modestly-paid jobs and then go to work at lobby shops that pay them enough to drive a Bentley and live in one of those horrifying weird $3 million suburban piles in Arlington.

The nonprofit sector (representing many ideologies and causes) also thrives where principles are sanctimoniously packaged; principals are lavishly compensated while they suck up to those in the immediate area who enjoy annual tax write offs. Their overheads are many times more than those in private sector, and they really don’t have to achieve their promoted missions. The media is hardly any better as so many employees never leave their office spaces to collect news, but simply search online for interesting stories they can repackage (aggregate) and make their own.

Whenever the gloom-and-doom of a government shutdown reaches public awareness, it’s been shown many Americans are fairly indifferent because they’re rarely inconvenienced. But it the D.C. area, it’s time to panic. The media throws government employee sob stories in our faces. We’re to feel sorry for those who’ll suddenly find themselves out of work while most everyone knows as soon as the shutdown ends, these employees will be back to work and receive compensation for the forced time off.

But the most ironic is how the media mismanages optics by presenting federal employees, most of whom one would think is primarily worried about how to pay rent or a mortgage, daycare costs, make car payments, etc.

One in five new vehicles sold in those states is from a luxury marque (about a third higher than the national average) with BMW leading the way, because D.C. is exactly that douchey, and Mercedes-Benz in second place. Aston-Martin is unusually popular in Virginia; Bentley sells unusually well in Maryland.

It turns out most important to these employees is food, which bad optics is manifest when you see the obese whining on broadcast news, alerts are issued by local supermarkets and restaurants that a federal government identification card entitles them to free meals, goodie bags and breaks on bills because we should all sympathize with them; a concept not bestowed on Americans when politically-bollixed bad times hit the rest of the nation.

Restaurants are offering free food for workers who present their government IDs, historic sites are offering passes to federal workers, major banks are rolling out special assistance programs, and some centers are even offering free knitting classes for government employees.
— The Hill, 1/3/19

So, pay attention whenever census numbers again reveal the have-and-have-nots are not just a rich vs. the poor political narrative. It’s also a reminder that there are hundreds of thousands of people in one relatively small region of the United States that are living a comfortable life and despite what they’re not doing or doing TO us, expect us to maintain them.